Branson Announces.......Dr. Ben Carson for President!

     I live a short paddle up the river from the "College of the Ozarks", locally known as C of O or Hard Work U.  Here in, Hollister, Mo., a sleepy Ozarks Mountains Hillbilly Town, which sucks up to our  "Country Glam" neighbor, Branson, Mo.  We are a, God Fearing, Right Wing, Ultra Conservative, Christian, Republicans, Pretty Much Happily Stalled in the 19th Century, kind of place.  Yes, we are 99%+ white,  we hate Washington, we are economically sustained by Federal Entitlements, we don't mind that 95% of our citizens live below the poverty line,  we are pissed that "creationism" isn't "officially" taught in our schools, we are rigidly managed by a "5% gentry class",  and we in most all ways we fit the profile of a "Sara Palin Town". 

     Since, literally the 19th Century, our pinnacle "higher education standard" has been our own homegrown C of O.  Hard Work U, is a modest institution, largely sustained by contributions from the most successful of the 5%.  They attract budding Next-Gen Elites from both Dixie and North Dixie.  The younger students are courteous and well mannered products of traditional Americana Values; the older students, somewhat less so. The kids get a cheap education, so long as they get up every morning and milk a cow or make a little jelly.  There parent benefactors get a shot at keeping their "family position" intact for one more generation...plus they often get to hang-out with an unending procession of high profile conservatives who trek to the Ozarks for biscuits and gravy and "mingling with the common folk" publicity.      Now most of these guest, Bush, Schwartzcoff, OReilly, play easily to the narrow range audience.  They are welcomed as a shining stars having risen from the 5%.........but this weeks guest, well that's another story!

     Yes, an early ground-swell endorsement for a Black M.D. Neurosurgeon/Politician from the Hood.  Who knows what this overtly positive reception means.  Perhaps O has been President so long that the Ozarks thinks only a black can be President, or maybe they are enamored by Carson's distance from the prevailing black politic, or who knows, maybe they've been so ObamaCare poisioned that they are just looking for a Policy Doctor to get Medicare out of the red, and into the.......

      I was encouraged to see this enthusiasm for a talented outsider, but knowing the Ozark Gentry, when they actually "VOTE", they usually choose somebody like Billy Long.