Fair Warning to President Obama

I've been in such a good mood lately, and with good reason. First off, my Phillies are leading three games to one in the World Series, and tonight's game gives them the home field advantage. Anyone who has ever attended a major sporting event in Philadelphia can attest to the zeal of the Philly fans. And that's putting it mildly - Flyers games include an unwritten rules allowing fans to spill beer on anyone wearing the other team's jersey. Eagles fans once booed Santa Claus off the field. And pity the poor sap in the stands tonight cheering for Tampa Bay. I could be mistaken but I believe there is an obscure rule on the books in Philadelphia that allows the people are him to kill him, cook him and eat him. I may be wrong.

Go Phils.

So the election draweth nigh, and every poll out there predicts a McCain defeat. Don't take it too personally, Senator. It's not about you, or your POW status, or even your policies. The simple fact that there is an "R" after your name pretty much dooms you. Americans are a fickle lot, and eight years of one party running the railroad is enough. Let's leave out of it the fact that George W. Bush (R) has set the controls for the heart of the sun. Even with the good that Bill Clinton had achieved after eight years, the American voting public demanded a game of musical chairs. Despite Al Gore's being overwhelmingly better suited for the job, Bush the Son skated into the job largely based on the American voting public's desire for something new and different. No matter how cataclysmically bad that choice was, at least it wasn't boring.

We liberals have had eight years to get good and mad about things. There isn't much going on in government that isn't going to get adjusted, if not reversed outright. Domestic policies, foreign policies, fiscal policies, economic, trade, you name it - there will be a new sheriff in town come January, and we're all champing at the bit to see how he's going to fix things.

Obama will have the benefit of a House and Senate that are controlled by the same party - his. And barring the occasional filibuster, we can reasonably expect the Federal government to function according to Democrat Party standards.

Even still, I already feel sorry for Obama. It's not a reflection of how I view his competence. It's not my pervasive pessimism either. It's simply this: Between eight years of Republicans running the Executive Branch and six years of them running the Legislative branch, we've gotten ourselves into a mess. You know how when you dig the Christmas lights out for decorating and untangling them takes longer than hanging them? I suspect Obama will feel like he's untangling the mother lode of all tangles come January, and I do not envy him.

Even so, he should know that about ten seconds after this throng of change-hungry liberals carry him across the goal and into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that same crowd, in all its fickle glory will begin to pick him apart. Obama will be roundly criticized by both sides. It''s not him - we just do it to our Presidents. They go from savior to goat pretty quickly. When Republicans criticize him for being a liberal, we'll circle the wagons, but we're defending the ideals, not the man. Bill Clinton took a lot of heat from both sides too. It's nothing personal.

So President Obama, if you're reading this, allow me to offer a few suggestions for your first 100 days in office. If you can stick to this list, you'll go a long way towards staving off criticism:

• Give us a deadline for ending the war in Iraq. We want to know the details, and we want you to keep your word. This war, and its inability to limit itself, had a lot to do with getting you elected. We vote for you in hopes of ending it, so let's make it a priority.
• Draft a bill, or ask Congress to draft it, introducing a Constitutional Amendment that the Federal Budget must be balanced.
• Get the ball rolling on national health care. Either draft legislation, or demand it from Congress, to get the damn process started already.
• Figure out a way to address the economic crisis that won't force the government to raise taxes.

Let's start with that. And know, sir, that even though I support you and rally others to do the same, I will be one of your harshest critics if you drop the ball. We've had eight years of idiotic leadership, and we're expecting quite a lot from you. I do not envy you, but I cannot bring myself to pity you either.

Godspeed to you, sir.

McCain Paints himself Into A Corner

With less than a month to go before Election Day, the polls are trending if not heavily, then consistently towards an Obama/Biden victory. Even Fox News, the last great bastion of right-leaning politics punditry, has succumbed to what looks like the inevitable: Obama will win and McCain will lose.

Not to be one to let the grass grow under my feet, I'd like to get the post-mortem started a little early. What went wrong for McCain? There's many factors that spelled defeat leading up to the election. Let's look back on some of the telling signs leading up to now, shall we?

