The 2008 Presidential race is a real fight to the finish! Obama's up! McCain's down! Hillary may be down but she's not out! Romney is in the lead for VEEP contest! Biden is sitting on the sidelines. Kennedy is betting on Obama! The NRA is backing McCain! The AFL-CIO likes Obama to win, place, and show. Richardson has asked to be traded to the Obama team. Clinton is holding out for a better deal. Jesse Jackson knocked Obama off of his game. Phil Graham fouled out last week. It's McCain at 41 to Obama's 43! Hold on to your votes, folks. This is gonna be a real horse race!
We, Americans, have been told that the Presidential election is a contest and we believe it! We believe it because we are fed a steady diet of sports metaphors leading up to Election Day when the game is finally played out. We, Americans love our sports! We love our heroes. We love the victories and decry the agonies of the defeated. One must win and one must lose: tennis, golf, racing, swimming, sharp shooting, pole vaulting, boxing, gynmastics, figure skating, weightlifting and on and on and on.
The "mano y mano" comparisons between our election and the sporting world are more numerous than the Olympic games.
In truth, we are not electing a champion, a gold medalist, or a record holder. We are, in fact, electing a government. This fact is as basic as Civics 101. Within our democratic form of government: the Legislative Branch makes the laws; the Judicial Branch interprets the laws; and the Executive Branch is supposed to carry out the laws. Despite all the lofty campaign promises, the electee will play the hand he is dealt. Were we to live in a parlimentary democracy, we would not have to wait four or eight long years to throw the bum out. We could give the titular head of our nation a vote of "no confidence" and send him down to the minors. The people then seek out a leader of a coalition party who most nearly matches their needs, their visions, and their hopes for the future. Not so in the American democracy.
Yet we, the voters, continue to buy into the winner of this competition mentality all the while ignoring the constitutional limitations on the power this one man can bring to government. This entire campaign has deteriorated into "mano y mano" and we have made it so. HE is too liberal. HE is not conservative enough for the right. HE is black but not black enough for blacks. HE is too old and too set in his ways. HE is a "flip-flopper." HE has committed the deadly sin of crossing the aisle. HE aligns himself with a preacher who damns America! HE rarely discusses is faith which is makes him highly suspect to Evangelicals. HE offers change, hope, and the best choice of the future. HE promises to be four more years of the same ole', same ole'. HE is the second coming of JFK and MLK. HE is the second coming of Bush. HE will pull out of Iraq in 16 months. HE will keep us in Irag for 100 years. HE will singlehandedly raise teacher salaries. HE will ruin the public school system by enacting vouchers. HE will provide universal health care. HE will ensure access to quality health care for all. HE will raise taxes. HE will maintain tax cuts. HE will preserve the environment with an eletric car in every garage, a wind trubine in every backyard, and solar panels on every roof. HE will ruin are glistening shorelines with oils spills and kill innocent Americans with nuclear accidents of monumental proportions. HE doesn't wear a flag pin! HE wears his patriotism on his sleeve. HE has never served in the military. HE is a distinguished war hero who hates war because he knows first hand that it costs lives. HE has tons of money and broke his promise to refuse public finance. HE is struggling for money and will accept public funds. HE will consort with our enemies without pre-conditions. HE will "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." HE has won the endorsements of liberal losers (i.e., Kerry, Kennedy, Richardson, Dodd, Clinton, Edwards). HE is not well liked by his Republican counter parts because he "crossed over" once too often. HE is vetting Washington insiders for the VEEP job. HE is looking to governors to balance his ticket. HE will rule with a Democractic Congress. He will be saddled with a Democratice Congress. ENOUGH! The truth is that HE can do none of these things.
There is only one quality of the next President that matters in the final analysis: HIS proven ability to work with and for the people through government. Experience matters. Vote for John McCain.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 21
On issue after issue, McCain is out of touch with the American public.
He seen nothing wrong with throwing away billions on Iraq, is in favor of huge tax breaks for the rich while giving 'pennies' to the middle class, doesn't understand the need for a dramatic change in our health care system, endorses torture of prisoners, supports the erosion of our civil rights, and would appoint Supreme Court Justices that would continue to tear up the Constitution rather than stand by it.
If that is experience, I'd rather take my chance with intelligence.
Vote Obama, for the sake of the children.
I think you may have missed the point of my article: OBAMA IS A CON JOB! Perhaps it takes one to know one!
You have proven Ben Franklin correct, you can fool SOME of the people ALL of the time.
You have been fooled into a negative opinion about Obama.
Do you watch Fox News, by any chance? Do you listen to the right-wing talking heads on the radio?
Have you seen McCain's reaction to the Viagara/birth control question?
It's not to late to see clearly.
OK, I'll leave her to her faux news and fiends.
Good thing the majority has not been fooled, 4 more years of McBush cannot happen, we the people could not survive it.
Perhaps you should open your mind to a few facts...
McCain is in favor of maintaining tax cuts for all income groups.
McCain's health care plan includes a $2500 per individual / $5000 per family tax credit. If your personal health plan costs less than the amount above, you can put those dollars into tax free health savings account. Having put together a one & a half-million dollar budget for more than 90 employees, I can tell you that that allotment is more than adequate.
McCain was tortured in a Vietnamese prison for five years. I hardly think he endorses these unspeakable acts. He supports following the Geneva Convention's prohibitions and has promoted prosecuting those who break the Geneva Convention as war criminals.
