Gracious in Defeat; Still Proud of America

I had contemplated writing my first post the morning after an Obama win and discussing why Obama will be a disaster, how McCain lost the election, how this election was wholly based on emotion and not issues, and how I think the country will be in a worse way for the next few years.  There will be plenty of time to write about things, things I will begin to write about shortly, including getting Mitt elected in 2012.  But for this post’s purposes I want to really speak from the heart and express the pride I feel as an American.

Indeed this is an historic election for the United States and even the world.  Last night American’s overwhelmingly elected out first Black president.  This accomplishment is nothing to push aside considering America’s history with Black’s.  150 years ago slavery was still prevalent and was only about to be defeated by Lincoln in the civil war, yet even after the emancipation proclamation race continued to be a major issue and the Blacks had little opportunity for success and integration into American society.  It was not until the mid-1900’s and the great civil-rights movement that broke down most of the barriers to Black progress in America.  I have longed believed that true-racism has largely been eradicated in most of America for the last 20 years; certainly there are pockets of bigots and racists throughout the country, but this holds true for whites being racist against Blacks and Blacks being racist against whites (see Jeremiah Wright).  But largely the it seems to me that race has been an overblown issue of late, driven largely by Black activists who need charges of racism to drive there personal agendas.  (I should write a full post about this, because we could even get into the actions of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson regarding Obama’s campaign, but I digress).   Finally, my belief has been validated.  The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States should eradicate the overblown charges of widespread racism in America.  Issues of race will never be fully gone.  There will always be whites killing blacks because they are black and there will always be blacks killing whites because they are white; sadly, that is reality.  But race is no longer a systemic issue and problem in our country and Barack’s election is the culminating event in Black progress.  I think it reflects great maturity and progress in the U.S. and for that, and that alone, I applaud the election of Barack Obama and the American people.

So congratulations to President Obama and his family on his victory.  I now plan on spending the next four years fighting to get you out of the White House.  That being said, you have a great opportunity to win a lot of McCain voters, like myself, over if you govern as a moderate and pragmatically.  If you show that you recognize the importance of maintaining processes that made America great, like capitalism and small government, freedom of speech, freedom or religion, etc.  I highly encourage you to avoid moving full speed ahead and implementing a large left-wing agenda and socialist policies.  Doing such will alienate many of the people who voted for you (and in 2012 expect the GOP to nominate someone who is not near as terrible a candidate as McCain was).  You and your party have the opportunity to accomplish what the GOP failed to do in last decade when they had all the power, that is to uphold American ideals such as limited government.   A left-wing agenda is the surest way to defeat in 2012, even you had to run to the right to win this election – every Democrat does.   Best of luck for you and your cabinet, I will be praying for your Presidency.

11 Day’s Out, It’s All Over

It is probably a bit pre-mature, but the presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain might as well be over.  I have been contemplating writing this post for the last two weeks, but haven’t been convinced.  Well, today I am.  We are 11 days out of the election, less than two weeks and Barack’s lead is anywhere between 3 points and 11 points nationally, he is safely winning all the states that Kerry won in ’04, is comfortably ahead in a few states that Bush won in ’04, and is within the margin of error (+/-) in many states that have gone GOP in the past few elections.   There is not one state that Kerry won, even those considered “swing” states, that McCain has a chance to win. Don’t believe me?  Let’s review two “blue swing states”: Minnesota: O=56%, M=41% – 15 point lead and Pennsylvania: O= 51%, M= 41% – 10 point lead. Ouch!

Every “swing-state” is a state that went Red in ’04 and some should be solidly red. McCain is struggling mightily in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Nevada, and Colorado. Even in states like North Dakota and Montana there has been talk of Barack making a push. Are you kidding? McCain is entirely playing defense and no offense. This is not a winning strategy, in order to win the election he will pretty well have to win each of these states; at most he could lose one of them and perhaps still pull out the win. That is not going to happen.

So why is it so bad? Well, the first reason is the economy. People blame the Bush administration and by default McCain. They shouldn’t (solely) blame either. Blame falls on everyone, but especially congressional democrats who refused to address the mortgage issue when GOP congressmen were warning of an inevitable collapse. But Democrats disagreed and said the system was good because it was getting poor people into home ownership. Well we have seen how well that worked out. But McCain has failed to get that message out, he has failed to spread the word that he called for an investigation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 2 years ago. Sure much of this is the media’s fault as they refuse to seriously cover any news that may harm Obama (just look at how they have ignored the Ayers story, if that were reversed and McCain were the culprit, McCain would have been crucified). But it is also McCain’s fault. He has been awful getting information out and going on the attack. I know he doesn’t prefer that kind of politics, but it is necessary for important issues. Sarah Palin has been effective, but what can a veep do?

