State of the Election - August 23, 2008

Since I have written nothing since before the primaries ended, I will back up a bit. I was happy to see Barack Obama win over Hillary Clinton. I think she had more of a chance at winning than Obama. I also am very tired of the Clintons and the Bushes. Only by a remote chance would Edwards have won. Even before his affair came to light, he would have been the easiest to beat. Oh well.

Obama
When Obama clinched the nomination, I knew that the more he became known, the less he would be liked. I thought the Media would do a better job at keeping him less known than they have, but their typical over-reactions to conservatives have coaxed them into keeping stories in the public eye long enough for people to get closer glimpses and they have not been pretty. I knew that Obama was phenomenally arrogant, a dyed in the wool socialist and had quite a number of bad associations. However, even I was surprised at how much of an empty suit he is. He is very shallow, cannot think on his feet and seems to have no core beliefs that he is willing to share with us. With this long election cycle it is amazing how long Obama has been in the Feasibility Stage of his campaign where we know very little about any details beyond "hope" and "change". When a detail does come out it never makes him look good ranging from laughable to downright scary:

- Energy plan = tire inflation + tune-ups + tapping oil reserve + taxing the heck out of Big Oil
- Tax plan = class warfare by soaking the rich + raising the Capital Gains tax even though he admits it will result in less revenue but will simply be fair
- Wants to move translators from Iraq to Afghanistan even though they don't speak the same language
- Foreign Policy plan = have talks with all despots in the world without preconditions
- Position on Russian aggression = Moral equivalence between Saddam's Iraq and Georgia + blame the victim (Georgia must have done something to provoke Russia)

Of course most of the details of his plans are given in some sort of code - "uh, uh, uh, uh, uh..." Has anybody tried to convert his long uuuhs and short uhs into Morse Code to see what he is really saying?

Now Obama has finally picked a running mate - Joe Biden. It is funny that I wrote on LA Sunsett's blog something that a day later Rush Limbaugh said - "Please let it be Biden". I took a look at a variety of blogs to take a pulse on the reaction to his pick and the verdict is that a lot of people are extremely excited about Obama picking Biden. Problem is that they are all conservatives. Even the comments on the liberal blogs about the pick seem only to be obligatory. Somehow they think that Biden's foreign policy experience is going to help Obama. What is he going to do - defer every foreign policy question to Biden? "Uh, uh, uh, I think I'll let Joe answer that one". As a final note on Biden: so far the marketing undertone has been comparing a young, vibrant, good-looking black man that can give good speeches to a tired looking white-haired white guy that can't give speeches as well. So what does Obama do? He picks a tired looking white-haired white guy that can't give speeches as well for his running mate. You can't make this stuff up.

McCain
I would be lying if I said I was thrilled that McCain was the nominee. He is barely GOP, and nowhere near a conservative. When he clinched the nomination, I could only shake my head and silently curse Huckabee and his brain dead following. I went for the first month wondering if I could even pull the lever for him. Since I am a conservative more than a Republican, I wished we had a viable conservative alternative. However, even if I wanted to throw away my vote I certainly have no desire to give it to Ron Paul or Bob Barr. So I basically said silently to McCain, "Convince me". I have to admit he has made progress in that area.

First, McCain has always been the only National Security candidate (notice I say only - not stronger. Obama is totally absent on National Security, not just weak). Second, McCain will at least nominate a Sandra Day O'Conner instead of a Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Both his Presidency and his Supreme Court appointments will only disappoint and anger me some of the time instead of all of the time like Obama's. With the balance of the Court as it is, if Obama is elected you can expect at least 2 liberal justices to retire soon after. We run the risk of several deaths as most are now quite old. A single loss of one of the four conservatives being replaced by Obama will be unrecoverable in the next decade. With the tendency of Leftist justices to make up law out of whole cloth the deck will be stacked in favor of the Left for the next 25 years.

Still, I wanted McCain to convince me about McCain. I have been pleasantly surprised by a few things:

- I truly thought McCain was going to roll over and be a nice guy during the campaign while Obama and his media surrogates beat McCain to a pulp. McCain has a spine on the campaign trail and is willing hit back and hard. Good for him.
- His tax policy does not leave me grabbing protectively for my wallet like Obama's
- While some call it a flip-flop, McCain sees that with gas over $4 per gallon we have to take necessary steps boost supply. Hey, if I refuse to buy a plasma screen TV, but change my mind if the cost is cut in half - am I a flip-flopper? No, you can only be a flip-flopper if the conditions remain the same except for populist belief. The high gas prices are hurting the big and little guy alike.
- McCain has been very strong in his words against Russia. His foreign policy has strength and clarity.

I have issues with McCain, but for the most part the issues that affect me directly I think he is ok. I wish he would change positions on illegal immigration, but he is the status quo. I will never be a cheerleader for McCain, but I believe he has taken some steps to convince me to vote for him instead of merely voting against Obama.

Outlook
I have no predictions at this time. The election can go either way at this point. McCain has shrewdly announced that Obama will get a 15 point bump in the polls from the Democrat Convention. If Obama comes near that, McCain can downplay it as to be expected. If, however, Obama fails to get such a significant bump McCain can paint the convention as falling short of expectations. I doubt Obama will obtain a double digit bump.

The question about the Democrat Convention is whether or not any Obama policy details will materialize or will he continue to attempt to skate on the "hope" and "change" mantras? We have seen that details are poison to Obama, but the lack of them furthers the portrait of arrogance and emptiness.

One thing that will not change much between now and November is the excitement factor. Most of Obama's fanatics will continue to be excited about him regardless of what they do or don't know about him. Excitement for McCain, though, will never materialize. So motivation to get conservatives to the voting booth is going to be an uphill battle no matter what happens between now and then. We can only hope that enough of those planning to vote for Obama that are outside of the screaming rock star fan club will lose trust, faith and support for him and stay home to balance the lack of motivation on the McCain side.

One final thought that may suspiciously sound like a prediction even though I said I wasn't making any. I think that since the strongest support of Obama will come from the metropolitan areas and the true blue states, there is a strong possibility that Obama will obtain the popular vote and lose electorally. If that happens, prepare for the storm.