Yes, Another Lame Blog About the Election

Today is the, what I hope to be the beginning to something good. Today we will hopefully be electing Barack Obama as President of the Untied States. I got up at 6 AM and gleefully placed my vote. This is the first time I have gleefully placed a vote for President since 1996 for Clinton.

Against my better judgment I voted for Al Gore in 2000. I had given serious thought to voting for Nader that year but at literally the last minute changed my mind and punched in Gore. I hated Gore’s pick of Lieberman and felt (and still feel) that Gore ran a brutal campaign. I still blame him for the 8 years of George W. Bush.

In 2004 I voted for Kerry but did not do so with much happiness. I would have voted for a trained chimp over Bush. Still, Kerry did not instill me with a lot of excitement. Again, I thought he ran a shit campaign and felt like there were numerous other candidates among the Democrats that would have been better choices to beat Bush in 04. (My personal choice that year was Gen. Wesley Clark but by the time Illinois voted Kerry had pretty much locked up the nomination.)

This time I was more then enthusiastic to place my vote. My guy actually won the nomination. I am not naive enough to believe that Obama has a magic wand that is going to instantly fix everything, but this is a step in the right direction. He has a huge challenge in trying to right the ship after eight years of bungling of Bush and Cheney.

In all seriousness if you need further proof of just how little America thinks of Bush, all you need to know is America is on the verge of electing a one term black senator with a Muslim sounding name. Really, John McCain had no chance. No Republican had much hope after the eight years of fuck ups of our current administration.

Yet, McCain and Obama were neck and neck in July. To me there were three turning points in this election. First was McCain’s pick of Palin. A pundit on CNN said it best last night. That was a great August pick but not such a great pick for November. As we have had over two months to get to know Palin it has become abundantly clear she is shockingly ignorant and well, not that bright. Every time she is off script she makes a bigger idiot of herself. I know a lot of the conservative base has embraced her and that is truly scary.

Second, was the economy taking a major dump. I don’t buy the argument that it automatically helped Obama because he was the non-incumbent party. I truly believe the American public has more faith in Obama handling the economy then McCain. The quote that has come back to haunt McCain throughout the campaign was when he admitted he doesn’t know much about the economy. Economics is not for dumb people. (See Bush, George W.) Obama is a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them. You don’t graduate from Harvard if you are stupid.

Thirdly, was McCain’s negative campaign. Negative campaigning works up to a point. McCain, not able to run on his record resorted to a campaign that was so negative even Karl Rove called him out on it. Obama had his share of negative ad’s as well, but his campaign was not nearly as hateful as McCain’s. You can see the difference in the speeches they gave yesterday. Obama speaking in Virginia talked about hope, change and optimism. McCain talked about Obama. I really think people just got sick of hearing McCain bitch, where as Obama inspired people. In the end I think that made a huge difference.

So, tonight I will be sitting at home in my tidy whities working the remote like it is a play station controller. If you are a political junkie like me, nights like tonight come around every four years and you can be damn sure I am going to be glued to my set. Hopefully tonight, I can celebrate. I take no solace in being right about Bush. Seeing us in Iraq for no reason, an economy in the toilet, more jobs lost or in India, millions of American’s without healthcare, more of our civil rights being trampled on, stem cell research being halted, that is nothing to be happy about. Again, Obama is not going to fix everything overnight but at least now we will have a leader that is a learned man and someone with a conscience.