Mainstream Voters, not far left, Responsible for Obama's Success
“You damn socialists are taking over!”
My evangelical neighbor is sputtering at me once again. He is upset that I plastered his front door with anti-amendment 48 stickers. But, if he hadn’t plastered my door previously with pro-amendment 48 stickers then he wouldn’t be spending the afternoon scraping his door clean. He should be comfortable with this little game of tit for tat, after all he is voting for McCain.
“You damn godless atheist liberal socialists.”
He appreciates the value of redundancy.
“We aren’t taking over.”
Jerry isn’t buying my assurances. It seems that every conservative I know is a member of the radical right and to a man every one of them is feeling desperate. Times are changing and the immoral sodomites and baby killers are at the gates ready to invade the citadel.
Jerry sees a pending Obama victory as a sign that the apocalypse must be closing in. The anti-Christ is about to take the oath of office.
“There is still three weeks left,” I say to him.
“So,” he grumbles as he gouges his door with the spackle knife I lent him out of the goodness of my heart.
“So! The election isn’t over. Ronald Regan was way behind in the mid-October polls when he ran against Jimmy Carter. We all know how that turned out.”
My neighbor mutters under his breath.
“Did you just ask your god to damn me?” I ask him.
No response.
That figures! Catch a Christian not being Christian and they avoid the subject. Jerry is still mad at me for my glib refusal of his invitation last Sunday. I turned down his generous offer to spend the whole day at church with him as I am not interested in a religion about Jesus. I am more interested in the religion of Jesus and frankly the evangelical movement is unable to make the distinction.
We agree to disagree. Well, I agree to disagree. My neighbor has threatened to sic his pastor on me. I have been thinking of embracing Islam. My neighbor just rolls his eye and grunts. Sweat is dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes.
It is interesting to me how quickly many people are giving up. There is a lot at stake and everyone seems to be taking an Obama victory for granted. Obama warned us not to get too cocky. We need to avoid becoming complacent in the final stretch. Granted his numbers are really good. Traditionally speaking defeating him will require a Herculean feat of strength. But, stranger things have happened.
What surprises me and, frankly makes me happy, is that many Republicans seem to be giving up. There seems to be an attitude of desperation. They are frustrated and even a little non-plussed that so many of us seem to be Obama people. My God! There are even those among us who traditionally vote Republican. What the hell is happening?
McCain is on the defensive in many of the so-called must win red states - those states that typically vote Republican. What the hell is happening, indeed!
Despite what my neighbor thinks. The bulk of Obama’s supporters are not far left liberals. There just aren’t enough of us to pull something like this off. Progressives are loud. We are in your face. But, we are a minority! Obama’s momentum is a wave of mainstream Americana. They are the white collar workers who defected to the Republican Party during the Reagan years. They are blue collar laborers, teachers, doctors, nurses, and many just plan average folks whose fortunes have shifted for the worse during the past eight years.
America enjoyed a bubble of prosperity during the Clinton years. The bubble eventually popped and the Bush administration spent the past years fumbling around with a horrible lack of priority. If half as much energy and resources were spent on economic and domestic issues as we did in Iraq would the United States be in the mess we are today? That’s the question that a lot of people are asking.
McCain is a hot head. Sure he can cool his jets - eventually - and calmer voices prevail, but he is too much like George W. Bush even though he adamantly insists that he isn’t. W would join him in this disagreement. The two men have never been fond of each other. Odd given how often McCain has supported the Bush administration.
The truth is I liked McCain at first! If Hilary had become the Democratic candidate I may have had to give McCain a second look. I have never bought the Maverick moniker McCain likes to tote. But, I have always seen him as a centrist who had no love of the religious right. He once called Jerry Falwell an “agent of intolerance.” But, now he is capitulating to them in order to get their support. His selection of Sarah Palin was - in part - an attempt to unify the less than enthusiastic Republican Party over his candidacy.
The other area of concern is diplomacy. The Bush administration has been a diplomatic nightmare and the world has suffered because of it. You may recall that during the Bush-Kerry debates in the 2004 election cycle Bush kept stating he didn’t care what was popular in the hall of Europe. Reading between the lines Bush told the world he didn’t give a rat’s hairy ass about anyone’s opinion on Iraq, the War on Terror and other crucial global issues. McCain seems poised to continue this same disastrous foreign policy.
Obama is not easily ruffled. He has a calm and confident demeanor. He seems even boring and professorial at times as one Republican pundit suggested earlier this week. This is part of what attracts people to him. He seems presidential. He seems dignified. He is well spoken and can talk without “distortificating” the language like Bush does. Obama is an antidote to the venomous neo-con ideologies that have bankrupted this country and sent
Do I personally believe that Obama is the perfect candidate for the job? No! There are areas of concern and I have addressed these before. However, he is the best candidate for the job. We need to take our country in an entirely different direction. If we continue on the course we are on it will spell disaster. McCain will only entrench the mistakes of the previous eight years further.