The other reason that McCain is losing so bad is that he is a terrible, terrible candidate. What were the GOP thinking nominating this guy. I still don’t know anyone who actually wants HIM to be President. Most people are voting for him because they don’t want Obama or because they like Palin. McCain is a terrible speaker, has no energy, doesn’t have much a platform and no message, and isn’t terribly intelligence (I am not saying he is dumb, but he is no smarter than the average American). If the GOP had nominated Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani we would probably winning or tied with Obama. The only serious GOP candidate that would have been a bigger disaster is Mike Huckabee.

A friend of mine made a great point the other day, as he has paid attention to the campaign he hears Obama speak and notices that Obama has a message. It may not be a message of much substance, but he has a message and sticks to it. That is change and hope and when he discusses his specific policy ideas he ties them all into change and hope. When he hears McCain there is no message. McCain is all over the map. Thus, there is nothing memorable about McCain, there is not one thing where people can think of McCain and think of him as President. His advisors have not handled him well. Both Karl Rove and James Carville admitted that in their elections as advisors to Bush and Clinton respectively, one of their most important responsibilities were to keep the candidate on message. Remember people don’t care about policy and specific ideas they care about what ever candidate makes them feel good, moves them, and builds trust. That’s largely it. McCain hasn’t done it in the least.

The silver lining to all of this for me is that I can’t stand either candidate. I am voting for McCain, but while holding my nose. On Tuesday night, November 4th, when CNN announces that they project Barack Obama as the next President of the United States at 9:42 pm EST (before the polls even close in the West), I will shrug my shoulders, go back to watching “Scrubs” and begin fasting and praying that the American people, and especially GOP voters, will be smart enough to nominate Mitt Romney in 2012. I still can’t believe that the GOP was stupid enough nominate McCain over Romney, amazing.

Is Biden Sabotaging Obama?

It is no secret that Joe Biden is a loose canon and often makes statements without thinking them through. While he is a smart guy, he is also an idiot in many ways. Once he gets going on a rant it is hard to slow him down. I think this is what happened yesterday when Biden said that Obama was going to be faced with an international crisis in his first six months. Consider his statements:

“Mark my words,” Biden told donors at a Seattle fund-raiser Sunday night.

“It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.

“Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

“And he’s going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it’s not going to be apparent initially; it’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.”

What on earth is Joe thinking? If this election turns back to a National Security election and people start believing that there will be a major incident involving our enemies in the first six months, there will be a substantial shift towards John McCain. THe people still trust republicans, and specifically McCain, on security issues.

When people read Biden’s statements many of them will ask themselves if Obama is prepared and ready to handle it. We are talking about the least qualified and prepared Presidential candidate since 1860, if not in America’s history and his running mate is talking about a major crisis in the first six months?? This can only hurt Obama and eat away at his support.

The McCain campaign has already jumped on these statements and are using them to instill doubt in the voters and say that Obama is not ready for this high office. Good for McCain, I would do the same thing, regardless of how true the claims may or may not be.

Joe Biden is a drag on the Obama ticket and was a terrible choice. Fortunately for Obama, people rarely vote based on the Veep candidate, the GOP is the weakest it has been in decades, and Obama has a large lead just two weeks out. Barack will win the election handily, but it will be in spite of Biden.

Barack is Right, but He Should Have Known Better

It is no secret that I am no fan of Barack Obama, but generally speaking I agree with him that this whole Pig comment thing should not really be a controversy.

For those of you who are not familiar with the controversy overtaking the United States, in a speech about economics yesterday, Barack Obama said, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” At first glance most anyone who has been following Sarah Palin and the election could understand how one would think this was a slam against Palin. But when one reads the context for which the comment was made it is clear that he was referring to Bush’s and McCain’s generally similar economic plans. Essentially he said that McCain can talk about change all he wants, referring to the economy, but “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” And then he added, immediately following that line, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called ‘change,’ it’s still going to stink.”

Was it a slight at Palin (referring to the lipstick)? Maybe. Was it a slight at McCain (referring to the ‘old fish’)? Maybe so. I kind of think it was meant to be a subtle jab, but I don’t put much stock into the whole controversy, those phrases were reasonable for the topic to which he was speaking and it probably shouldn’t be the issue it is.