McCain was absent and did not vote on the FISA bill. Obama voted for the FISA bill even though 23,000 of his supporters signed a petition asking him to vote against it. He simply was not true to his rhetoric nor did he listen to his own supporters. At least Hillary Clinton voted against the FISA bill.
McCain hates war. He fought the administration's policies and strategies in Iraq. In opposition to his own party, he supported the surge. Owing to the surge, violence is down and surge troops are coming home. He did not get us into this war. He's trying to get us out with honor. Honor is important to our veterans like my son, a Marine Corps. Sergeant.
McCain's reaction to the Viagra question? It looked to me like McCain had to do everything he could to stop from laughing in the face of that reporter? You make think that Viagra is a major health care issue but clearly McCain does not. Sounds like a personal problem to me. I think that Obama's support for partial birth abortion is a real issue.
RE: News and views. I prefer to get my news raw and unfiltered from C-SPAN. Right wing talking heads? Try NPR, Democracy Now!, Link TV, CNN, MSNBC, POTUS '08, U.S. News and World Report, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone..... Right wing? As a card carrying member of the SDS, I was leading a protest march down the streets of Normally, IL against a visit to our campus by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird dressed in bell-bottoms, a plaid poncho, and sporting a classy black arm band while the FBI was taking pictures of us BEFORE you or yo' mama was born. Experience does matter.
If you really want to open your mind before you vote for "the sake of the children," read the article entitled "Making It" written by Ryan Lizza printed in the July 21st issue of the New Yorker. If you can get past the cover, that is.
Peace and Love!
We need a NONE on the ballot. Then we start over. We keep going until the people finally are able to pick their own candidate... one who will support the constitution, keep our country and military strong and bring our jobs back HOME.
God help us, if Obama gets in.
McCain voted with Bush 97% of the time but yet people continue to say that he is separate and way different from him. McCain ducked the FISA vote because he didn't want it to be called into question how he voted. Obama voted with his mind and explained why he did it. If you like I'll hook you up to that link for your review. It takes a lot more intelligence and courage to vote over a controversial bill and explain why you voted that way than it does to duck and run.
"McCain is against war" hmmmmm.. you must have seen that commercial where he said that. But yet he voted which way when we went into Iraq in a BS fabricated reason to attack a country that was doing us no harm and to get over 4000 brave men and women killed. Plus countless others maimed both physically and mentally for all time to come. Destroyed a country, killed 10's of thousands of men, woman and children. Gave out billions in no bid contracts to Halliburton and other companies with inside connections. There is a new article out on Yahoo that tells the tale of the electrical work over in Iraq that we paid millions for and the fact that it just may be more dangerous than Al Quaeda. Our economy is in a shamble, good hard working middle class people are struggling to survive and losing their homes at an alarming rate because of the inside deals that were made to get the rich banks richer and the 10 billion a month that is being spend on this war. Obama voted how on that war? McCain voted how? Wow that "experience" sure served him well there.. huh?
(The Other) Dale C., Jul 20, 2008, 12:12am EDT
Maybe he/she will help us, I mean it's pretty easy to see that God hasn't been happy with what has happened here in the last eight years and has offered no help there. Sometimes it seems to me that the help for the last eight years came from a power from "below" and all of his minions!
A health care plan offering tax credits for health insurance is a joke! Right now my insurance costs I and my wife about 8,000 dollars a year and we are both on Medicare. I've been involved with the costs of health insurance in my work for years and 2,500 dollars is still a joke.
Also, in order to get that 2,500 dollars, your tax burden would have to equal or exceed that amount, leaving the working poor completely out of it and many in the lower middle class with diminished benefit.
You've been taken in by the right wing propaganda and are hooked, line and sinker! McCain used to be a moderate but flopped in order to get more of the conservatives behind him for the election.
I have the highest respect for McCain and the sacrifice he made in the Viet Nam war. That, however, does not qualify him to be president in any way!
You CAN fool SOME of the people ALL of the time.
Thanks to Soozan S, Bill B for proving my theory.
Obama '08 - for the sake of the children.
You are not fooling anybody! Please make up your mind. Did Ben Franklin or Abe Lincoln say your oft cited quote?
Well, you managed to get it right the second time around. Maybe, if you think through some of your other comments, you might come to a different conclusion the second time around.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. " - A. Lincoln
At least Obama can't fool all of the people.
The bill Obama voted for was FISA! FISA, Bob. He let the telephone companies off the hook for "spying" on unsuspecting Americans though ILLEGAL wiretapping because the corporations wanted to "help out" the Bush-league Administration. He stated that he did not support FISA, he says is not in the pocket of "big corporations," and he did not listen to his own 23,000 supporters when they urged him to keep his word. He then voted for the bill because it was a "compromise." What do you think IF he gets to the White House? ANSWER: He will do the same thing then all you "hopefuls" will be left with a pocket full of "change."
I appreciate the fact that you "get it." We're electing a President here, not seeing who can pull off the Triple Crown or win the World Series. As some of the comments suggest, not everyone understands the seriousness of choosing our leadership. I appreciate your well written and supported positions.
Obviously I disagree on your conclusion of who the best next President will be, but I feel confident that it is a decision you have come to honestly. And as long as we all do that, the country has a chance to regain its leadership role in the world.