• Certainly McCain was never Mr. Popularity among those on the right wing. Seen as too much of a moderate by fellow Republicans, he dared to cross the aisle to co-author legislation in a time where the Republicans enjoyed such a majority in both houses of Congress that compromise seemed an unnecessary evil.
• McCain was tainted by scandal, forever linked to the Keating Five. For those too young to understand... ah hell, just Google it. I'm long-winded enough as it is.
• McCain never quite clicked with the extreme religious right. To Bush's credit, he knew to play Mr. Born Again when the situation called for it.
• McCain relied too heavily on his status as a P.O.W. bad ass giving him the edge over us sissy liberals. It plays well in most cases, but this is a nation bone weary from an endless war.

The list goes on, but the one that caught my attention most recently was at a campaign event where he spoke with a woman who said she feared Barack Obama because he's an "Arab". The implication was clear - Obama wins, wraps his head in a turban , declares himself the Twelve Imam, and imposes Muslim laws. Any Christian holdouts refusing to convert to Islam get beheaded and the Inaugural Dinner is attended by the President of Iran.

McCain, to his credit, corrected the woman, saying Obama is not an Arab, and that he is a fine and honorable man. The crowd immediately booed. Booed! Watching McCain try to regain control of the crowd was just plain sad. Republicans are now booing their own candidate for refusing to propagate lies.

We're supposed to be electing the candidate based on the issues, or so I thought. But as McCain is falling behind in the polls, we've seen the names William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright trotted out once more, dusted off from their months of irrelevance. Republicans insist that these "associations" matter, because they reveal much about the man himself. I say, be very careful when attempting to besmirch Obama based on his associations. In the effort to get McCain elected, and in the past going back to the early 1980's, McCain has had a rogues' gallery on his speed dial, including Charles Keating and a few evangelists that would have us believe that Hurricane Katrina was God's righteous wrath borne against New Orleans for planning a gay pride parade. Scary stuff, that. To have a man in charge who keeps as spiritual counsel men with such Charlton Heston-esque notions of the Almighty makes you wonder how long it would take before we transitioned into a full-blown theocracy.

William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright - let's just admit it - are red herrings. Nothing in Obama's dealings with either of these men tells us anything about what kind of a job he would do as President. Their names are supposed to make you fearful and suspicious. And in your fear of Obama, you're supposed to vote for the safe candidate. But here's a thought - a safe candidate wouldn't employ fear as a tactic to make himself more attractive than the other guy. The safe candidate wouldn't want America to be afraid of anything, would they? It just seems to me that "safety" and "fear" would be mutually exclusive concepts - is it me?

Why are the Republicans losing so badly?

Because they WANT to.

The mess the Republicans have made being in charge over the last eight years has finally come to fruition. Wall Street is melting down, Banks are collapsing, and all because of the Republican de-regulation. Instead of a free market, instead of capitalism, we have seen rampant greed, golden parachutes for CEO's of failed institutions, jobs sent overseas, inflation on the rise, gas prices have skyrocketed while Bush's oil buddies got obscenely wealthy, and now we have growing unemployment, foreclosures like we've not seen in decades, and we're on the brink of war with Iran and Russia.

You've got to give the Republicans credit for having enough sense to realize the ship is sinking. They know that whoever is in charge when the roof actually does collapse will shoulder the majority of the blame. Republicans, having created this house of cards, can slink away after the election and then when it all comes crashing down say, "see what happens? Democrats in charge and it all goes to hell."

They'll neglect to mention that they're the ones with their market deregulation that got us here. They'll have us forget that when the Republicans ran the White House and Congress, that gas doubled and tripled in price. They'll have us forget they committed hundreds of billions of dollars to an unnecessary war. They'll have us forget how they bankrupted the Treasury and destroyed a budget surplus only to plunge us, and now Wall Street, into the biggest financial meltdown in our lifetimes. They'll shrug off the blame to Clinton, even though he had us going in the opposite direction. They'll pass the buck to Obama and Biden in 2009, abandoning the problem to the next generation.

That's okay though, Republicans. Don't worry about it. We're used to this from you. You did it with Reagan and Bush the Father, and now you've done it with Bush the Son - you screw the country royally, get your fatcat friends even richer, and leave this country like hooker in a ditch.

