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The Presidentiary Electificationby George Ziemann We're finally coming into the home stretch of the longest political campaign in history, which seems to have started sometime in 2005. Now that the candidate selection process seems to be almost officially resolved, might as well watch the end of the game, which is already brimming with entertainment value. November 4 -- Obama Wins!Well, this is an awesome development. I was hopeful but cynical because, to quote Rosanne Rosannadanna, "It's always somethin'." After all, we elected Bush the second time. It's been 20 years of Bush and Clinton, longer if you count Bush Sr.'s vice presidency. We elected a young, black, intelligent statesman. We elected a black dude! He kicked ass. And he's already got Snoopy's Joe Cool thing going on, even without the shades. I remember the riots of the 60s, and the unrest around the country as blacks struggled for the right to vote, especially in the southern states. I watched Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech. I'm thinking that all my darker-skinned friends feel a greater sense today that, yes, everyone's vote counts, not just the white guys. Maybe they believed in it, but for the first time in their life, they may actually believe it. Race is no longer a barrier to leading our country. Tears were running down Jesse Jackson's face. Today, we elected a black guy to be president. It doesn't just happen in the movies. The Bush years made me lose faith in America. What happened this evening reminded me that we're not all lemmings after all. America did something that makes sense. Apparently, turnout was phenomenal. Young people and new voters got involved. People cared deeply about the election this year, to an extent I don't believe I've seen before, and it didn't go to the neocons again. Sarah Palin cannot become president. Maybe the war can end. Maybe we can go back to being the good guys. November 1 -- Final ThoughtsAs we come down to the wire, a few observations: Religion -- The religious right is pushing for McCain, insisting that this is a one-issue election and the issue is the right to life. Apparently they haven't thought this whole thing through. Somehow, sending kids out by the boatload to Iraq and Afghanistan while publicly urging that we bomb Iran has failed to conflict with the whole concept of "right to life," which seems to only apply to the unborn and people on death row. If you're 22 and on the way to Iraq, not so much. They're also still pretty concerned that Tinky-Winky is still, in fact, gay and is trying to get Po covered under his insurance plan. The churches are apparently prepared to sacrifice their tax-exempt status to deliver political sermons tomorrow, apparently operating under the bizarre assumption that the First Amendment -- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances -- has anything to do with whether or not you pay taxes. Being tax-exempt is not a right of the church, it is a special consideration granted for leaving politics out of it. Media -- At the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer is the definitive voice of the Republicans, supporting McCain to the end of reason and into the realm of phony panic, a land where liberals take away civil rights. Somehow, Chuckles forgets about what great strides the conservatives have taken to establish torture, invade countries unprovoked, spy on its citizens and military, ignore science, put the economy in a bottomless pit, ignore New Orleans, ignore the Bill of Rights and the rest of Constitution when either are inconvenient. Forget all that. Conservative talk radio may be threatened -- by equal time for opposing viewpoints. The liberals are going to support Freedom of Speech and ruin America!! The only thing that scares me about an Obama victory is the potential of a Republican military coup before Inauguration. A few more bombing missions in Pakistan, a few more more pages ripped out of the Constitution and martial law will be necessary, requiring the War President to maintain his office. In the name of Homeland Security, of course, It could happen. The Rumor Mill -- Once again, the top winner is religion. The combination of Rev. Wright and his church, which is a derivative of Puritanism does not sway people from calling Obama a Muslim, although the Puritan history of witch-burning seems much scarier to me. Obama was forced to distance himself from the local church his family had gone to for years. It probably did not alter his belief system, just drove him out of the church. In contrast 2000, the religious right and Karl Rove destroyed McCain, illustrating how morally inferior he was to Dubya, very similar to the current approach to disparaging Obama, in that a lot of it was fabricated. McCain probably didn't change his belief system, either. He has, however, sacrificed a great deal of integrity to secure political allegiances. The church, in general, rarely approves of a maverick. The extremists punish them. Second on the list is citizenship. Obama was born in Hawaii; McCain was born in Panama. Hawaii is a state; Panama is not. Yet, McCain's citizenship is not the one being questioned. As for the rest of them... See Snopes. Experience -- Once an important consideration, Sarah Palin has managed to remove this issue from the table. A couple of days ago, the media was saying Palin had "gone rogue," because she was beginning to contradict McCain with increasing frequency. This started to even scare the Republicans, but not enough to replace her with someone who had a clue. This may have forced Biden to come out and say something inane, but he's got so much experience... From another perspective, that of a long history of helping people computerize their business, or migrate to a more efficient solution, experience is a good thing until it becomes "That's not the way we've always done it," especially if "the way we've always done it" wasn't working so damn good in the first place. Race -- Whatever the outcome, it is reported that Black Americans have a decidedly heightened awareness of the fact that their votes do indeed count and that it is a right, not a privilege. Considering that this was not always true during my lifetime, this is a good thing, even if it is a vast generalization. So now we wait and see. The polls say it's pretty close, but they don't include anyone who uses a cell phone. It probably doesn't include anyone with callerID who can tell that it's political crap and refuses to answer, either. So it may be slightly skewed. But so am I. October 11 -- In the last nine days, the campaign has taken a nasty