Election Night

This election cycle has taught us a lot about John McCain and Barack Obama. We've learned more, I think, from the way they each campaign than from any of the late election smear campaigns.

As of this point in the evening (7:30), Vermont has been called from Obama and Kentucky has been called for McCain. No real surprises there.

I was forwarded an article from Rolling Stone that completely took McCain apart from his childhood on. It made the case, very well, that McCain was a selfish, womanizing hot dog for most of his adult life. It also contended that his success in life is the direct result of flagrant nepotism. It painted the man as saying or doing absolutely anything that would make him look good, as well as making erratic decisions with sometimes disastrous consequences.
These contentions make a lot of sense in the context of McCain's political life, and his 2008 presidential campaign has provided a lot of evidence for their veracity. Sarah Palin is one such erratic decision, I feel. He seems to have spent very little time in considering her, and I believe that he only met her once or twice before declaring her his veep pick. Se was, of course, under investigation, and has very little experience on the national and world stages. Oh, and she's an idiot. Okay, that last jab was mine. Her politics are evangelical Christian conservative. If McCain was banking on the fact that she is a woman, thinking that this is the only thing that Hillary Clinton supporters care about, he seriously underestimated them. Hillary had women's issues at heart, after all, and Palin takes the opposite tack on all of them. The only think McCain could seriously hope to gain with Pain was the renewed respect of the religious right....and who would they vote for anyway? Not a Democrat.

OK,TN and SC have been called for McCain. ME,MA,CT,NJ,DE,MD and IL have been called for Obama. (8:26)

So yeah, I once said that McCain would probably be better than Bush. I don't think I believe that anymore. His reactions are too reflexive, he has too hot of a temper, he's not enough of a diplomat to be a real head of state.

Speaking of things that are ridiculous, accusations of "socialism" are really annoying echoes of Nixon's lambasting his opponents as "soft on Communism". Even if Obama was a true socialist, there is no way true socialist policy could be made with even a supermajority of Democrats in congress. There would be too much resistance. The biggest socialist steps we ever took came only after a decade of absolutely terrible economic performance. Not that our economy has really been that great during the Bush era.

Waiting with 'bated breath.