Come next year, you'll be playing golf in Dubai and laughing over how you fooled the American people into letting you get away with it, and how you got Obama to take the rap. But just like Clinton put our Humpty Dumpty economy back together again after twelve years of GOP omelets, so will Obama and Biden repair the damage this time.

That's why you nominated the least popular Republican you could find, and had her pick a hockey mom from Podunk Alaska as his running mate. You were never serious about winning in the first place. You WANT to lose this election, and bail out just in time. You know you've screwed us, and you know you haven't got the first clue how to fix it. So when Obama wins handily next month, if it fails you can blame him, and if he miraculously rescues us from the brink of the abyss, you can say he benefited from policies Bush the Son set in motion.

You've got all your bases covered.

My Theory on Sarah Palin

I should preface this by saying I'm not as well-versed on her as I should be. I only know what the mainstream media tells me. She has been a governor for two years, which makes her the only one of the four with any executive experience, albeit brief. Before that, she was mayor of a small town in Alaska. All told, her experience in politics goes back to 1992. I think you'd agree that Republicans are in no position at this point to criticize Obama's "lack of experience".

If Republicans win the White House in November, Palin will almost certainly ascend to the presidency. McCain is not long for this earth, and I think it is telling that he chose a woman to be his running mate. My initial reaction was that McCain is trying to gather up the disaffected Hillary supporters to his cause. But in politics, it helps to be able to look beyond the obvious. Certainly, some will flock to vote for any woman in high office, regardless of qualifications, principles or policies. As a liberal, I had to laugh when conservatives crowed about the Palin decision as demonstrating the chauvinism of the Democratic Party. Parenthetically speaking, I have to wonder how many anti-Hillary Republicans will jump ship to Obama rather than vote for a woman.

I can see the strategic value in Republicans nominating in a woman, especially in light of Hillary not getting the Democratic nomination. I wonder though if it won't backfire. Republicans have made much of Obama's lack of experience, and there were many who scoffed at the idea of Hillary being President on general principle (i.e., her gender). Now McCain has forced them to either eat crow in the name of party loyalty or jump ship.

November will see a lot of people on both sides of the fence crossing over - women who supported Hillary for no other reason than her gender will throw their lot in with McCain. Misogynists in the Republican party who are loathe to see a woman in the Oval Office may well send a message on election day by either not voting at all or voting for the all-male ticket. But what's good about this election is that is going to be very telling about the motivations of voters. We'll see if the issues trump all, party loyalties call the shots, or we just wind up voting within our comfort levels and nothing else.

I do think Obama is going to win, though. Of course I do - I'm a Democrat. But I see the Palin question throwing the GOP into an ideological tailspin. Back in 1984, Walter Mondale took Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, and it seemed to symbolize the left's willingness to include women in all its reindeer games at all levels. It cast the GOP as the Archie Bunkers of modern politics, and it also seemed like blowback for the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment some years earlier. But I always secretly wondered if the Ferraro choice was made when Mondale realized that it wouldn't matter who he picked - Reagan fever was running high in America in 1984, especially in the wake of the Los Angeles Olympics. Reagan seemed to embody not just the GOP, but American pride in general. In light of what had to be an obviously hopeless cause, I suspect Mondale chose to attach himself to a running mate that would at least serve notice that the Democrats were going to be the first to crack the glass ceiling.

I have to wonder, in light of the general attitudes towards Bush in this country, if McCain isn't borrowing a page from the Mondale playbook. He knows he's going to lose, not because of anything about him per se, but because the country is going shift left after eight years of Republicans in the White House. And if he's going to go down in flames, he can at least serve notice that Republicans are every bit as progressive on gender issues as Democrats, even if it took them 30 years to catch up. So in the short term, Republicans lose the White House, but this decision to include a woman on the ticket begins to repair the reputation of the GOP as misogynists, a message which will blossom in time for the GOP to woo the feminists back into their camp for 2012.

THEY'RE *ALL* FLIP-FLOPPERS!!

