Don’t know about you but I’ve got CNN simmering in the background while I work. I’m not American. I don’t live in the States. I am aware that the next twelve hours or so will change their country and the rest of the world with it.
McCain has commanded a fairly old school style political campaign. This was my big disappointment with Hillary, as well. She started strong but slid back into the usual cycle of rhetoric and opponent slagging. I don’t believe she would have made a good president, not compared to Obama, and I’m not sorry she’s gone. Along with her plan of giving everyone $400 to stave off the recession. You can see now what a useless gesture that would have been.
What set Obama apart for me, what I think has inspired the country, is that he does not subscribe to that mentality. He speaks, for the most part, of ground-level, common sense ideas. It’s a simple message: “The system is broken, and I can fix it.” That’s not a revolutionary message in and of itself, but the difference is that it does not sound like rhetoric. I think he knows what the rest of us know, and he’s actually willing to do something about it. That’s new. It bugs me a little that he has styled his more flowery oratory after MLK, but I can hardly blame him. People tend to emulate those who inspire them.
What bugs me most about the GOP campaign is their brittle smugness. With straight faces they freely bludgeon the truth and act like they’re letting us in on the secret. In an age where facts can be checked in about the same time it takes to type it into Google, those tactics are just stupid. If they are counting on voter ignorance then they are stating bluntly that they really believe YOU are stupid. Are you stupid?
Whether they do the country good or not, THAT is completely unacceptable for me.
This is a big day. Politically speaking, one of the biggest ever.
I also agree with this.
Probably the best example of the McCain campaign treating their supporters as if they have low intelligence is the McCain “Compare” chart. Here it is, I am not sure how much longer they’ll keep it up but have a look within the next day because I’m not sure it’ll last past that:
http://www.johnmccain.com/undecided/compare.htm
Woah. That’s a perfect example. That’s… astonishing. Can you believe McCain/ Palin got 48% of the popular vote? Dems won, but only barely. It’s staggering how many people out there are so easily towed along. For once the worst electoral system in the world worked in our favour.
It is surprising how much of the popular vote went to McCain. And you may notice, the link no longer works today – McCain’s wiped his site. Fair enough – it was a real piece. Wish I got a screen shot of that compare matrix though. Unreal.
It seems the world is satisfied with America’s decision. I think that it is remarkable that it takes someone completely and utterly amazing to displace the Republicans. Why can (and do) the Republicans lead with mediocrity so easily?
Oh yeah! The Matrix is still up. I’mma get me a screen shot. The front page of the McCain site is wiped.