Macabre pumpkin-carved likenesses of President Obama and Mitt Romney put to the vote
Orange County Market Place’s 15th annual Trick or Treat festival
COSTA MESA, Calif.—If the votes for macabre pumpkin-carved likenesses of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney at the Orange County Market Place are any indication, the former Massachusetts governor will squeak by the incumbent in next week’s election.
Pumpkins of “Evil Mitt” and “Bone Chilling Obama,” created by Doug Goodreau, stood for an election of their own Sunday at the Orange County Market Place’s 15th annual Trick or Treat festival.
Evil Mitt received 162 votes and Bone Chilling Obama got 145 votes, said Jill Lloyd, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Market Place.
It was the fourth presidential pumpkin election at the Market Place in Costa Mesa, and judging from past history, it’s an accurate prognosticator.
The George W. Bush pumpkin defeated the Al Gore squash in 2000, and Bush triumphed again over the John Kerry pumpkin in 2004. In the last presidential election, the Obama pumpkin got more votes than the John McCain likeness, Lloyd said.
Farmer Mike Valladao of San Jose carved the presidential pumpkin heads in the past three elections. This was Goodreau’s first year, and he has a spookier style than the cartoonish flair of Valladao’s, according to Lloyd, who noted that this year’s election asked Market Place visitors to pick the “scariest” pumpkin.
OK. The third and final presidential debate came and went Monday night. Score: Obama-2, Romney-1.
The president did not trounce the challenger in this last get-together, as he did in debate No. 2, but he scored at least three intellectual knockdowns in this last debate, mainly over foreign policy, and won convincingly, if not by a knockout. The challenger’s strategy seemed to be box, weave and clinch for dear life, as Mr. Romney surprisingly agreed with the president on almost every issue.
Somehow, the body snatchers came last Wednesday and took the fire (as in fired up, ready to go) out of President Barack Obama, leaving a rather listless shell of a man who never truly engaged the audience.
He looked down at his notes, fidgeted, and let his opponent, Mitt Romney, get away with multiple lies.
The media have bombarded the public with numerous theories of why President Barack Obama performed poorly during his first presidential debate with GOP candidate Mitt Romney. The following are some of the reasons that public officials, academics, the political elite, conspiracy theorists, and the media believe may have caused the president’s poor showing:
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — About a half-hour behind schedule, President Barack Obama left Los Angeles today bound for Keene in Kern County for the establishment of the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument.
The president left the Beverly Hilton around 9 a.m., about 30 minutes later than scheduled, and was driven to Cheviot Hills Park, where he boarded the military Marine One helicopter for the short flight to Los Angeles International Airport.
When I was all of 16 years old, I went to get a passport. Why? Richard Nixon had been elected president, and I was sure that he would impose such oppression that I might need to get out of the country.
Never mind that I had not two quarters to rub together and was under such parental supervision that I might not have made it to the corner without being hit upside the head.
I used my own little baby-sitting money to obtain that passport, because I felt that our nation was changing.
