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Monday, November 3. 2008
Tomorrow
God almighty it’s getting tiresome listening to McCain’s stump speech. Especially the end when he exhorts his followers to “Fight for a new direction for our country. Fight for what’s right for America. Fight to clean up the mess of corruption, infighting and selfishness in Washington. Fight to get our economy out of the ditch and back in the lead … Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. America is worth fighting for!”Does anyone else cringe at that? Would anyone else be embarrassed to shout that into a microphone? It’s such a cliché, something one would expect in a movie about Knute Rockne. Even in that silly bit of celluloid, Knute Rockne: All American, Pat O’Brien as the legendary Notre Dame football coach doesn’t holler “Fight” at his players that much.
McCain hollers “fight” or some derivation of it nearly 20 times in his stump speech. Is it appropriate for the moment? From the first time I heard McCain yelling at everyone to “Fight’ it sounded out of place. Who is he talking to, a football team hopelessly behind at half time?On the other hand, he wants his followers to fight off the sluggishness of knowing you’re losing to get out the vote. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe John McCain could use a couple Desperate Housewives, but not even that can secure a win for McCain. He appointed a desperate housewife governor as his running mate and that hasn’t helped him outside of the Republican Party base.
Is that what America is all about? Fighting? Haven’t we had enough of that violent jingoism? We are mired in a war in Iraq that, at this moment, has no hope of coming to an end. It was started with the jingoism of fighting. It certainly wasn’t started on any relevant facts but on the violent jingoism of fighting.In comparison, Barack Obama’s stump speech says fight a few times, but what’s more striking is that Obama exhorts his followers to “work!” We are all in this together, that we can’t expect government to correct all the ills of America. It will take the personal commitment of all citizens to do their part. It goes back to John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. “
While Senator McCain builds his campaign stump speech on the fear of an Obama presidency, his opponent builds his campaign stump speech on the hope of a new vision of the future, on hope.Hope, as all recall, was the central theme of President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, borne by Clinton’s birth in Hope, Arkansas. Obama’s speech is a linear symbiosis to the best of his party in the past century. When Obama calls on us to set aside the old politics of fear, he reminds us of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous words from his first inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
In essence, Barack Obama is continuing a legacy set long ago, nearly 76 years past, when the best of the Democrat Party was to bring Americans out of long periods of depression and lethargy. It’s a stark contrast to the ideas from the McCain campaign. Even now, as I write, McCain is talking about the liberal troika of Pelosi, Reid and Obama, saying Obama is more liberal than the one U.S. Senator who claims to be a Socialist.
McCain can’t even recall his colleague’s name, which, by the way, is Bernie Sanders. And Bernie Sanders is actually listed as an Independent, caucusing with the Democratic Party and refers to himself as a Democratic Socialist.
One more lie McCain is telling in this speech; That Obama went to Joe Wurzelbacher’s driveway to speak with Joe the Plumber. No senator, your buddy Joe sought out Obama at a campaign rally. You are making it up Senator McCain.
But this election isn’t a foregone conclusion. Monday, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough reminded us why the battleground states are so important. Scarborough said quite strongly Barack Obama would win the popular vote, by as much as 5,000,000 votes. Even so, McCain could win the election just by winning the electoral votes of these few states and that is still a real possibility.
That’s the scary reality of our election system. I’ve always been against the Electoral College and my fear was borne out in 2000 when the presidency was given to George W. Bush after Vice President Al Gore, Jr. won the popular vote. Can we let that happen again? If the Electoral College takes the will of the people away, can we continue to employ the Electoral College system, put in place when communicating from state-to-state took days, weeks even, so they tried to streamline the system with an electoral college?In Canada, where they just finished up their election, the popular vote wins and they count all of their votes — the popular vote — in one night. How is it Canada can do it so much better than we?
If you read the comments, I have been corrected. Canadians do not vote for their Prime Minister, but vote for their MP — Member of Parliament. Whichever party wins the election ... well, read the comment! Or read Her Blog!
Maybe it’s time, long past time, to have another amendment to the Constitution, this one doing away with the Electoral College. It’s out-dated and no longer serves its purpose.
One last thought: will McCain and Bush ever define “victory” in Iraq? McCain tries to make a big deal out of his position on Iraq, about bringing the troops home with victory, not just honor. He can’t even give us a concrete definition of success for the surge.
Sure violence in Iraq is down, but does anyone remember the 18 “benchmarks” of victory given to us nearly two years ago when McCain and Bush began pushing for the surge? According the Pentagon, only one of those benchmarks has been met, in a satisfactory manner, and “satisfactory” progress made on another. Of the other 16 benchmarks, they are all but forgotten now.
So, Senator McCain, define “success” for the surge and then define “victory” in Iraq. Over 4,000 men and women have died in Iraq since Bush started this war and our young men and women continue to give their Last Full Measure of Devotion. Thirteen just in October.
Maybe the violence in Iraq seems quieter because we aren’t getting any news about Iraq. Richard Engel of NBC, considered the most respected journalist in Iraq — he’s been there over five years with few breaks — just had a report that it isn’t so safe in Iraq. Indeed, the war has escalated to Syria. So much for victory in Iraq. Of course, McCain wants to expand that war into Iran as well.
And the final note: Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died Monday after a bout with cancer. She was 86. How sad she couldn’t live long enough to see and experience her Grandson on Election Day.
Did Mississippi governor, Republican Haley Barbour, just say on Hardball that for this presidential election, it’s the Democrat’s turn, historically? That’s as close as any McCain supporter has come to admitting McCain will most likely be defeated in this election.
Wow! Someone from the Right speaking the truth, acknowledging reality.
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