by Paul Goldman

By 5 PM this afternoon, anyone interested in being on the GOP presidential primary ballot next year has to file the required number of signatures. Given the need for a minimum of 10,000 signatures, spread around the state, it looks like I am going to come up a little short in a couple of areas. Darn, I was looking to taking Newt on in one of those Lincoln/Douglas debates.

One of the little known trivia facts in politics is that Richard Nixon – that’s right, the uber GOP dude, only Republican ever elected 4 times to national office – actually once ran as the Democratic nominee to Congress!

In California at the time, you could run in both party primaries. Democrats for Nixon, quite a group. Actually, to be fair, he won the DEM nomination for Congress that year in a write-in.

So it got me thinking about the value of signatures and how they could save Virginia.

Right now, former Speaker Newt Gingrich is struggling, as he admits, to meet the filing requirement to get on the GOP primary ballot.

So I asked myself: Instead of making him and the others get all those unknown signatures, we should instead require the Newtster and posse to provide the state with 10,000 official signatures, which we in turn could sell on Ebay to help fund transportation.

Think about it: We get 10,000 signatures from all the candidates, including the President, who has to qualify for the DEM primary ballot. Unless a third party wins, we then have 10,000 signatures of the President no matter who wins.

I think you can get $100,000 for a Martin Van Buren signature or that Fillmore guy, he was President right?

So it’s possible that 150 years from now, considering inflation and all, the state could have an asset worth $10 billion for transportation!

We could borrow against it right now.

Then there is this possibility: What if the next President is considered one of the greats, up there with Abe and George and whatever?

10,000 signatures might fetch….$100 billion, I mean, the Chinese will have to do something with all the loot they are collecting.

That’s more than the state’s current biannual budget.

WE CAN ELIMINATE ALL TAXES AND FEES. And fund the pension shortfall.

And Terry thinks he knows how to create jobs!

See: Who thought the old analog technology like a simple ball point pen would be the state’s salvation?

Okay, 150 years is a long time to wait. Hate to tell you: But unless some DNA guy gets real lucky real soon, it ain’t gonna matter a whole lot to any of us.

Besides, Jamestown was founded when, 1607? So we have been waiting 400+ plus years, what’s another 150 when you know you got the thing solved?

Come to think of it: Why not make them all provide 20,000 signatures?

That’s $200 billion by my formula if the next President is a favorite of the historians.

Think about it: Instead of booing Lincoln when he came to Richmond 150 years ago, we could have asked him for 10,000 signatures.

Instead, all we got is controversial statue down by the river and a Spielberg movie.

I say: It is time for Governor McDonnell to think ahead for change. What better legacy: No taxes, perfect roads, a full-up Rainy Day Fund.

Come to think of it: Can we get Michael Fox to go back in time and maybe bother President Lincoln for those 10,000 signatures? It would be pain, quilt pen and all.

But he was for “malice toward none and charity for all.” We need that now. “Just sign it Abe” if he wants, that will save time.

This is the third in a series of pieces on imaginative works that have become deeply woven into how Christmas is celebrated in American culture. These pieces connect with Christmas, and they connect with the moral heart of America.  And  moreover, the issues they raise are central to the crisis that we Americans now face in the political realm, and that are at the heart of my campaign for Congress.

REDEEMED BY SACRIFICE: ‘IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE’

There is, perhaps, no single movie that is more beloved for the Christmas season than “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Frank Capra’s great film from 1946.

At the heart of this film is the life of George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, who has had dreams of one kind of life but who has felt compelled, by a sense of duty, to keep choosing a different path altogether. His longing for travel and adventure must continually go frustrated because, at each crucial juncture, his family or his town need for him to stay and serve.

The crisis comes upon a Christmas eve, when despite all his efforts, it appears that the thrift institution he has preserved and built to protect his community against the forces of heartless greed, embodied by the wealthy banker, Mr. Potter, will now fail and be gobbled up by Potter.

