A Candidate By Any Other Name ...

Barack Obama!

There, did I make you laugh? No?

Last weekend, Sen. Obama tried to scare his supporters of the big, bad, supposedly racist conservatives thusly: "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to do is try to make you scared of me. You know, 'he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name.' You know, 'he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.'"

Huh?

Let's break it down, Barack. Hang on, let me grab my money clip (before you do). Okay, I've got two twenties, a ten and some singles. First, the ones. Nope, he doesn't look like George. No ruffled shirt, no powdered wig, no wooden teeth. Of course, McCain doesn't look anything like that, either. Nor has any candidate since, oh, about the 1700s or so.

Next up, the twenty. Andy Jackson. No powdered wig, but one heck of a head of hair. I'm jealous. So is McCain. And Andy's wearing some kind of funky collar - no ruffles, but I don't see Obama wearing that either. Nor - again - any other candidate for the last 100 years or so.

Last but not least, the ten. No, Obama doesn't look like Alexander Hamilton, eith- heeeyyy, wait just a darn minute here. Hamilton wasn't a president, he was Treasury Secretary! Somebody doesn't know their history. Or their currency. (But then, maybe the U.S. dollar isn't "citizen of the world" Obama's currency. Maybe he prefers euros, like Gisele Bundchen. Smart move.)

Look, Barack. I could care less if you look like the presidents on the bills. For that matter, I could care less what you look like.

Now, about that name. It just doesn't strike me funny, I'm not sure why. Maybe if I try this game: "Barack, Barack, bo-bock, banana-fanna-fo-fock ..." Nope. Just not cracking up here. Maybe I'm just having a down day.

But listen: your name could be Twinkletoes McChowderhead, and I still wouldn't care.

As for your patriotism, I suppose you're referring to the picture of you supposedly not covering your heart when you said the Pledge of Allegiance (I know, it was the National Anthem, and you said you were taught to cover your heart during the Pledge and sing during the Anthem - although your mouth was shut), or your refusal to wear a flag lapel pin.

Again, I don't care. I don't think wearing a flag pin or singing the Anthem makes you a patriot, nor do I think not doing those things makes you less of a patriot. Frankly, I can't say that you're not patriotic (now your wife, your preacher and some of your buds are another matter).

See, Barack, I - like most voters - don't care what your name is, what you look like, or what pins you wear. I care about your stand on the issues, your experience, your ideas, your vision for America. Why don't you want to talk about those things, instead of talking about what Bush and McCain are going to make me think about you?

Don't worry, Barack, I'm my own man. George Bush and John McCain can't possibly make me scared of you.

You've managed that perfectly well on your own.

************

Case in point: your gas rebate idea. Tax the oil companies to pay for a $1,000 gas rebate for every taxpayer. Great. Just one question: did you ever take an econ class? Didn't you say you turned down a job on Wall Street? Good thing - the Street's got enough problems without that kind of bone-headed thinking.

First, if you increase taxes on the oil companies to the tune of $1,000 for each of the 117 million taxpayers in America, that's $117 billion. That's just a tad less than the combined total net income of the five largest oil companies.

Okay, so you're going to take the entire industry's profits. Who will you hurt?

Sure, you'll get those fat-cat CEOs and their cigar-chomping boards. You'll get the big-time investors.

But Chevron and Exxon Mobil are components of the Dow, and all of the big 5 are in the S&P. There are an awful lot of index funds in 401k plans out there, Barack. A lot of small investors, socking a few bucks away for retirement, that would also be affected.

And what do companies do when their costs - like taxes - go up? They pass along the higher costs to their customers. So, your plan would just jack oil prices up to the point where every taxpayer's paying $1,000 more on gas.

Now true, you gave us the check to pay that difference, so we're at least no worse off than we were, right?

Wrong. Back to Econ 101. Higher oil costs drive up the price of virtually everything else, because everything's gotta be shipped to market. Higher oil prices also increase demand for substitute goods like ethanol, which means higher prices for the inputs to ethanol - like corn and soybeans. Things we eat. So food prices go up too. And net-net, we're worse off than before we got the check.

Finally, aren't you planning to raise my income taxes while you're handing me $1,000 of the oil companies' profits? So aren't you really just taxing them directly? And at the end of the day, am I not now a lot worse off than I was before you put your half-baked plan in place?

Tell you what. You mull this over for a while, maybe even ask Paul Volcker about it - Paul can explain it to you, trust me - while I step out for a minute.

Gotta check the air pressure in my tires.