Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was rightfully taken to task just a few short posts ago conerning his post about the Poet Laureate’s narrowing of the field of prospective candidates to someone vs. Daffy Duck. Your Maximum Leader was inspired (if that is the right term) to write that post after reading this post on the Poet Laureate’s site. That post, in its original form (sans updates) led your Maximum Leader to conclude that the Poet Laureate had decided to drop Bush on the grounds of his favouring the Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage. That led your Maximum Leader to start contemplating the single issue voter… While your Maximum Leader is perfectly aware that the Poet Laureate would not be a single issue voter (were he a voter), the post just struck me as the type of thing a single issue voter might say. So yes, it did appear as though your Maximum Leader completely ignored many posts to the contrary and just focused on the one for which he wanted to make a point. But such, my dear Poet Laureate is the name of the political game. Anything that can be taken out of context will.

Moving on…

Your Maximum Leader can understand why the Poet Laureate likes Edwards. He is, more or less, a hawk. In so much as he wasn’t ashamed to say he was for the war in Iraq. But what will he do now. He says he wants to involve NATO as peacekeepers. This would be the same NATO that boasts such staunch allies as France, Belgium, and Germany? Those same NATO allies who rushed to join us an the onset of the campaign? While asking for NATO help is only slightly more sensible than asking the UN for help, your Maximum Leader will not hold his breath until the crack Belgian Commando Waffle Brigade arrives in Baghdad. Edwards has been critical of the post war handling of Iraq. But no one had a good plan. It is all well and good to say, “I’d have had a plan.” when you don’t have to produce a hypothetical plan. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that any plan is better than the one we are working on (perhaps inprovising?) now.

Edwards is also tilting towards the Hominid’s preference on social issues. On the gay marriage issue that the Hominid cites on his blog, Edwards sounds federalist. But the position he is advocating is the most improbable of all of the positions to hold. Your Maximum Leader has read all the arguments one way or the other concerning how the “Full Faith and Credit” clause of the Constitution really will not apply to gay marriage. Your Maximum Leader thinks many of those arguments are hogwash. The “FFC” clause must apply, and will apply. If you are for gay marriage, the best thing to happen was the Massachusetts decision. If you are against it, the only way to stop it is to amend the Constitution. Because the judges will not enforce the Defence of Marriage Act when push comes to shove.

And on the fiscal probity issue, there is no evidence that John Edwards is a fiscal conservative. (Of course there is no evidence that Bush is either - so that is a push.) And it is speculation on my part, but your Maximum Leader doesn’t believe that Edwards has the balls to go to the mat with the North Koreans. In the end he is a medical malpractice lawyer, and is willing to make a deal. The North Koreans are great at making deals. But! Does any of this matter? Not really, because Edwards will not be the nominee of his party.

Your Maximum Leader would like to ask the Poet Laureate for whom would he vote if it was a Kerry v. Bush election? (Which it is very likely to be.) On the issues that the Hominid lists, one would appear to get a split decision. Bush over Kery on Defence. A push on managing the economy. And Kerry over Bush on social issues. Does that make the Hominid likely to cast his (hypothetical) vote for Bush or Kerry? Perhaps it does come down to one issue. Gay marriage? Korea policy? Or does the plot thicken? Does the Hominid cast his vote for Nader? For Daffy Duck? For Opus the Penguin? (Or does he do the sensible thing and write in his Maximum Leader?)

But more on single issue voting…

The Minister of Agriculture and the Big Hominid, perhaps inadvertently, shows plausible ways in which a person might become a single issue voter. (At least in one election.) While the Minister of Agriculture may feel that the Democratic candidate’s beliefs and articulated social policy may closely coincide with his own; the Republican candidate’s beliefs and articulated positions on national security issues also coincide with his own. How do you choose? It might all come down to an intellectual crap-shoot with social policies on the one hand and national security policies on the other. The Minister of Agriculture may decide that it is better to accept social policies with which he does not agree rather in order to support national security policies with which he does agree. Or vice versa.

The M of A also points out (perhaps inadvertenly again) what is the potentially the biggest problem in the upcoming election. There may not be many areas in which the two candidates contrast sharply enough to allow voters to feel they can make an easy choice. Bush and Kerry don’t match particularly well against each other. This is perhaps why they are both trading shots about Vietnam - it is the easiest contrast to make.

And finally, your Maximum Leader must agree with the Poet Laureate; that from a Humean perspective, just because the Big Hominid hasn’t voted in past elections there is no causal relationship to be drawn about his voting in this upcoming election. But your Maximum Leader will bet the Poet Laureate - on his honour - that in fact the Big Hominid will not vote in the upcoming election. Your Maximum Leader is willing to wager some good ole American Greenbacks that the Hominid can use to purchase calligraphy supplies. And if the Hominid should loose the bet, your Maximum Leader will accept a pithy mildly pornographic phrase done in Chinese characters on some object from the Hominid…

And please rest assured that in the Mike World Order Jaime Pressly would be sent to the Minister of Agriculture for reeducation so fast we might have to recalibrate the speed of light.

Carry on.