PRESIDENT:
You have heard it ad naseum for almost a year and a half that this election is important. Well, damnit, it is the most important election of our lifetime. We live in a tumultuous time, but our nation is still the greatest on earth. We have the strongest economy, strongest military and most innovative and creative citizens. We are a compassionate and practical people. We have our faults, but I am proud to be an American. Regardless of who wins or loses I will support them as President but on the flipside of that token I also retain my right to either man if I feel they are wrong on an issue. Dissent is a sacred right that we should all be more willing to exercise.
Now getting down to business, we have two very different candidates with very contrasting styles and views on how the country should be governed. When voting for President I consider three leadership qualities- intelligence, temperament and political philosophy. Barack Obama is superior in all three areas from my point of view. He is one of the most intelligent candidates we have ever had for President. Obama not only excels at understanding the issues that face the country but he understands what needs to be done in order to put our country back on track. McCain has failed to lay out his vision in this election and instead chose to make his campaign about being anti Obama.
Also, Obama is an intellectual. He is, in many respects, a post modern thinker. He understands that the world is not divided in terms of black and white or good and evil but that we live in many shades of gray. This realization allows him to consider multiple options as opposed to the simplistic nature of someone like President Bush, who appears to make decisions based on an absolutist philosophy that it is either my way or the highway. Bush prematurely follows one course in his mind and sticks to that decision regardless of whether or not it is working out. I think Obama will reflect on his decisions and if something appears to not be working out as previously planned, he will adjust accordingly.
McCain, on the other hand, is unlike either Bush or Obama. Where Obama is reflective and Bush is simplistic, McCain is a reactionary and extremely erratic. His enemies in the GOP have criticized him for this behavior for years. McCain is unpredictable and his positions do not always coincide intellectually with his other positions. In fact, McCain often makes illogical decisions out of anger. For example, McCain came out against the first Bush tax cuts because he said, and correctly so, that they moved the country’s tax burden from the upper class to the middle class. Sounds right, except McCain has always stated he believed in the fundamentals of trickle-down economics, which these Bush tax cuts were implementing. Basically, McCain was still pissed after his loss to Bush in the 2000 primary so he made a decision not based on what he thought but out of vengeance. McCain now supports Bush economic policies that he supported before he was pissed off and didn’t support. Basically, he was wrong before he was right but now he is wrong again.
In terms of temperament, Obama is far the better choice to lead our great nation. Obama has discipline, focus and is steady under pressure. This has been strikingly clear in the campaign. Whereas the McCain campaign has jumped from one theme to another, Obama has consistently delivered his policy positions and contrasted himself with McCain by showing that McCain will only continue Bush policies. You may not agree with either, but you have to admit it that Obama rarely strayed off message.
McCain first made his campaign about his biography. When he realized that he was becoming Bob Dole of 1996 he changed his theme to that of experience. Then he chose an inexperienced running mate so he had to make his campaign about change (the maverick’s mavericky maverick). Once it was obvious that the change mantle couldn’t be wrestled from Obama, McCain made his campaign about attacking Obama’s character. Once the voters responded negatively to that, he made his campaign about Democratic policies, which he calls socialism. McCain’s lack of discipline was only outpaced by his anger. As I mentioned above, McCain lurches from position to position when he is pissed and he gets pissed a lot. All of this makes for a bad leader and a poorly managed campaign.
Contrasted with McCain’s hot temper has been Obama’s calm demeanor. As nasty as the attacks against him have been in this campaign, Obama has been able to remain focused on the task at hand and had the uncanny ability to emotionally brush off the most egregious of attacks. That does not mean Obama does not respond to attacks, he has been as good as Bill Clinton in terms of counter punching, but he has done so with a grace that makes him appear above the political fray. Obama does not lurch from one position to the other like John McCain- Obama thoughtfully approaches each task and carefully constructs the appropriate response- kind of like you would want a President to do.
Finally, I support Obama because he shares my political philosophies. Obama feels that the middle class is the driving force that makes our country great and wants to make sure middle class Americans pay LESS TAXES, have health care and are protected from foreign threats. Obama also recognizes the importance of making college affordable so that our nation can remain economically and intellectually competitive. In addition, Obama will address our nation’s dependence on outdated modes of energy. Fossil fuels are a way of the past and if our country is going to remain self sufficient then we must invest in renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro and geothermal. Obama realizes that we cannot achieve this over night so his plan also has a contingency to bridge us to this clean and energy efficient future- he will permit environmentally safe domestic drilling, force oil and gas companies to use their millions of acres of federally leased land and common sense exploration of nuclear power options.
PRESIDENTIAL PREDICTION
This has been one hell of a long election but I do not think election night will be long. I predict Obama will blow John McCain out next Tuesday and he will do so early. Obama will get 338 electoral votes with wins in states like Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Mexico and Iowa. We will all know that the results in the West are irrelevant after we get the results from Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida. I think McCain will get 200 electoral votes with close wins in North Carolina, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia to name just a few.
Even if McCain were able to close the gap and win in Ohio, Florida, and Virginia he would still not have 270. If McCain somehow pulled those early upsets, he would still need to come from behind in both Nevada and New Mexico or Colorado and one of those two. If McCain did manage to close the gap in the polls in the last few days he would still be up shits creek because he has been getting trounced by Obama’s far superior ground game in early voting states. McCain also lacks the election day get out the vote grassroots to get lukewarm supporters to the polls. McCain is simply too far behind. I will not go to bed Tuesday night until I know Obama has won this election but I have a feeling that I will be well rested come Wednesday morning.
If you want to play with the electoral map and see for yourself then I recommend you go to Politico’s electoral polling map to get a read on where states currently stand and then go to a really interesting interactive map I found on the net.
Politico- http://www.politico.com/convention/swingstate.html
Interactive Map- http://www.270towin.com/
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