Spotty sniffs the air . . .

. . . and smells roasting political flesh.

Congressman Jim Ramstad is holding a series of town hall meetings this week; tonight's (Wednesday) was at the Edina City Hall. The overflow crowd ranged from hostile all the way to skeptical of the Congressman's remarks. Ramstad was clearly on edge, even in the friendly confines of Edina.

There were a number of topics raised: social security privitization, tax equity, the jobs climate, CAFTA, defense spending, and Ramstad made reference to the war or terra.

Regarding the global war on terra, Jim, apparently you didn't get the memo. It's no longer the global war on terror, or GWOT, it's G-SAVE, the global struggle against violent extremism. God that's catchy. We've spent over $250 billion fighting a war that the administration now says doesn't exist?

Spotty doesn't think it is going to work, though, because the new slogan just doesn't have the boogie man quality of the global war on terra. Ramstad trotted out the war on terra to justify the enormity of the budget deficit and the budget shennigans to account for George's grudge match with Saddam off budget. The crowd didn't buy it and made that pretty clear to Ramstad. There was a guy there from the Edina Peacemakers who chewed out Ramstad pretty good; a couple of cards with some military budget facts were handed out at the meeting. Spotty will put them in another post.

In fact, stay tuned for more about the meeting in the next day or two.