Politics...
I have something to admit. In the months since I decided to vote for Obama (which was in March, before the Texas primary) I have become a complete and total political junkie. I feel like I'm constantly looking at polls and reading CNN for any indicator that will push the election one way or the other. I get emails from the Obama campaign (and I enjoy it! It's not spam at all!) and the subject inevitably comes up when I'm talking with my friends. Even when I took a couple of hours at a bar on Friday, we got into politics because they had CNN on the tv, and we were reading the ticker. Anyway, I was directed by a friend to a cool website, where you can sink hours as a political junkie: It's most prominent feature is the state-by-state map of current polls, so you can see the battleground states swing back and forth, day to day. Plus it links to a lot of good articles.
My biggest issue with the people who insist on supporting John McCain (and Palin, but that's almost a different set of issues...) is that it often seems they willfully suspend reason to support their candidate. In a time when the issues are absolutely critical, how do people sleep at night knowing they're voting for someone without a plan, but who "shares their values?" Besides the fact that for practically every politician, even Obama, the religion card is mostly just a way to avoid alienating people and getting votes (do you really believe that everyone in Washington is a devout Protestant Christian?) and so the fact that the "values" are obviously a ploy, especially, ESPECIALLY by the Republicans who so often grasp at it, just shows that people are willing to be manipulated, even when they realize it's happening! It defies reason. When I think of people like that winning the election for the GOP, I despair of life. Literally, I get so depressed that I can't work, then I have to do something to clear my head. I just don't know if I can take it if McCain wins in November.
My friend John and I always end up talking about "identity politics" and how people vote for someone they like, rather than someone who seems best for doing a job. In so many cases, especially with the Republican platform, people vote *against their best interests* just to support someone they might like to sit and have a drink with. That's exactly what happened with George W. Bush. I have to believe that this time, when we really need help...help for the economy, finishing the war in Iraq, restoring our public face to the international community, diplomacy with Iran (and Russia now, too)...surely we'll elect some one who actually thinks those things need changing! I know that in principal McCain is better than what we have now, but after he's basically sold his soul to support the party line, I don't believe him any more. Even the way he's run his campaign, he's proven that he plans to go right on in the path of the Bush administration by lying to the public, restricting access to Palin, and never admitting that his plan could need adjustment, even in the face of the biggest Wall Street crash since 1929.
I didn't quite mean to get into a rant here, but I suppose that's what happens when you hand an internet soap-box to a political junkie!
My biggest issue with the people who insist on supporting John McCain (and Palin, but that's almost a different set of issues...) is that it often seems they willfully suspend reason to support their candidate. In a time when the issues are absolutely critical, how do people sleep at night knowing they're voting for someone without a plan, but who "shares their values?" Besides the fact that for practically every politician, even Obama, the religion card is mostly just a way to avoid alienating people and getting votes (do you really believe that everyone in Washington is a devout Protestant Christian?) and so the fact that the "values" are obviously a ploy, especially, ESPECIALLY by the Republicans who so often grasp at it, just shows that people are willing to be manipulated, even when they realize it's happening! It defies reason. When I think of people like that winning the election for the GOP, I despair of life. Literally, I get so depressed that I can't work, then I have to do something to clear my head. I just don't know if I can take it if McCain wins in November.
My friend John and I always end up talking about "identity politics" and how people vote for someone they like, rather than someone who seems best for doing a job. In so many cases, especially with the Republican platform, people vote *against their best interests* just to support someone they might like to sit and have a drink with. That's exactly what happened with George W. Bush. I have to believe that this time, when we really need help...help for the economy, finishing the war in Iraq, restoring our public face to the international community, diplomacy with Iran (and Russia now, too)...surely we'll elect some one who actually thinks those things need changing! I know that in principal McCain is better than what we have now, but after he's basically sold his soul to support the party line, I don't believe him any more. Even the way he's run his campaign, he's proven that he plans to go right on in the path of the Bush administration by lying to the public, restricting access to Palin, and never admitting that his plan could need adjustment, even in the face of the biggest Wall Street crash since 1929.
I didn't quite mean to get into a rant here, but I suppose that's what happens when you hand an internet soap-box to a political junkie!