It's nail-biting time for political junkies. And finger-crossing time for us Obama supporters. I mailed in my ballot yesterday. Now comes two more weeks of waiting.
On the surface, everything seems to be going great guns for the Obama campaign. Obama and Biden were the consensus winners of all four debates. The economy tanked at the best possible time -- one almost suspects that the Bush administration itself pulled the plug, as one final shot across McCain's bow! The polls for the past month have consistently shown an Obama lead.
The electoral college map looks even better. The interactive map accessible from Yahoo's home page goes so far as to show a 344-167 Obama lead, with North Carolina remaining as a battleground state, but leaning to Obama). (Another six states with no polling data available are virtually certain to break 20-7 for Obama.) Other estimates are more cautious, but still favorable. The Bush presidency has record low approval ratings, and an initial burst of enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has died for everyone except the true believers.
More good news over the weekend: Colin Powell endorsed Obama. The endorsement came two days after the Oliver Stone movie "W" was released, portraying Powell as the only member of the Bush team with any intelligence and integrity. And the Obama campaign announced that it had raised an incredible $150 million during September. Obama has purchased all available TV time between now and the election.
And yet, I'm uneasy. Very uneasy. Living on the West Coast, surrounded by Obama supporters, I feel very insulated from whatever's going on in the heartland of America. All my information comes from the national media, which, even to me, appear biased toward Obama (except for Fox News, which lives in a bizarre parallel universe of its own, and is even less credible).
As Newsweek recently noted, the spread between the two candidates, shown by the polls, is strangely small considering all the factors that should favor any Democratic candidate this year. Although polls vary, the spread actually seems to be narrowing slightly. I've always been concerned about the so-called Bradley effect, but I sense a simmering hostility toward Obama that really isn't explicitly racial. Newsweek describes it as a fear of the "different," the "who is this guy, anyway?" effect.
The election may be an Obama landslide, but it just as easily could be a McCain upset.
So I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've signed up to be an Obama observer at the polls. (My county is one of the last two Washington counties that still provides polling booths for those voters who prefer to cast ballots in person -- after this election, the entire state will vote exclusively by mail.) Washington historically has had little problem with voter fraud, and an Obama victory is a foregone conclusion in this state, so I don't see my day of service as actually contributing much to the cause.
But it's just the only way I can think of to ward off anxiety by doing something, anything. Aside from crossing my fingers and biting my nails .
Monday, October 20, 2008
Fifteen days and counting . . .
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11 comments:
"The economy tanked at the best possible time"? That's a terrible thing to say. First, I don't see anything good about having an economy that's spiraling downward into what will probably be the largest recession/depression in 75 years. Second, the (true) idea that it will help Obama's candidacy highlights the fact that, for some strange reason, people honestly think Obama will be better on the economy than McCain would be. Other than a few small differences in tax policy (which even economists widely agree has less of an effect on the economy than government spending), Obama and McCain are virtually identical on economic issues. Just like everything else.
"[T]he Obama campaign announced that it had raised an incredible $150 million during September." Is this really something to be proud of? All this means is that the corporate and special interest donors have pulled out all the stops; this would indicate to anyone who knows how Washington works and is seriously paying attention that Obama has finally completely caved to their will. Which, by the way, I figured would happen from the very start.
But anyway, have fun supporting the biggest fraud in American history.
Dude! Get a grip.
Economy tanking: You know about irony?
Similar economic policies: Yes, more or less. At least in the short run, so far as I can tell, but that's because that's pretty much the current economic orthodoxy. Long term, economic policy will differ with respect to who will benefit the most, but the immediate goal is to minimize the disaster.
$150 million: Who was talking about being proud? I was itemizing factors working in Obama's favor.
Biggest fraud in American history: Be serious. That sounds like the wind-up of your summation at a speech tournament. :D
By the way - what do you make of this? (from MSNBC's First Read):
"Biden sounding like a Republican -- or Hillary during the primary season? Did anyone catch what Joe Biden said at a fundraiser last night in the Pacific Northwest? It sounded awfully like warnings the GOP ticket likes to issue. "Mark my words. Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” Biden said. “The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he’s gonna have to make some really tough - I don’t know what the decision’s gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it’s gonna happen. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help."
I'm being absolutely serious about the "biggest fraud in American history" argument. I'm absolutely terrified of Obama being president. He's going to be just like the other politicians, and so many millions of young people are going to lose all faith in politics. Once that happens, corporate special interests will have won, once and for all.
I agree. I'm not sure what your point is? That Obama isn't experienced enough, and McCain is? (By the way, how experienced with foreign policy is Mr. Nader?)
I assume election of a president means choosing a person with excellent instincts who will surround himself with apppropriate experts -- and listen to them and make rational decisions based on their arguments. I think it's ridiculous to think that any politician has enough "experience" to be able to handle all the emergencies and even normal problems that arise without expert advisers. Maybe Abe Lincoln could do it in his day, but the world is vastly more complex now.
Democrats have usually excelled at attracting outstanding advisers, both from the academic world and from the business arena.
You slipped another comment in there. I was agreeing to your Biden quote.
Obama is running as a left-center candidate. Not a radical or a strong liberal. It's hard enough to win with those credentials in a country that is essentially right-center in political views and attitudes.
I think his approach is very clear to young people and old. There is always some disappointment when a new president doesn't do everything we hoped he would, but nothing about this race is so different as to cause enormous disillusionment.
He couldn't win with a more leftist campaign. Nader could never win in a million years. Will you be happier if McCain wins, because of some feeling that doctrinal purity has been maintained?
I don't want to sound sarcastic, but we've gone through this same thing historically over and over. Read about the George McGovern campaign. His views were great, but he lost in a landslide. And Nixon was president as a result.
The point isn't an argument about experience. The point is in the wording of Biden's statement, and in the certainty with which he said it.
"Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis..."
It sounds like something straight out of a conspiracy theory. He even mentioned that he probably shouldn't have said everything he did once he saw the media there.
Biden went on to say "[H]e's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
What I get out of this is, "Well, some international interests are going to make the whole world go to hell in a hand-basket, but we need you, my fellow Americans, to stand by president Obama, no matter what."
Plato said something like: "The good is the enemy of the best."
I think that's a good philosophy to keep in mind in running one's own personal life. But it is totally wrong in politics, where working out compromises that satisfy the desires of themajority and don't totally alienate the more sensible members of the minority is crucial.
Sorry, our comments keep passing each other!
I think he just said that when there's a new guy in charge, hostile foreign leaders test him like Kruschev tested JFK. I'm not sure I'd read anything else into it. I don't think Biden has secret info that he's hinting about -- he's just saying that's what's tended to happen in the past.
But who knows? I'm not big on conspiracy theories.
I like what Ralph Nader says about compromise (paraphrased):
"Why should I have to work for my opponents, and compromise in my positions? That's my opponent's job. When we come together to get something done, that's where compromise should take place, not before hand."
The Democrats are too quick to forget liberal ideals, when in a perfect world, they would stick by them, and compromise with the conservatives through the political process. Conservatives don't compromise in their positions until they absolutely have to; why should liberals be any different?
Anyway, I have to go take a test, so I can't keep commenting here.
Good luck. Thanks for giving me a good tussle! :)
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