Apple Picking for President

This Columbus Day was the perfect day for apple picking. So I packed up my kids, an apple crate, and our good old red Radio Flyer wagon, and headed east.

The baby sat in back of the wagon, and the apple crate fit perfectly in the front half. I asked the lady at the weighing station where the best apples are. “What kind are you looking for?” she asked.

“What do you have?”

She answered red and golden delicious – and I said we wanted both. She told me to go down several rows and head deep into the field.

We did that, walking through row after row of empty trees, red and golden apples piled on the ground. Some people were picking through the ones that had dropped. We kept on walking.

Finally, we struck gold – or rather, red. There was not a single golden delicious apple to be seen ready for picking. But there was a nice section of lovely trees simply weighed down with perfect red apples. Within fifteen minutes we had our crate filled – about fifty pounds’ worth. The baby had her first real apple and just loved it. We had to stop her when she got to the core.

We found a shortcut to head back home; next time I will know how to avoid the fruit-picking traffic.

I was absolutely exhausted tonight and took an hour to watch Dr. Dobson speak on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes.

Apparently the Republican party is having trouble finding a good conservative, pro-life candidate. I find it appalling that they would settle for less than we deserve. But even worse is that we would accept that. Many would choose the “better of the worse” candidates, afraid that to vote for a third-party candidate is to lose the election for one’s party.

Hypothetically, say the Republicans fail to find a good candidate, and a large part of the Rebublican constituency votes for a third-candidate on principle, and Hillary Clinton wins. Is Hillary Clinton the worst thing that could possibly happen to America?

Dobson had a wonderful point. Should Hillary Clinton be elected (God forbid), there will be a mobilization of the conservative movement. Should the likes of Rudy Giuliani be elected, the pro-life movement will be dead.

Didn’t something similar happen during the Bill Clinton Presidency? Rush Limbaugh reached the height of popularity and conservative talk radio made the mainstream media take pause.

Let us not pick up the rotten apples for lack of nothing better. Let us keep walking and searching for the choice fruits America deserves.

Painting Above by Vitali Komarov
Flowered Meadow in the Garden, Oil on Canvas, 2007