This is inspired in large part by all the recent diaries speculating about Obama's choice for VP, pushing candidates ranging from Joe Biden to Caroline Kennedy. Consider it similar to the Time Magazine issue a couple of year's back that made "You" their Person of the Year (sorry, couldn't figure out how to embed a mirror in a diary). Here's the chance for every Kossack to give his/her pitch for why they would make a good vice president. Starting with my own.

This is a re-do of a diary I posted Friday evening but without photos since I was having trouble with the photo linking process. The diary really needed the photos. So please pardon me if I plagiarize myself a little here. I want to get this one right. Thanks to all the kossacks who helped a technically challenged cohort figure out how to embed photos in a diary.

It was about the first of February this year when my wife, Jennifer, and I both embraced Barack Obama as our presidential candidate. We haven't regretted it since. In fact, our respect and admiration for this man grows every day. With every ridiculous smear and attempt at character assassination that he endures and, in fact, turns around into an advantage, we grow to like him even more. The idea that anyone could take the kind of pummeling he has taken - because of his race, because of his religious background, because of his name, because of you-name-it - and still keep forging ahead with wisdom and humor and grace truly astounds us. Jennifer says he reminds her of Kennedy. I tell her we haven't had something this appealing come down the pike for as long as I can remember.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Decision 1800, a debate between  Democratic-Republican rivals, Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson. Both men are currently locked in a tight race for their party’s nomination and the right to face Federalist Party candidate, President John Adams, in this fall’s general election. I’m Charles Gibberish."

I am a worm. I am less than a worm, I am pond scum, toe jam, belly-button lint. I have no voice or purpose of my own. Others with voice and purpose use me, walk all over me, wipe their feet on me. I am a mere pawn in a game that I am powerless to affect in any way. Powerful forces over which I have no control have rendered me and millions like me irrelevant. We will not be counted. We are utterly meaningless. We don't matter. Why don't we just go away and die.

For those of you suffering, like me, from horse-race fatigue, here's a fun true story from the 1992 presidential race that has never before been told. That was the year, of course, that Bill Clinton was elected; but another big story of '92 was Ross Perot's independent bid for president. I was reminded of this story when Perot resurfaced recently in this rambling Jonathan Alter interview in Newsweek. First, a little more history after the fold.

When I first registered to vote in my transplanted state of Florida back around 1990, I wanted to register as an Independent. I was told that would prevent me from voting in either of the major party's primaries. So, in order to have some voice in choosing at least one party's candidates for public office, I registered as a Democrat. That was the only reason.

I realize Florida Hometown Democracy has been diaried here before, but there a recent developments. Also, a deadline looms which makes revisiting this issue critical. In case you're unfamiliar with it, Hometown Democracy is a grassroots movement to rein in the sort of unbridled development that has been ruining communities all over the state of Florida for decades. It involves a petition to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would require a vote by the citizens to approve changes in communities' comprehensive plans before major new developments could proceed. Time is running out on the petition, and the pro-development forces are trying to sabotage the initiative with a shameless dirty tricks campaign.

This is really pissing me off. I wrote two comments to a blog by Earl Ofari Hutchinson last night that have disappeared along with several other comments. Then another comment this morning mentioning the two scrubbed comments, and that comment has not appeared. Details after the jump.

It occured to me recently that with a lot of newspapers around the country following the big boys in the mainstream media and taking on bloggers as a new feature especially in their online versions, a number of Kossack diarists might be writing for a new audience. As a longtime (14 years) columnist for a small town southern weekly, the High Springs Herald (North Central Florida), I have garnered more than a little experience with regards to writing for people who don’t necessarily agree with a progressive point of view.

Click.

(We join the cable news program already in progress. The unmistakable voice of James Earl Jones tells viewers where they are.)

"This...is CHN."

(Cut to newsroom)

"Welcome back to the studio. I’m Katie Cookiecutter."

"And I’m Brian Blowdryer."

"And this is CHN, the Complete Hysteria Network."

"All hysteria, all the time."

I’ve got a gripe with the antiwar movement, or with whatever organization or group of organizations qualifies as an antiwar movement here in the year 2007, four years into a disastrous war in Iraq with no end in sight.

Here’s the essence of my gripe: I want to march against the war. I want to put my feet where my heart is. I want to make my opposition known to the powers that be.

I want to carry a protest sign and walk with thousands of like minded citizens – people of all races and creeds and walks of life, a wide ranging cross-section of my compatriots.

The following is my first diary as well as my most recent column for the High Springs Herald in North Central Florida. The words to this old carol written by Longfellow got to me when I came across them recently. So I wrote a column around them. Wishing everyone a warm and peaceful Christmas.