posted by perkiset on Aug 20
I woke this morning to find that the Zogby poll now says that McCain and Obama are in a statistical dead heat, with McCain just ever so slightly ahead. Additionally, there was remapping of the electoral college layout that now shows McCain in a solid position to beat Obama… under some circumstances, quite handily. So: Since the economy is issue number one for the vast majority of Americans, and 80% of the voting populace feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction, why isn’t this a walk on for Obama?
In a fit of pain centered around the notion of 4 years with another clueless Republican at the helm I wrote to my brother - a political insider in California and connections in the right place to ask what the heck is going on. While I waited for his response, I did come up with some of my own thoughts.
Hillary supporters that now support John McCain: I am not sure if this is just sour grapes (We didn’t get Hillary, so there’s NO WAY that we’re going to let you have Obama) or conveniently disguised racism, but in any case, there are a lot of Hillary supporters that are *vehemently* opposed to Obama. Since Hillary’s and Obama’s programs are at least on the same side of the aisle and, to a great degree, similar in concept if not execution, the only thing I can really come to is either they were only going to support Hillary because she was female and had no idea what her real programs were - because anyone that loved where she wanted to take the country just can NOT be in favor of John McCain. It’s a ludicrous shift that makes no sense at all. The real answer is probably a healthy blend of grapes, racism and gender politics.
Obama and White People: CNN reports that only about 30% of white people support him. Even if he gets every single black person in America to vote for him (and he probably will) that will still be a tough group to crack. If this isn’t racism in the worst way I don’t know what is. “I’d rather continue killing people in foreign lands, spend all my money and my children and grandchildren’s money on oil, war and debt, allow my country to be bought lock stock and barrel by foreigners, have no policy to protect the earth and allow the constitution to be ignored as irrelevant than see a NIGGER in the white house.” What kind of messed up country do I live in?
Fortunately, as I worked myself into a lather about the ignorance of my fellow countrymen, my brother responded with an eloquent and spot on email. Here is a nice snippet:
If you look closely at the polls, a couple of things are apparent.
First, Zogby who had Obama behind is a notoriously bad pollster who is often wildly off mark. (He might be right, but let’s not panic yet).
Second, McCain has been doing what Republicans do well, and Obama has been doing what Democrats do well (unfortunately). McCain has gone on the attack and Obama has taken the high road, to the predictable outcome. McCain has stayed steady in the low-mid fourties, but he has brought Obama down to his level in the polls. McCain raised Obama’s negatives. There is a large number of undecideds in the poll, revealing that what McCain has done is not to convince the public to side with him or the Republicans, but has sown doubt about Obama.
Third, it’s a nice wake up call before our convention that this will not be a casual march to victory. If we lose, it’s not Obama’s fault. It’s not Hillary’s fault. It’s not any of our leader’s fault. We all must take ownership of this election and get involved like we never have before to sieze back the direction of our nation. Power is never given freely. We must sieze it, and we must all do it together, or we will watch as the Republicans work harder and fight dirtier to beat us at a pretty low-ball game that they have trounced us every time when we have sat back confident in our position of being ‘right on the issues’. We have to fight hard starting now.
Those are my thoughts. I’m planning on taking ownership of this election myself and doing everything I can think of to take back my country. It’s what each of us must do if we want to bring back the nation for our children that we all believe in.
Thanks so much bro, for your time and efforts for our country. It is your efforts and those of your equal that are truly patriotic.
