Torie's Townhall Meeting

[Torie]

Ask me anything. Of course I might choose not to answer, or obfuscate, deflect and otherwise confuse! By the time we're done, perhaps I will lose even my own vote! 

By the way, I am too old to travel, so this will be a front porch campaign. Hey it worked for Warren Harding, why can't it work for me?

This meeting will be a long one, running until the election, and the pace might be a little slow, because I need a lot of bathroom breaks due to my enlarged prostate.

[Torie]

Yes, that has been pointed out to me, and if changing my sartorial presentation is necessary for me to achieve power, one cannot rule it out. However, I am something between an agnostic and an atheist, so the JCP moniker, well might be construed by some as me trying to hide my wolf candidacy in sheep's clothing, as it were, and well, as Richard Nixon once observed, "that would be wrong." Machiavellian tactics are best effected behind closed doors in any event.

Thanks for the advice however! I appreciate it.

[Torie]

What are your views on abortion, term limits, and capital punishment?

I am glad you asked that question (as he thinks to himself that the questioner is probably an opposition plant). On abortion, it does not appear under the Atlasian Constitution that the federal government has any power to address it. As a policy matter, I would urge my region to cast a jaundiced eye to at least third trimester abortions, and aborting fetuses that have reached viability strikes me as a form of infanticide. As to the first trimester, the fetus looks to me more like just a "Limbaughian" brain waveless blob of tissue.

 If we had term limits here, we might have a lot of empty offices.

As to capital punishment (thinks to self hang the bastards at the airport!), here is the deal. First, except for fraud, our federal government lacks the authority to criminalize anything other than for fraud, and I oppose capital punishment for fraud, so the issue is moot at the federal level. As to my region, I would oppose capital punishment except where both of these things are true: 1) we know to a moral certainty that we have the right killer, ie we have DNA evidence, videos or the like  (eye witness testimony won't cut it), and 2) it is an aggravated circumstance, e.g. multiple killings (the one bite rule), or someone who's a lifer in prison, and kills (the avoid  I have have nothing to lose rule).  There is by the way, some relatively recent research which suggests that the death penalty does have a deterrent effect, even though in practice it is rarely applied, or applied in a glacial manner. I don't know how valid such research is. I am just a dirt bag politician, not a social scientist!

Thank you for your questions.

[Torie]

What is your opinion of your opponent?

As to the one opponent of whom I am aware, who coincidentally has a very similar name to yours (don't ask me how I know your name, that's proprietary), I "worry" that he might be a child prodigy actually, and that is far away from the top of the bell curve.   I mentioned Harding before, you know the "return to normalcy" thing? Just a thought. Am I "normal?"  That would be telling.

Thank you.

[Torie]

why WHY WHY

That is a very philosophical question, almost Cartesian Hobbsian in its complexity implications. But hey, a least one "fruit' of it all is this very townhall meeting. No, I won't address whether or not it is from a poisonous tree. That would be getting too legal, and I leave legal matters to the experts who serve on our distinguished Supreme Court, which on information and belief assume exists. Thank you.

[Torie]

Why did the UMP lose the Eure-et-Loir 1st constituency by-election in February 2008? Why? It torments me, day and night! I haven't slept since then.

and

How do you evaluate your chances in this race?

As to your first question, I think it was because the chateau vote was on holiday at the time. As to the second question, I am about where McCain was last summer, in that place on the other side of the looking glass.

Thanks for asking!

[Torie]

Have I "answered" everyone's questions?  I am still here. Just like Terry Schiavo once was as Tom DeLay once so inimitably but it, "She's [He's] alive!"  Moreover  rumor has it, I am in at least marginally better shape than she was.