Sorry for the absence, gang. All the summer hoopla has commandeered the majority of my free time. Plus, with the two major parties all but decided on their sacrificial lambs, I mean nominees, there seemed to be precious little to blog about. We know who the players are, we know what the stakes are, and from this point on it's just a matter of comparing campaign rhetoric to voting records, and choosing which candidate is less likely to provoke the Apocalypse.

For my part in this little passion play we call democracy, my loyalties are with Obama. I do like the Bobby Kennedy-esque aura, even if I doubt that even Bobby Kennedy could have lived up to the hype. These are cynical times, my friends, and voting seems less and less about picking the best man for the job than it does about choosing the lesser of two evils.

But in my research, my endless channel surfing of all the news programs (including the erstwhile Fox News), I'm starting to hear more and more the long-expired term "flip-flop". You veterans of the red state/blue state wars will remember this term as the nugget that very well may have cost Kerry the presidency in 2004. Karl Rove, Nazi douche bag extraordinaire orchestrated the notion that Kerry was far more malleable on the issues than Bush. This, to the Red State Kool-Aid crowd, signified that he could not be trusted to keep his word. He would promise one thing and then later glibly abandon his convictions to acquiesce to the prevailing winds of our fickle political landscape. Evidence, no doubt was to be found in Kerry's willingness to go to war in Vietnam, only to come home and speak out against it later on.

The Democrats accuse McCain of flip-flopping, the Republicans accuse Obama. Not since the recent Wimbledon have we seen such endless back and forth. They point to incident after incident where each candidate has changed their position. In the end, what does it all mean? If both major party candidates are both guilty of changing positions, NEITHER party can hold it out there to try and make the other guy look bad.

The sad truth is, they're politicians. They're liars and cheats. I'm reminded of the scene in the Hunt for Red October where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs privately confides to Jack Ryan: "I'm a politician - which means when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open." These guys want to be elected, it's no secret. And that means they're BOTH going to try to appeal to as many people as possible. Abraham Lincoln famously said "you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Wise words, considering he was a Republican. And yet every election we see candidates try to prove Honest Abe wrong. Perhaps it's enough to fool 51% of the people, at least until November 3rd.

When it comes to this question of "flip-flopping", I think we need to research it before judging it. Elected officials change their minds all the time on issues - it's not just the domain of the Democrats, nor is it the domain of republicans. Why do candidates change their views on issues? Is it just to get elected? Possibly, but I suspect this is a pretty simplistic viewpoint. When a candidate says something in a speech, odds are it's been filtered through a number of campaign workers, from the speechwriter to the handlers, so that by the time the candidate says it into a microphone, it's been scanned for any potential blowback. Even if a candidate forgets how he may have voted on some bill years back, his staff is paid to remember for him, and to not let him contradict a previous voting record. That is, unless the situation has changed...

One could argue that in 2000, Bush never had intentions of sending troops into Afghanistan. But then 9/11 happened, and the rules changed. Did Bush flip flop? No. The situation changed, necessitating a change in view. Circumstances can radically alter a candidate's view. Now far be it from me to defend Bush; I think he's a war criminal, and I've made no secret of it. But it bears mentioning, if only to remind our neocon friends that flip-flopping can, and often does, have totally legitimate reasoning behind it.

Remember, Reagan (the poster child for all things conservative) used to be a Democrat. Does that make Reagan the king of all flip-floppers? Watch the howls of righteous indignation come pouring in from the right wing when you ever *suggest* such a thing. Things changed, candidates change along with them.

In the 1980's our government was cozying up to people like Saddam Hussein, because we wanted Iraq to go to war with Iran. We gave them money, weapons, we even sent experts to train their soldiers. There is a famous picture from the late 80's showing Donald Rumsfeld happily shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. Did we flip-flop since then? By Karl Rove's standards, we absolutely flip-flopped. Same Saddam, same Rumsfeld, total reversal in policy. That's how you define a flip-flop, yet no one points it out. At least no one on the Republican side...

Also in the 1980's, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we supported the "freedom fighters" who eventually repelled the Soviets. Among those freedom fighters was a guy named Osama bin Laden. That's right gang, our government gave weapons, money and training to Osama bin Laden in the 1980's because it served our needs at the time. Did we flip-flop since then? The same Republicans that were in charge then are in charge now, and both Saddam and bin Laden quickly got moved over from the "Friends" list to the "Enemies" list. Things changed.

