This is not about the candidates, but about my reaction to the election process itself so far. I did not bother (deign) to watch either the Presidential or the Veep debates. However, I’ve read a lot of reactions and I think this one sums up the point of view held by Obama supporters for the opposition:
SHE PRONOUNCES IT “NUKYALAR” TOO!
Yes. That’s about as much substance as you get from that side of the aisle most of the time when referring to the Republican ticket. Pronunciation errors. Conspiracy theories. Name calling. Of course, on our side there’s “Obama-Messiah” jokes. Reuters and AP photographers really helped that particular nickname stick, though.
Now, the election is about issues to the liberals who have that reaction, I realize. They are scared that a Republican might upset the balance of judges in the Supreme Court out of favor of judicial activism, which raises the possibility that abortion (particularly partial birth abortion) stands a chance of being legislated against and not struck down. They think the folks in flyover country need to give up the guns and the religious bigotry against the gays and lesbians and blacks and women.
In the middle, we have the folks that are picking who they vote for based purely on popularity. Which do I like better? Who’s nicer? Who get’s singled out on factcheck.org less? Who is richer? Whose wife dresses nicer? Who is prettier? Those people. They mostly could care less about the issues, just about how “good” the candidate is on a purely subjective level. That’s not much different than usual, but the popularity contest is a little more charged this time since that’s what the Obama ticket rode in on during the primaries. I don’t think it’s working quite as well as it did initially.
(Btw, the popularity contest is why I loath local politics. You pretty much have to be fully involved in local politics to know anything that matters about the candidates. If you expect one side or the other to actually say anything of substance publicly, you’re insane. Most of them just give you this really vague statement about really liking Kansas and having two kids at the high school and a terrier named Butch. Name recognition is more important than anything else. Pfft!)
In the press, we have them doing what they always do: screaming at the top of their lungs, “We’re going to die!” While I would say the likelihood of that is fairly high, that still doesn’t make panicking over it an election issue.
This time around we have “new media” like never before and so what? Most of the blogs out there are also screaming the same things as the “old media”. The ones that aren’t are either screaming at the screaming blogs to stop screaming so much or screaming about how disgusted they are with the screaming blogs. This pretty much sums up American politics since around the time we put George Washington into office, so the “new media” is really just a rehash of the “old media” but at least the screaming isn’t all coming from one side anymore. Unfortunately, the side I’d like to scream rather less and hand out rope more, doesn’t very often.
On my side of aisle, we have the people (like me) trying to figure out if we even like McCain, since we never really liked him before. On the other hand, even if we don’t like a him very much, he’s a lot better than Obama on the issues that count. Placing a gun toting, Bible thumping, anti-abortionist woman with a Down’s Syndrome child, to boot, does quite a bit to help smooth over some of the worries some of us had. The fact that some folks are saying that she is a horror of horrors because she didn’t abort her special needs child has a few of us riled even. Some of us think that abortion is infanticide. We really believe that and even have medical and scientific facts to back it up, if someone cares for the morality of the issue rather than just a woman’s right to choose.
On the other side of my side of the aisle, we have the blue bloods of the party who think McCain is the best thing since sliced bread. Of course, they are stuttering and dumb-founded by the pick of Palin, but they’ll probably shrug that off while sipping martinis at the country club. Some of us can’t stand that wing of the party and lump them together with all the rich white guys over in the democratic party.
Who will win? Who knows? Ask the polls today and most say Obama, some McCain, but then again, the polls have proven to be wrong in the past, often. As Disraeli/Twain said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Given that pollsters try to guess what “likely voter means” and shift the numbers to fit that guess, who knows?
And who cares? The fact is that if you’re putting your life’s hopes and dreams into the man that sits as CEO over the most powerful monopolistic organization in the known universe, “you are a sad, strange little man and you have my pity.” All in all, it doesn’t matter very much and in all likelihood, the winner will make some things a little better and some things a little worse. If now is a time in history where massive change happens (probably for the worse since things are truly excellent today if you compare modern America with any other culture or time in history), it will probably happen regardless of who is in charge, but if not, who would be able to predict it now anyway?
There will be upheaval in your life, there will be serene times, there will be sickness, times where the budget is tight, and times when you have a surplus, and sooner or later, you’ll die. Some time after that, no one will even care because everyone that did will also be dead. I find the reassurance at the end of Ecclesiastes (a book about these very morbid things) a good salve when I am frustrated with the insanity of all this, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”
Cheers.
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