So the preacher sold an apple pie for $60. Couldn't have been too tough, though; the bidders were the RICO Republican faithful gathered for a barbeque at Indian Bluff tonight. The Rev. Scott Culley, the GOP's County Board district 8 candidate, even worked Mom into the pie pitch. He said she'd helped him make a practice pie, before he made the actual auction pie. To cinch the deal, he declared the pie to the calorie-free. He instantly said he was repenting for that statement but it didn't deter the bidders, who in running the price up to $60 made his pie the biggest money-raiser during the candidate pie auction.

I thought about the calory-free apple pie later, when congressional candidate Andrea Zinga was talking about lowering taxes and the evil "death tax" and being in favor of "more deductions, not more taxes." She didn't say anything about the ballooning federal deficit, which used to be a matter of great concern to Republicans, back in the pre-George W. Bush days when they were the party of fiscal responsibility.