But this politics. Anything one says can be and will be used against the candidate. I find it really disingenuous that Barack is criticizing the McCain camp for using this for political gain, as both parties take statements out of context, just as ridiculous as this, all of the time. Obama and his advisors should have known this and should have known better.

So while I think there is no merit to the attack from the GOP, Barack should have been smarter than this. And it demonstrates his political newness. You see, the most memorable line from Sarah Palin’s speech at the GOP convention was, “What is the difference between a pit bull and soccer mom? Lipstick”. As a result, anytime anyone hears the word lipstick, for whatever reason, voters are immediately going to associate that comment with Sarah Palin. If you think I am wrong, just watch the below video of Barack’s comments and pay attention to the crowd’s response when he says the lipstick line.

That kind of response would not occur in normal circumstances, the people there immediately associated the comment with Sarah Palin. Barack and his advisors should have been aware of this. And making a comment like that, regardless of its innocence and in a climate where Palin is ridiculously popular and any negativity against her that seems remotely unfair only results in increasing her popularity, is a stupid move.

You see, in this election people don’t care about policy. I think most people who have been following the election since the beginning of the primary season were well aware of this. It is about being a fixer and having a responsible leader. Most voters are fickle and fairly ignorant anyway. They don’t want to hear the nuts and bolts of welfare reform or economic policy, they want to be comfortable, safe, and feel like their President is someone they can feel safe with while the sleep. That’s it. So little lapses of judgement like this, by either candidate, is what matters. Because this is the stuff voters pay attention to. Personally, I think it is ridiculous, but it is the nature of the democratic process, at least in this election. And this is why I think McCain will ultimately win. He generally knows how to avoid these mistakes and will make fewer of them than Barack. Game over.

Obama, Biden, and America’s Victory in Anbar

Yet again the American (and international) media are completely ignoring a major, major story about Iraq to talk about something far less relevant, in this case, the pregnancy of Bristol Palin’s baby. What story are the missing and failing to report on? The turn over of Anbar province from American forces to Iraqi control.

This is the best and greatest news to come out of Iraq since the announcement that Saddam Hussein was caught. But you won’t find anyone talking about. We all know why they aren’t reporting it, so I spare you the rant, but what should be highlighted over and over again as this election season goes on was how utterly and completely wrong Barack Obama and Joe Biden were on the surge in Iraq.

Both of them (and their whole party) predicted that sending an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq would do nothing but make things worse and keep America in Iraq for eternity. How wrong they were. Because of the surge and General Petraeus’ strategy, plans are in place for American withdrawal, casualties (for both Americans and Iraqis) are the lowest they have been since the beginning of the war, Prime Minister Maliki has established a relatively stable and functioning government, and the Iraqi people are able focus on living their life and building their economic stability. If we had followed the recommendations of Obama and Biden, America would have failed miserably and lost the war completely; Iraq would be another Somalia. Just watch these to hear what Obama and Biden said about the surge:

Barack Obama

Joe Biden

Look, I don’t fault people for being wrong, I am wrong all the time. But at least admit it. At least live up to being wrong. The most frustrating thing about these comments, is that it demonstrates a supreme lack of judgment and objectivity. Joe Biden has been wrong on almost every major foreign policy decision since he began his stint in the Senate, yet Barack Obama chose him as a running mate because of Joe’s foreign policy experience.

The fact is President Bush was right about the surge. Regardless of what you think about the overall war or why we went in there in the first place (which is really completely irrelevant to the current situation) you have to admit that Bush and Petraeus have done a stellar job with the surge. Undoubtedly that one unpopular and politically risky decision saved Iraq and America’s efforts there. The implementation of this strategy and Bush’s “must win” attitude reminds of what my Drill Sergeant’s would tell us in basic training, “The fastest way out of here is to graduate.” Why was it the fastest, because if you screwed up, got hurt, became ill, you would be stuck there until you straightened up or got better. The same applied in Iraq, the fastest way out of Iraq is to win; and that is exactly what is occurring.

And for all of you who always asked the asinine question, “what defines victory in Iraq?” This defines victory in Iraq, or at least this is the teenage version of victory in Iraq. Victory in Iraq is a country that is relatively free, democratic, and can stand on it’s own two feet. That is what is being sewn now. Victory.

I also posted this at swint.instablogs.com