Another one: John Kerry went to war in Vietnam when his powerful daddy could have prevented it with one phone call. Lots of powerful Washington people kept their kids out of harm's way in war time by using their influence. John Kerry went - we felt it was his patriotic duty to fight. Then after seeing what went on firsthand, he came back and publicly spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Was he flip-flopping? Republicans would have us believe he was. But the simple truth is, his viewpoint changed based on his experience.

And so it goes. As the facts change, as situations evolve, we all come to view things differently over time. Something that once seemed like a good idea can quickly look like a bad one. This isn't just true for politicians, it's true for the rest of us as well. In any case, both candidates have changed their stance of more than one issue over time, so this term "flip-flop" has become a meaningless term. If they're all guilty of it, then no one gets to accuse anyone else of it.

Civility in Politics?

The other day at a John McCain rally in Cincinnati, Bill Cunningham served as the warm-up speaker. His job was to get the crowd revved up in anticipation of McCain, and rev them up he did. For those unfamiliar with the story, Bill Cunningham is a conservative radio talk show host. He spent much of his time trashing liberals in general, and on the topic of Barack Obama, insisted on using his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, with the emphasis on the Hussein part. The implication was obvious: Obama shares a name with Saddam Hussein, and therefore it's okay to associate all the negativity we've been conditioned to feel towards the Muslim world with Barack Obama. This "guilty by association" premise has been used by other conservative radio and television pundits in recent weeks, and more frequently as Mr. Obama emerges as the Democratic frontrunner. It is a despicable tactic, exploiting the ignorance and prejudice of the American voter.

What interests me about this particular episode of hatemongering is what happened next: McCain came out and addressed the media, saying that Bill Cunningham's disrespect for Senator Obama did not reflect his own feelings, and that he wanted to treat both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton with the respect they deserve as United States senators. He made it a point to both distance himself from the negative remarks offered by Cunningham, while accepting responsibility for the unfortunate incident.

His willingness to be accountable for the blowback despite his apparent ignorance of it in advance, to me, hearkens back to the days of Harry Truman. On Truman's desk in the Oval Office was a sign that read simply, "The Buck Stops Here". The idea that a President (or a presidential candidate) is ultimately accountable for the actions of his administration is one we have sadly not seen much of since the days of Truman. To be clear, I have no intention of voting for John McCain, but it comforts me to know that if elected, there are signs that he would display integrity and accountability.

But an even larger issue is the genial atmosphere. Politics, especially in an election year, is an ugly business. From the general mudslinging to the underhanded Swift boat tactics of 2004, the notion seems to be "vote for me, because the other guy is a weasel". I've stated previously my aversion to the notion of voting for the lesser of two evils. Call me idealistic, but I think it's nobler to build a platform around the idea that you're the best choice for the job, not that the other guy is a bum. That, to me, is using distraction. I want to vote for a candidate that I believe in, not vote against the candidate I hate more.

I know all politicians are, to some degree, sellouts. I've made peace with that. They pander, the promise, they choreograph the photo-ops to show them kissing the babies. It's the way the political machine works, especially in the era of YouTube and the 24-hour news channel - always smile. Shake hands until your arm goes numb. Talk tough about the issues. Speak in sound bites. Demonstrate that even though it's been years since you had anything less than a six-figure income, you can still feel for and relate to the working poor. Add to all this, the idea that the easiest way to get elected is not by promoting yourself, but by assassinating the character of your rivals.

By conservative radio and talk show estimates, we’re to believe that if elected, Obama will reveal himself to be a closeted radical Muslim. We’re to believe that Obama (and Clinton) can’t wait to get into office if only to declare defeat in the war on terror and expose America's soft underbelly to the hordes of bloodthirsty savages around the world. We’re to believe that if elected, the two Democratic frontrunners will waste no time opening the borders to all manner of criminals. Then the thought occurs: these guys are supposed to be stumping for the other guy. Why are they giving so much air time to the opposition, especially when any intelligent person knows that these media hacks are in the business of skewing the truth. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on why McCain is a better choice? Shouldn’t they be exploring the promises, the policies, and the record of their own candidate, rather than the opposition’s?