turn. It's getting ugly now, so I stopped paying attention. The only potential bright spot left is Oct. 25, when Palin is supposedly going to be on Saturday Night Live, opening up the opportunity for live ridicule that she's not smart enough to notice, even while it's going on. Plus, we have early voting in Arizona and my ballot has been cast. Game over. October 2 -- This evening, I watched a portion of what was advertised as a debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. If I were to judge a winner using the standards we were held to in high school, Biden wins solely on the basis of answering the actual question the moderator asked. With the exception of about three questions, Palin chose to answer an unrelated question she was receiving from another dimension or something. More than once, Palin was criticizing Obama's votes on certain bills (as an indication of his motivation or lack thereof) only to have Biden point out that McCain had taken exactly the same position, voted the same way. Without disputing the validity of Biden's claim, Palin's response was to repeat what she said the first time, again villifying Obama's vote on the issue, even though the audience was now aware that McCain voted the same way. If I were to judge on the basis of the content of their responses, pretending I didn't notice whether it actually applied to the question at hand, Palin loses on the basis of thinking that the vice president has power. The U.S. Constitution devotes exactly one sentence to describe the duty of the vice president,. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. That's it. 23 words. End of job description. Every other mention of the vice president concerns the selection process and transition to Acting President or President. Biden knows this and is also aware that the VP is definitely in the executive branch, which was part of the question. Palin answered first. She did not mention the Constitution, the 23-word job decription, or use the words "executive branch" in her answer. As simple (and easy to find) as it is, Palin still doesn't know what the Vice President's job is. If she did, she could have used it to her advantage to deflate the experience issue. The only thing the VP does is be the tiebreaker for the Senate. You say 'Yea' or 'Nay' based on what you were told to do before you left your office, but only if they have a tie vote. If they never have a tie vote, and the president lives out his term, the vice president has no mandated responsibilities whatsoever. How much experience does that take, exactly? September 25 -- McCain has suspended his campaign, citing the need for him, personally, to go solve the financial crisis. At least that's the official story, but no one seems to believe it. Palin still hasn't been allowed to speak to the press, especially since they grew a spine and started pointing out that McCain's grasp on the truth seems tenuous at best. The burning question of how the polls could possibly still show the race as a tie has been answered. The pollsters can't call people with cell phones. September 17 -- Sarah Palin shows an example of how the McCain administration will be different than the current establishment as her staff ignores subpoenas from the Alaska state legislature concerning Palin's activity while in office as Governor. Palin has "declined to participate" in the investigation. Besides, she's got executive privilege now. See? Nothing like Bush. September 15 -- The entire McCain campaign has entered into reality dispersion mode, or possibly another dimension entirely. The message of the week has been being that it is time to throw out the Washington establishment, while trying to overlook the fact that this would be the Republicans. Miraculously, after being unable to do so for the last 8 years, the media finally remembers that these fantasies are called lies. It's what we impeached Clinton for and it's McCain's campaign strategy. I guess he figured that Bush got away with it for so long that he could do it, too. But even Karl Rove says McCain has gone too far. And then there's Sarah Palin, who makes George W. Bush look like a rocket scientist and possibly the world's most honest person. September 8, 2008 -- I'm gonna have to do this as a blog, so let's start with some basic observations. The job of President of the United States pays a salary of $400,000 a year; when your term is over, you get paid whatever top-level cabinet members are getting, currently a little less than $200,000. If Obama were to be elected at age 47 and serve two terms (8 years), his gross paycheck would be $3.2 million. If he lives to be 100, that'll be another $9 million. If you consider inflation and future raises, he might cash in $20-$25 million over the long haul. McCain's long-term income potential is much less. Both of them are spending more than that every month trying to get the job. While I fully understand why it costs so much to conduct a campaign, as well as the fact that the position is worth far more than its monetary reward, I'm guessing that at least a half-billion dollars will have been spent by the time it's all over. That's an obscene waste of money. After all, the news media attaches itself like a tick to the candidates. How much money do you have to spend on marketing and publicity when Fox, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and a bunch of other TV acronyms have you under 24-hour surveillance for a year and a half? When the campaign began, it seemed to me that the obvious winner of the presidential election would be whichever candidate was not Republican. Something like 80 percent of the country is unhappy with the Bush administration. At that time, it seemed like the Democrats should have been able to win the election no matter who the candidate turned out to be. Hillary started out in the lead, which was okay, except for Bill, who was gumming up the works just by being there. First woman president was looking possible. I still think that this was the primary reason why Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, immediately declared the impeachment of Bush and Cheney to be "off the table" -- It could put Pelosi in the White House and she would become the first female POTUS, thus taking away a lot of the historical significance of a Hillary victory before the race ever got going. Then the race turned into Hillary vs. Obama on the Democrat side and the winner would face John McCain, who obviously had the Republican nomination sewed up. McCain agrees with Bush 90 percent of the time, if his Senate voting record is any indication. He thinks the Iraq war will go on indefinitely, has called for the bombing of Iran (in song, no less), and generally promised a continuation of Bush policies. This brings us to like April or May. The obvious winner of the November election still seems to belong to whichever candidate is not Republican. Not a lot to get interested in or concerned about. I was still not paying attention. Rev. Wright and the Bus of Doom The first time I heard Obama speak for more than 15 seconds was the "I'm Not Throwing Rev. Wright Under the Bus" speech. I thought the issue was blown out of proportion and didn't intend to actually watch it but Obama's oratory skills sucked me right in. After almost 8 years of listening to the Mangler in Chief talk like a buffoon, display an apparent ignorance of all things not Texas, and make up words because he didn't know how to explain himself in a coherent sentence that wasn't already written for him, Obama sounded like the political version of Einstein. Complete sentences. Coherent thoughts. This guy sounded like a statesman, someone looking for answers, promoting change. But the things that impressed me most were:
I thought that Obama had the obvious advantage. He just seemed smarter than everyone else. The Question of Experience The earliest criticism of Obama was his lack of experience, an issue raised by Hillary Clinton, but later taken up with great fervor by the Republicans. This line of questioning seems to come with the condition that the candidates can only be compared to each other. No one is allowed, even today, to point out that Dave Barry would have been a better choice for the country in 2000 than GWB. Sounds like a joke, I know, but think about it. He could not have possibly been worse than Dubya. Dave Barry would not have bombed Baghdad. Gas would not cost $4 a gallon. Political experience was required to accomplish those things. Wisdom and intelligence, not so much. The mere presence of honesty would have required scrapping the whole plan. The Concession The next major event was when Hillary was forced to admit defeat. She fought hard, didn't want to give up, but finally had no choice because Bill refused to stay home. Not only did she withdraw from the race and (eventually) offer support for Obama, but when the convention arrived, she took the extra step of making sure her supporters, many of whom were still angry over her loss, couldn't hijack the convention into a Hillary/Obama battle. She did this by declaring Obama the nominee by affirmation (voice vote) instead of allowing debates and roll call votes. I thought this was a classy move. The Running Mates Going in to the conventions, nothing substantial had really changed. The Hillary/Obama issued had been decided, but there was still no good reason to support the Republicans, who have now lost all memory of Bush and begin pushing the idea that voting for the GOP the third time in a row would be "change" from the Washington D.C. status quo. McCain offered up his "Technology Platform" on the eve of the conventions, outlining his opposition to net neutrality and his support for the RIAA's pirate hunt. For me personally, if I had been anywhere near undecided, this would have been enough to shove me over to Obama's side. Then Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden has experience all right. He helped write the PATRIOT Act, the RAVE Act and the PERFORM Act and a lot of other laws with names designed to disguise their true intentions. Suddenly, McCain's technology platform doesn't look as threatening or as tightly linked to the RIAA. For the first time, I have a valid reason to consider the Republican candidate. The next day, McCain picks Sarah Palin as his vice president selection, in a move that seems designed to pander to as much of the neoconservative, evangelical, core Bush base as possible, and maybe to former Hillary supporters as well. A few days later, the RNC convention gets underway and, following a short pause to remember what Bush let happen to New Orleans, the Republicans lined up to profess their hate for anyone who did not agree with them. To further illustrate why the Republicans are the "value" party, it was time to start lying. Not your standard political lying, but the same sort of Orwellian propagandized distance from reality that took us into Iraq. Transparent lies which are obvious to anyone that bothers to listen. They are not offering change, just more of the lies and disinformation what has characterized the White House for the last 8 years. We just don't need more of that. Personally, I think John McCain's biggest problem is that he's not John McCain anymore. I would have voted for McCain in 2000. That guy is not running this year, and I'm not the only one who sees it. The 2008 John McCain seems to have a few cogs loose in the clocktower. We may not know what Obama is going to do, but McCain doesn't know what McCain is going to do. The Theory of Evolution So why in the world are Obama and McCain virtually tied in the polls? Let's face it, the answer to the above question that that Obama is black. If the polls are accurate, that means about 30% of Americans are racist enough to vote for what they have denounced as unacceptable again if the alternative is electing a black man as president. Is America, as a country, still that ignorant? It's the 21st century. I knew Arizona still had a problem and maybe the Deep South, but fer cryin' out loud, the Civil War was 150 years ago. We don't have time for this shit. The guy has been to Harvard. And sounds like it. His I.Q. is obviously higher than mine. He's a fucking genius compared to McCain. He's based in reality instead of the Republican fantasy of world domination. Obama looks like tomorrow. McCain looks like yesterday. Yesterday was a third magnitude, level 6 clusterfuck, and Cheney is out right now trying to piss off the Russians and push the final score even higher. Voting to continue the empire-building, torture, civil rights violations, constitutional rights ignored or denied, surveillance of the public, and a continued focus on what we're supposed to hate and fear, and making that decision based on solely Obama's skin color, is just incomprehensible to me. It's irrational. The crazy old white guy from the desert is a lot scarier to me than the smart young black guy from Chicago. And the rest of the world is counting on us to bring a halt to the current regime. If we elect another Republican, the world is going to think we really like the direction we're headed. But the polls say we don't like the direction we're going and half of us are voting for McCain anyway. At least that's what they keep telling us. |
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