Pickup Bush drove up for auction

A pickup former President George W. Bush used on his ranch will be auctioned to benefit a program dedicated to assisting military families.

The Barrett-Jackson auction house in Scottsdale, Ariz., says the 2009 Ford F-150 King Ranch 4-by-4 SuperCrew will be offered Jan. 19, with all proceeds going to the Fisher House Foundation.

The truck’s right airbag panel is signed by Bush. voted for the popular-vote winner in their states.

The most recent faithless elector was an unidentified one who cast a secret and screwed-up written ballot in Minnesota in 2004 when Democrat John Kerry carried that state.

One elector voted for “John Ewards” for president, an apparent misspelled reference to Kerry running mate John Edwards. (Do-it-yourself joke ingredients: Edwards and faithless.)

In 2000, Washington, D.C., elector Barbara LettSimmons, as a protest of the district’s lack of voting representation in Congress, declined to cast a ballot. Not voting seems to be a curious way of protesting not being able to vote.

In 1988, then-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, got one electoral vote for president when West Virginia elector Margaret Lynch voted for Bentsen, who was Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis’ running mate. Lynch voted for Dukakis, who carried West Virginia, for vice president.

I’m with Lynch. Bentsen would have been a better president than Dukakis.