Conservative Donnybrook

This sounds like some of the commenters around here.

According to Rich Lowry at NRO, it appears that McCain is fishing the idea of a pro-abortion vice president. I’m already holding my nose and supporting McCain. Now he wants to make that harder. It’s a good thing for the GOP that the Dems are nominating Obama. This sounds like Tom Ridge to me.

UPDATE: On the other hand, there is this from Kathryn Jean Lopez. Her read: the Tom Ridge thing is a “headfake” to make us conservatives grateful when McCain picks someone mediocre, but pro-life. On another note, there seems to be a bit of a groundswell of support for Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor. She might be a saavy pick and strongly pro-life…

UPDATING THE UPDATE: It appears that Lowry might have been talking about Joe Lieberman. And, as York points out, the only thing we can say for sure is we don’t know. McCain has said he will announce his veep on August 29, so I suppose we should just all stay tuned to this Bat Channel.

UPDATING THE UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: It looks as though Tom Ridge is definitely not being considered. Neither is any other pro-abortion choice, including Joe Lieberman. And, according to Cameron, Lowry thinks it will be Pawlenty. Although, as we’ve seen from the posts Lowry has posted today, his Pawlenty position might be a tad bit wobbly.

Meanwhile, Obama is going to choose Biden. At least that is settled.

THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS: James Pethokoukis has chimed in with speculation that Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay may be chosen as McCain’s running mate. This seems to be based mainly on the fact that he mentioned her name during the questioning at his Saddleback session.

RATCHETING UP THE RIDICULOUSNESS: Now it appears Bayh will be number two to The One.

False information in registering or voting; penalties

Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

I only mention the above quoted federal statute in passing as I note the following story on the Philadelphia Daily News’ website. Apparently the Obama campaign has announced that it will accede to the traditional quadrennial shakedown of Democratic candidates to “get the vote out” in Philadelphia. The practice of “street money” is evidently somewhat common in urban areas where a candidate gives large sums of money ($400,000 - $500,000 for the Democratic vote in Philadelphia) to motivate local ward chairmen, election workers, clergy, drug dealers and other shakedown artists to secure real live voters who will dutifully cast their votes for whomever the person doling out the cash tells him to.

According to the story, Obama did not pay up during the primary and I suspect, those were really the Pennsylvanians he had in mind when he talked about people who were bitter and clinging to their guns. He said at the time that his campaign would not participate in these sorts of tactics. However, with a tight race in the Keystone State, his campaign has reversed itself and will knuckle under to the professional extortionists in the Philly Democratic Machine.

The very idea of street money is antithetical to the democratic notion (perhaps that explains the statute). While I am person who values tradition, I think this is one that we can easily do without. The payment of money to voters to cast their votes for a particular candidate calls into question an election’s fundamental fairness and integrity. In essence, these are tax cuts (the common Republican carrot) for people who a) don’t pay taxes and/or b) don’t think that far ahead. Unfortunately, the practice endures in places like Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles, and even apparently Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven. Let us HOPE Barack repudiates his campaign’s intentions and “stays” pure, clean, and messianic.

Let’s all take a break from deploring Russia and take a look at the Cake Wrecks blog.

Who knew that cake-decorating mishaps could be so darn amusing?

UPDATE (by Karl): At the risk of posting more of Mr. WAC’s former confections, I tender the following: