Why Barack Obama will Win this Election

How much pain can America take before reaching out for change?

We have heard about how Sarah Palin has brought "excitement" to the Republican campaign.

But will excitement be enough for another American who has lost his or her job in a 'once-in-a-century crisis'?  Are we ready to pay out $200 billion for the recovery of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?

The current Republican President has led a nation with continuing job losses. 

Is America ready to elect another Republican?  Or will it seek real change?

And will Hurricane Gustav and Ike make people want to vote Republican?  Global warming is making hurricanes more frequent and more severe.  That is if you wish to listen to scientists.

And the Republican candidate, Senator McCain and his Vice-Presidential nominee just want to "drill, baby, drill".   But on alternative energy, McCain is a "no-show".  As Thomas Friedman has written:

"It was only five days earlier, on July 30, that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad, vitally important bill - S. 3335 - that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems.

Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits - which expire in December - to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America's energy profile.

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year - which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn't leave his office to vote.

"McCain did not show up on any votes," said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain's campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines - the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power.

Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either - which is equally inexcusable in my book - but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits."

Global warming is real and we are feeling the effects today.  Sarah Palin is not sure about whether it is due to humans or just nature.

This nation cannot tolerate more of the same fiscal policy of endless tax cuts and growth in expenditures that will now result in a doubling of our deficit this year:

"Washington - The US is about to end this fiscal year with a $407 billion budget deficit that is more than double what it was in 2007 - and the red ink is projected to flow on.

Even before the full cost of the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is calculated, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the nation will add more than $2.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years."

And even Republican and McCain friend Alan Greenspan had this to say about the McCain/Palin proposed tax cuts:

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Alan Greenspan says the country can't afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain - at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

"Unless we cut spending, no," the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked about McCain's proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

"I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money," Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. "I always have tied tax cuts to spending."

Senator Obama and Senator Obama are simply more qualified to be in the White House.

Let's talk about education:

This is Senator Obama's credentials:

"After graduating high school from Punahou School in Hawaii, Barack Obama attended Occidental College for two years, then got his B.A. from Columbia University. He later got his law degree from Harvard Law School (where he became the Harvard Law Review's first black president), graduating magna cum laude. Obama was also a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School."

And Senator McCain's credentials:

"After high school, McCain was accepted to the United States Naval Academy, though he was not a strong student. He was often disciplined for misbehavior and ultimately graduated near the bottom-790th out of 795-of the class of 1958."

And what about Joe Biden?

His credentials:

"Biden attended the University of Delaware in Newark,^[11] where by his own later description he was a lazy student.^[12] He graduated with a double major in history and political science in 1965,^[3] ranked 506th of 688 in his class.^[13] He went on to receive his J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968,^[11] where by his own description he again underperformed and ranked 76th of 85 students.^[12][14] He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.^[11]"

And Sarah Palin?  Her credentials?

"Sarah Palin received her bachelor's degree (B.A.) in journalism after transferring five times in six years: Hawaii Pacific University, North Idaho College, University of Idaho, Matanuska-Susitna College, University of Idaho again. None of the colleges have entry requirements. There are no records of any honors achieved. Sarah hasn't released her records to the public, normally an indication that no honors were received and the grades were enough to graduate."

O.K. so it really isn't close is it?  And isn't education important in jobs as important as President and Vice-President?

Do we need to mention McCain's advanced age and poor health?

And when asked about her foreign policy experience in her only news interview so far, Palin repeated the hard to fathom answer:

"They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." 

And she didn't really visit Iraq.

And her visit to Ireland was actually just a refueling stop for her airplane.

"As for the trip to Ireland, that was little more than a refuelling stop.

The admission by the McCain camp further dents her foreign policy credentials. The campaign has made much of her experience dealing with Russia and Canada, countries that border Alaska. But in an interview broadcast last week, her first since becoming Mr McCain's running mate, Ms Palin indicated that her knowledge of Russia was restricted to being able to see it from Alaska. It now appears that her knowledge of Iraq is based on her having been able to see it from Kuwait."

You really can't make this stuff up.

I really don't need to mention her distortion about her support of the 'bridge to nowhere'?  That's old news.

You probably have heard about her taking a per diem for more than 300 nights she spent at home.  That's old news.

Like President Bush and his cronies, Governor Palin likes to hire friends for high positions:

"So when there was a vacancy at the top of the state Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one of her qualifications for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Havemeister was one of at least five high school classmates Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages."

And more old news, she is under investigation.  Usual abuse-of-power stuff.  But that's old news.

And so as not to ignore Senator McCain, we can recall his Keating 5 history:

"Among McCain's earliest benefactors in Arizona was Lincoln Savings and Loan chief Charles Keating Jr., who filled McCain's campaign coffers with more than $100,000 and hosted the McCains multiple times at his vacation home in the Bahamas.

Keating expected his largesse to be rewarded, and when federal regulators began looking into Lincoln's questionable lending practices and investments in the late 1980s, he turned to five senators whose coffers he had lined - Alan Cranston of California, Donald Riegle of Michigan, John Glenn of Ohio and both Arizona senators, Dennis DeConcini and McCain.

McCain attended two meetings with regulators at Keating's request. McCain's view was that he was seeking information on behalf of a constituent who was an important employer in his state. The regulators' view was that they were being pressured to act favorably for Keating.

Lincoln's collapse, the biggest of many savings and loan failures, cost taxpayers $2.6 billion. Keating spent four years in jail, before his sentence was overturned on a technicality, and the Keating 5, as the senators came to be known, lived under an ethical cloud for years.

During the investigation, McCain revealed he and his wife, Cindy, had not reimbursed Keating for thousands of dollars in flights on his company jet to the Bahamas. The McCains blamed each other, reported McCain biographer Robert Timberg, causing the first rift in their marriage.

Then, The Arizona Republic published a report about an investment that Cindy McCain had made with her father in a shopping-mall project owned by a Keating company.

In 1991, McCain, along with his four Democratic colleagues, was found guilty by the Senate Ethics Committee of using "poor judgment" for attending the meetings with regulators on Keating's behalf."

Even the Rezco-Obama connection seems trivial next to the investigation and findings of the Keating 5 fiasco.

So there you have it.  You have two Republican candidates whose answer to our problems is do do more of the same.  Drill more.  War more.  Tax less.  Regulate less. 

And we have the temporary excitement about a woman who has been selected who is even less about change than her conservative Senator at the top of the ticket.

This isn't change.  A pig with lipstick is still a pig.