Yes on 3: Dogs against corporate welfare

An editorial in the New Bedford Standard-Times presents the argument that I believe is central to the discussion of Question 3. Greyhound racing is an industry that is sinking deeper into the corporate welfare system, and this ballot question is a way to end the suffering of dogs and Massachusetts taxpayers.

Two greyhound tracks remain open: Raynham Park, right here in Bristol County, and Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere.

Money gambled at the tracks has declined substantially in recent years, dropping 37 percent in Raynham and 65 percent in Revere between 2002 and 2007. Officials from both tracks have said they will go out of business soon without state intervention, and they are asking for slot machines to shore up their revenue.

The editorial continues:

Raynham Park owner George Carney's own testimony at a legislative hearing last year revealed how tracks would fare without state help: "I'm telling you there's no money left in the racing. If you want to keep us going, you've got to give us the slots," the Boston Globe quoted him saying.

So without slot parlors, the dog tracks would fail. And why bail them out?

If I want to watch greyhound races, I'll sit alongside the Mass Pike.

The ultimate undecided voter

A car parked in the center of Lowell, Massachusetts, is sending mixed messages about the 2008 presidential race. This Camry, parked across the street from Lowell High School, has a McCain bumper sticker AND an Obama bumper sticker.

Wheels coming off the Straight Talk Express

Sitting in beloved Arlington, Massachusetts, it's tough to get a feel for national politics. We are one of the bluest towns in one of the bluest states, so when it feels like everyone is for the Democrat, it comes as a surprise when the results turn out differently.

Four years ago, it seemed as if every other car in town had a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker, and the line at the polls was deep with indignant people who couldn't wait to rid our beautiful nation of the shrub in the White House. Eight years ago, Arlington gave Al Gore a bigger plurality (9,494 votes) than Bush's margin of victory in Florida (537 votes) or New Hampshire (7,211 votes). Think about it. If we could have somehow gerrymandered Arlington into New Hampshire, Gore would have been elected president.

That said, it's hard to ignore evidence of wholesale abandonment of the McCain campaign from the rest of the country. From Jay Severin to William F. Buckley's kid, they're running away from the McCain train wreck.

My first sign of trouble on the McCain horizon came the day Sarah Palin was announced as the GOP VP choice. The one-two punch of Obama's speech and McCain's choice of an unqualified running mate was too much for my Republican parents. Granted, they are the kind of northeastern moderates who were comfortable in a party of Nelson Rockefeller, Lowell Weicker, or Thomas Kean. They are for fiscal responsibility, but against the social conservatives who want to infuse religious beliefs into governance. They were the kind of Republicans who loved the 2000 McCain, and probably voted for him in the 2008 primary. After that conversation, I sent them two Republicans for Obama bumper stickers.

With less than four weeks to the election, the McCain exodus is booming. Christopher Buckley, the son of William F. Buckley Jr., wrote a column this week with the message: Sorry, Dad, but I'm voting for Obama.

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

Then there's former governor William Milliken (R-Michigan), who is clearly displaying backup lights in the Grand Rapids Press.

GRAND RAPIDS -- He endorsed John McCain in the presidential primary, but now former Republican Gov. William Milliken is expressing doubts about his party's nominee.

"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.

"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."

The article continues:

Milliken stopped short of saying he will vote for Obama, but said he differs with McCain on the Iraq war and his choice of Palin.

"I know John McCain is 72. In my book, that's quite young," said Milliken, 86, Michigan's longest-serving governor. But he added, "What if she were to become president of the United States? The idea, to me, is quite disturbing, if not appalling.

"Increasingly, the party is moving toward rigidity, and I don't like that. I think Gerald Ford would hold generally the same view I'm holding on the direction of the Republican Party."

And then again, there's Jay Severin. No, he's not on the Obama bandwagon. Far from it. Jay is just saying McCain is a loser, and it's more fun to vote for Bob Barr. The theme seems to be that Obama is going to win anyway, so the right might as well vote for a real libertarian-conservative as opposed to whatever McCain has become.

Clearly, McCain's actions of late have eroded his core support. For everyone who admired the old McCain, this version is too-Bushy, too inauthentic, too nasty, and not presidential enough to earn a vote. Those are verdicts that are hard to escape, and negatives that are hard to overcome.

Bring back the Pacific Coast League

I grew up in a world in which Satan, Osama Bin Laden, and the entire Axis of Evil were beloved compared to Walter Francis O'Malley, who moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. Suffice it to say, I have a natural born prejudice against Major League Baseball on the west coast.

That bias is reinforced by last night's American League playoff game, in which the Boston Red Sox visited (and beat) the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It was a triumph of good over evil, but our joy came well after midnight. The game started at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Many old-time sports purists lament inter-league play. For some, the sight of Yankees-Mets or White Sox-Cubs outside of a World Series is sacrilege. I don't see how that's bad for baseball. People really love these games, they fuel intense local rivalries, and they never have a 10:00 p.m. starting time.

As a loyal member of Red Sox nation, where the local ballyard has been sold out for years and fans are held hostage to ticket brokers, a road trip is often the cheapest way to see our beloved team. Baltimore, Chicago, and Tampa Bay are favorite destinations for Red Sox Nation road trips, and the home team radio announcers routinely bemoan the predominance of Red Sox cheers in their home ballpark. Inter-league play has added Philadelphia to the list of Red Sox Nation tourist destinations, and I am sure the convention and visitors bureaus of Washington, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati would be appreciative of a similar influx of New Englanders.

It's not that I have anything against westward tourism. Trips to the west coast can be fun, and the half-empty stadium in Oakland is a particular draw for a nice Red Sox vacation. However, the west coast teams love night games, and a Pacific Time 7:05 start is a 10:05 start in New England. This late start presents a troublesome conflict between religious obligations and the sleeping patterns of the Red Sox faithful.

It's time to bring back the Pacific Coast League.
It's very nice that the left coast has baseball, but why should it get in the way of the righteous practice of the national pastime in the cradle of baseball civilization? Why should the westward migration and expansion come at the expense of starting times beyond east coast bedtimes?

If they want to have Major League Baseball in places like California, Washington, and Arizona, why can't they have a league of their own? They could happily start their games at any time of the day or night, and nobody east of Kansas will care. Cutting down on the cross-country road trips will also reduce the carbon footprint of Major League Baseball, as a road trip from Baltimore to Washington or Philadelphia is a quick train ride instead of a jet-fuel sucking shlep to Oakland or Seattle.

If Major League Baseball doesn't want to realign the sport, to rid us of those west coast trips, they should consider a New Rule: Baseball games may not start later than 8:00 p.m. in the visiting team's television market. Is it too much to ask that, when the west coast team hosts a team from the east, the game should be scheduled so the fans of the visiting teams can enjoy the game on television? I think not.

Of course, the selfish westerners won't want to make any sacrifice for the good of the game, or at least the east coast fans. Why should they? We don't play our home games when their fans are sleeping. Unless, of course, we start a new tradition of East Coast Breakfast Baseball. If eastern clubs schedule a bunch of 8:00 a.m. starts when we host Pacific teams, we can beat bleary-eyed and jet-lagged Angels and Mariners with ease before their fans even wake up. A single season of morning games will cause the crisis that prompts a great compromise: we won't hold morning games for western teams if the western teams won't start their games with eastern teams later than 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific.

Cranky and sleep deprived, the best I can do today is to happily await the rapid elimination of the Angels and Dodgers from playoff contention. With any luck, Friday night's late start will be the last we need to endure.