The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is coming to my area.  This is a good thing, I’m told, because they’ll bring money to hotels, restaurants, brothels and convenience stores.  Money, in an economy that is supposed to be so bad that the wealthy keep getting wealthier and the poor keep getting poorer, will help keep the poor wealthier and the wealthy hiring.  I’m not much for politics any more, not since I figured out that politics is about man’s solution to man’s problems without ignoring man’s real problem.  However, its nice that they’re coming to the Denver metro area as well because our roadways are designed for slightly less people than currently drive them, and the new crowds of drivers will help keep the price of gas high as gas station owners have figured out that they can pretty much charge as much as they want and we’re a captive audience.  I think that’s a mixed metaphor.

There are some genuinely good reasons to have them in town and one of them is that a reader of this very blog will more than likely come into town to support her husband who will more than likely rule the world before its all said and done, and I’d like to have him in my pocket be in his pocket have the right connections.  The financial impact that is suspected to come with this national convention is roughly $160,000,000.00 in currency influx.  They’re expecting a huge crowd at the Bronco stadium (branded Invesco field) for  B. Obama’s acceptance speech.  Big money, big names, and they bring them in with enough people to populate the town I grew up in.  Which, if it were to be receiving the Democratic Nation Convention, would self implode.  Lets hope that the Dems bring money, but its not debt money, we don’t need that in Denver, Colorado or the US Government

Pardon my American term of soccer those of you who call it football. I blame my parents, they called it that because football was an awkward game with very large men attempting to damage one another while not getting damaged themselves. Its like politics only with more distinguishable words that the common man feels comfortable with. You see, my wife wants to sign up the girls for soccer [read: football/futball]. I want to sign them up, too. Just not for a combined total of $270.00. I’m going to declare that watching them play it is fun (we went to a free day where they could practice with a coach so as to hook us into the program). Its greater fun than watching the politicians for sure.

Our getting out of debt budget simply doesn’t have a $270.00 gap in it. Maybe if we saved up for a few months we’d have enough, but that would be money we’d be taking out of debt deduction instead of money going into the debt reduction process. In short we’d be paying our way out of debt for several months longer (or to put it in my wife’s terms: delaying our cash-only anniversary trip). In my mind its not worth it. I’m more than willing to do it once the debt is gone, but at present putting the debt as a lower priority feels like a violation of all that is mostly good (except for the politicians who are mostly not good).

So we’re going to have to discuss this because while we could eek it out of the zero budget, its not my first choice.  We love our girls, we love to see them get exercise and fun, we love to see them get the opportunity to dominate spheres and cause mild pain and suffering in (non-competitive youth) soccer, but this may just have to wait for one more year to go by.  We think next year we may just have all or most of our debt paid off.  Maybe we can buy a soccer ball and kick it in the backyard.  I know it isn’t the same, but neither is American Soccer and Football.  I blame the politicians.

OK, that’s not so shocking. What is cool though is that there are sites like opensecrets.org that share things like campaign finance information - even if it is from past years. For example you can keep up on folks like Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and of course Mitt Romney, who is apparently quite wealthy on his own. You can check out the whole running crew, too.

As a voter, assuming you are one, this is a great way to look at the financial state of a campaign and make some conclusions about different organizations that donate funds. For example the list of top donors that includes AT&T (thanks for making communication so expensive, but turning that expense into political contributions, guys), the NRA, and various unions. You can also see what political party they favored here.