Right about then is when I remember one of the great axioms of modern journalism: if it bleeds, it leads. People don’t tune in to the news to hear about what went well, what went smoothly and according to plan. Just ask NASA about that. No, the American public surfs the channels like sharks trolling for the scent of blood in the water. When we catch wind of scandal, of disgrace, of those in high places being brought low, we focus with rapt attention. Just ask Roger Clemens and Britney Spears.

So politics is more interesting when the candidates go for blood, is that it? We watch them circle one another like gladiators. We place our bets and root, root, root for the home team. During the twenty or so debates between Obama and Clinton, the press has lamented the “love fest”, openly wishing the claws would come out. To watch the debates is a lesson in civility. To hear the commentators in the aftermath, commenting on the two trading body blows, I wonder what debate they were watching. To be fair, these two do manage to take the occasional swipe at one another in stump speeches, but when brought together, they always seem to arrive at the same conclusion: we’re not so different, you and I.

Would that this trend continued through November and beyond: to see civility trump nastiness, mutual respect trump character assassination. Hopefully, we have seen the last of the Karl Rove-style of politics, which is to spend more time trying to dig up dirt on the other guy. I would just love to have the candidates simply say: “I respect my opponent, I think they have the country’s best interest at heart, but I believe my plan is a better one, and I’ll tell you why.”

Election 2008: The Plot Thins

And then there were four...

I suppose it was inevitable that Rudy Giuliani would bail out. This guy’s got more baggage than Paris Hilton on safari. For the Republicans to consider taking him seriously would be to throw all of their own Lewinsky-era morality into serious doubt. Simply put, you cannot be the party that supposedly champions “Family Values” and nominate a guy who’s on his third marriage. Incidentally, we may want to keep this logic Tupperware-fresh, just in case Newt Gingrich ever decides to count on our collective amnesia and make a run for the White House.

The one I’m sorry to see go is Edwards. Call me naïve, but I was really buying into his man-of-the-people pitch. It didn't hurt that there were no small reminders of JFK there, what with the youthful enthusiasm and all. I suppose his surrender marks the official end of hope that we can usurp the Status Quo, even if we manage to elect a woman or a black man to the Presidency. I think that Edwards would still do well to serve, perhaps as Attorney General? I can just see Big Oil and Big Insurance reaching for their collective antacids at the mere thought.

Which leaves Clinton, Obama, Romney, and McCain. The four horsemen (gender notwithstanding) of the Electoral Apocalypse are upon us, ladies and gentlemen, and until we have certainty which two of the four will go head-to-head, it behooves us to examine the merits of each choice.

Let’s start with the Republicans.

McCain is fun, if for no other reason than because he pisses off the neoconservatives as badly as he does. To see Ann Coulter threaten to vote for Hillary before she’d vote for McCain was just plain surreal. He is portrayed as weak on immigration, which as far as I can tell translates into the notion that he doesn’t hate Mexicans enough. And this comes as no surprise: the man is a Senator from a state that borders Mexico (and New Mexico, for that matter). More than any representative from a non-border state, he has a much more intimate knowledge of the impact of Mexican immigrants. His state, comparatively speaking, is riddled with Mexicans, both here legally and otherwise. And he understands what he needs to understand about Mexicans: that they are not a threat. Too many of the right wing voices would have us thinking that we are at war with Mexico, and they are sending in troops disguised as day laborers to subvert white culture and force our children to speak Spanish. McCain, to his credit, doesn’t fall for the xenophobia these people try to instill. He does believe that our immigration laws need to be enforced, and more importantly that the laws need to be re-examined and amended to work in a 21st Century America. For that, he is charged with being weak on immigration, a charge which sounds suspiciously like a McCarthy-era “communist sympathizer” ploy. On the war issue, we have here a candidate who actually served in the military, even being captured and kept as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. This gives him a unique perspective among most Republicans when it comes to the questions of Guantanamo Bay and the general use of torture in our so-called War on Terror. Again, he is portrayed as soft on the issue, not towing the party line, which seems to be “kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out.” Of the two Republican candidates, he is the one I would be less likely to move to Canada over.

