Blue State Blue Nose

From Seattle, we have a candidate for recruitment by the Moral Majority:

So what would Kerry have inherited, had he won the election, apart from that little problem over in Iraq? He would have been in charge of a country that spends more on pornography than on all professional sports combined. He would oversee a population that is two-thirds overweight, burdened with huge amounts of consumer debt and more and more depressed, perhaps because of the underlying American philosophy of spending money we don't have on things we don't need trying to impress people we don't know.

Of course, now, if you are ugly enough or fat enough, you can get not only on prime-time television and win big money, you can get someone else to "fix" your problem for free. Which seems only to reinforce the very ideals that cause the overweight and depressed state of America: beauty, money and status are the only worthwhile goals.

Here is strategy that Kerry and his not-quite-legion of followers could have tried: eliminate tobacco and alcohol.

I know, I know, the tax revenue shortfall would be large. But the money saved by eliminating about half the health problems in the America could translate into billions of dollars taxpayers could spend on something else: like education and roads and police and parks. And then we could move on to gambling and pornography.

Somehow, we doubt that that would rally the base.