Believing that all his sacrifices are now proving to have been for nothing, our hero, George Bailey, falls into despair. In this despair, George contemplates suicide. It is here that the element of the miraculous, so central to the meaning of the season, enters in. It comes in the form of an angel, named Clarence.  Clarence shows George, who has come to believe it would be better had he never been born, just how important a difference he has made.

Two visions:  in contrast to the town we have seen throughout the film, we are shown the town as it would have been had George goodhearted, dutiful, caring George Bailey-never been born. The contrast is stark-even the name of the town is not the same: without George, his beloved Bedford Falls would have been Pottersville.

Pottersville is a mean and dismal place, filled with vice and injury and privation. The rich human lives we have seen are here, in this alternate reality, filled with pain and bitterness.  The lovely Donna Reed, the wonderful wife to George and mother to their children, just to give one (albeit somewhat implausible) example, is a reticent spinster, seemingly filled with fear of the world around her and, likely, of life itself.



George learns that his sacrifices have purchased extraordinary human good for all the people he cares about.

And then in the climactic scene, the willingness to give that George has shown is now reciprocated by virtually everyone in the town. The bread he had cast upon the waters is now returned to him. His little bank is saved. With his spirit renewed, George Bailey is restored to his family and his community.

And the wholeness and decency of Bedford Falls is preserved.

What has this to do with Christmas?

Christmas is about the story of a birth, but the life that birth celebrates culminates in an act of sacrifice. The world is redeemed by a willingness to sacrifice. “He so loved the world…” it is said of the Father.  And although the son had said, “if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26: 29), he willingly undergoes the torment and the death upon the cross, that the world may be redeemed.

George Bailey’s life of sacrifice connects directly with the season.

And what has this to with our present situation? Like George, we have ideas of the life we’d like to live, our equivalents of his dreams of travel and exploration.  But like George, too, we can see that the protection of what we love requires us to set those dreams aside for a time, to sacrifice some of our own wishes to serve the big picture of all those things we care about.

At stake is whether we and our children and our grandchildren will live in an America that is Bedford Falls or one that is Pottersville.

The angel, Clarence, revealed to George the divergence of paths that would have taken place in a past in which his sacrifices had not been made. Our job now is to envision the divergence of paths into a future depending upon whether or not we make the sacrifices within our power to make to see to it that the Potters of our time are not the shapers of our nation’s destiny.

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Andy Schmookler is running for Congress in the 6th Congressional District of Virginia, challenging the incumbent Congressman, Bob Goodlatte.  An award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, Andy moved with his family to Shenandoah County in 1992.  He is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.  

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To learn more about Andy, please go to his website. You may also follow Andy on Facebook and on Twitter.  

Yesterday evening, George Allen held an online townhall meeting via Facebook. At the peak of the event, only 35 people were watching, many of whom were probably Felix Macacawitz’s political staffers, and by the end there a lot fewer. So, it’s fair to say that almost nobody was watching as Allen, who thought the camera was turned off, complained about how “uh, god, torturous” the experience of speaking to voters was. Allen also jokes about “reindeers” and “elves in the servers,” sarcastically says “let’s do this tomorrow!,” comments about the “great spontaneity” (“TAKE THREE!”), and asks “what do you reckon it was for me?” in response to a comment about how “nervewracking” the experience was.

So George, if it’s so painful for you to speak to Virginia voters, if you hate campaigning so much (just like you hated being in the U.S. Senate), why on earth are you running? It’s not like anybody’s forcing you to do this, right? If you want to just drop out now, and go back to full-time shilling (for boatloads of cash) for the dirty energy industry, that’s fine with us. Just a friendly suggestion. 🙂

UPDATE: The Allen campaign’s excuse? “[A]ctually he was frustrated b/c staff couldn’t confirm if technical difficulties w/ FB townhall prevented people from viewing.” Uh huh.