Countdown to the Election… 8 Days and Counting

I, for one, have got to say, that I’m glad that we’re in the home stretch for this election cycle.  I don’t know about anyone else, but it seems like this election has gone on longer than any other in history.  It appears as if the writing is on the wall for the GOP and McCain.  To be perfectly honest, I won’t be overly surprised if it does turn out that way.

I have surmised, since the mid-term elections of 2006, that the Democrats could put Mickey Mouse at the top of their ticket, and they would still beat out whoever the GOP nominee would be.  There are a few things about this election that have taken me by surprise, and I’ll list these in no particular order of importance.

First, I was really surprised that John McCain came back and won the GOP nomination.  I was a huge fan of McCain’s back in the 2000 campaign, before I felt he was railroaded by the GOP establishment.  However, this time around, something seems to be lacking from his message.  This cycle, I’m not seeing the John McCain of 2000.

Second, I never would have thought that a freshman senator would defeat the heavily favored Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.  This turn of events really caught me by surprise.  Now, mind you, I’m not a Hillary supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but, I think she, and her campaign, didn’t take Obama seriously enough.

Third, not in a million years did I think I would see John McCain pick a woman to be his running mate.  Granted, there has been a lot of negative press regarding Sarah Palin, but I think a lot of it is unwarranted.  Is she qualified to be president?  Perhaps not, however, I will argue, that she reminds me a lot of Bill Clinton when people said he didn’t have the experience, in particular, in the area of foreign policy, and yet, he was elected president.  In my opinion, governors are more equipped to handle the task of being president than a senator.  I firmly believe there is a very specific reason why our country doesn’t elect sitting legislators to be president.  If we elect Obama to the White House, we’ll all see soon enough, and will get a strong reinforcement of a lesson we need to relearn.  This would be the case even if we elect McCain.

Fourth, I am really dismayed with how the media has been in the tank for Barack Obama.  He, nor his running mate Joe Biden, seem to get any tough questions from the media.  I’m not saying they’re getting a free pass, but come on.  Biden’s interview with a local Orlando news station should speak volumes.  Tough questions aren’t expected by the campaign, and if you do ask those questions, you’re blacklisted.  I think it may be a precursor of how open an Obama administration would be to critical and in depth questions that actually require some thought.

Something that really confuses me is the perception that the Democrats are going to win a landslide victory, not only for the White House, but the Congress as well.  This democratically controlled Congress has passed no meaningful legislation in two years.  I should know, I subscribe to the house majority leader’s weekly legislative schedule.  This Congress is also has the lowest approval rating of any Congress in history!  Yet, despite this approval rating, people are going to elect even MORE Democrats to Congress.  I suppose the biggest question of the day is whether or not the Democrats will get the magical number 60 in the Senate.

I’ve grown particularly tired of the gotcha politics that have embroiled this country during most of the Bush presidency.  I’m not so sure that having a unified government will completely eliminate gotcha politics, all that it will mean, is a highly liberal agenda that will be run by Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid, and a possible President Obama.  I’m personally not a big fan of a far left liberal agenda, nor a far right agenda, for that matter, however, we’ve gone the path of a divided government, perhaps, our country needs to see what these folks can do, see if they can improve the situation, or make it a lot worse. 

Well, we’ll find out in the next week.  As I mentioned earlier, I will be so glad when it is over, and then we can start talking about solutions to problems, very serious problems that need to be resolved.