Romney: I must confess, he is the candidate I know the least about. He’s been governor of Massachusetts, a state which led the way on the gay marriage issue. How this didn’t sink his campaign from the get-go, I’ll never know. The mere fact that he is from New England, which is notoriously blue, casts serious aspersions on his prospects to get the nomination. To compensate for this, he comes out as being tough on terrorists, strong on family, friendly to big business, and anti-abortion. True, he is a Mormon, and while this chafes the collective ass of the Christian Conservative movement on the right wing, he is at least some kind of religious. And although it’s not the WASP version, the Bible thumpers will eventually settle with him, as any port in a storm will do. Then there are his looks: he is a good looking guy, but in a slick politician way. Something about him reminds me of every villain from every Steven Seagal movie ever made. The whole thing makes me a bit uneasy.

Which brings us to the Democrats.

I’ll start with Hillary. Part of me is afraid NOT to vote for her, as I’ll no doubt be accused of sexism. For the record, I would love to see a woman in the White House. Those who think a woman can’t be in charge of a country. I have two words for you: Margaret Thatcher. Or we could always reference Irish President Mary McAleese, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Eva Peron, and so on. Also she is a Clinton, which for me is both a reason to vote for her, and a reason to not vote for her. First, let me say that I was a huge fan of Bill Clinton. While I can’t give my blessing to everything he did, I believe he did more good for this country than any president in the last fifty years. He fixed the huge deficit run up by Reagan and Bush the Father, he brought welfare levels down to their lowest levels in over thirty years, he managed to keep us safe, except for that little scrape in 1993 where some nut blew up a van underneath the World Trade Center. (And on that topic, let’s just say that the people responsible for that attack are currently in jail, having been tried and convicted. I’ll bet Bush the Son wishes he could say the same about the people who attacked the World Trade Center on his watch. But I digress.) When Clinton left office we weren’t at war and we had a budget surplus. If Hillary gets elected, I can take comfort in the fact that Bill Clinton, while not President, will have the opportunity to advise the President in ways no one else will. If there was anyone I could choose to hold sway over the President, it would be someone who knows how to do the job right. But if she is elected, that will mean we will have dedicated twenty years of our nations leadership to two families, the Bushes and the Clintons. The thought that comes to mind is “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. My wish is that whoever is in charge is not drunk with power, but the truth is that kind of legacy is almost too much power to give such a small group of people. There’s also the fact that Hillary voted in favor of the war and the Patriot Act. This does not bode well for her.

And finally we come to Barack Obama. If elected he will be the black man (half black, whatever) to be President. As a white guy, I don’t feel the least bit threatened by this. The fact that his middle name is Hussein is a thorn in the side of neocons everywhere. It’s as if they believe that upon taking the oath of office, he’ll immediately wrap himself in a turban and declare himself the Twelfth Imam. Fantasies aside, it cannot help but improve our ability as a nation to reach out the Islamic nations of the world by having a man in charge that actually spent time as a boy in a Muslim schools. Even if the man were a die-hard Muslim, I still feel it would only help us in international relations. The truth is, most Islamic nations feel estranged from the United States. They feel that America just doesn’t get it, and they’ve got a point. We swagger around on the world stage in our best John Wayne mode, declaring ourselves the New Sheriff in Town and insisting that white Christian Capitalism is the manifest destiny of the planet, and labeling those who disagree as trouble. American tourists are not welcome in much of the world, and it’s no wonder. Personally, I would love to visit places in the Muslim world, but as an American I know what I would represent to the locals. Having a man in charge who would make ending the war in Iraq a top priority is exactly the kind of leadership we need to re-establish our reputation.

I believe that in making a choice in this election, we must first establish what our priorities are. What is important to us, nationally and internationally? Which problems need fixing, and who is the best qualified to fix them? What would we like to see different? For me, the top concern is the war; end it already. On that alone, I will be giving my support to Obama. I believe he is the most committed to resolving the war quickly, and since Hillary voted for the war in the first place, I question her dedication to that goal. Add your comment: who would you vote for, and why?