McCain and Palin

McCain was a maverick, like his seat-holding predecessor before him, one Barry Goldwater. One of the father's of modern American conservatism. Goldwater is largely credited with removing control of the Republican party from the east coast members. It's the GOP you see today.

But he's a maverick no more. Getting the nomination for president has either forced him or allowed him to move to the right and support policies that earned him my respect in the past. I'm all for campaign finance reform. I thought he was principled, like Hillary. Now I realize that he just REALLY wants to be president.

It was smart to chose Palin as he got the attention that he was looking for as well as exciting his base. He cannot win without his base (neither can Obama). Electoral politics is simple at the national level: do enough stuff to please your base so they'll vote for you but do enough stuff to anger your base to get independents to vote for you. There's no other way to win with 1/3 of the electorate split between R, D and I (or small 'i').

Palin makes me nervous. I don't trust anyone who misrepresents themselves and it seems like her home paper has some concerns about her rhetoric. If they are worried, I'm downright scared. She took the 'bridge to nowhere' money from Congress and spent in on other stuff. And it's not a 'bridge to nowhere,' it's a bridge to the airport in Ketchican. But the road TO the bridge to nowhere is still being built, as AK would have had to give that $$ back, had they not built the road. So they are building the road to a beach. Seriously.

I still think this election is wide open.

And I don't like Biden, either. I went to see him speak on Capitol Hill about 10 years ago at a small event (at a bar) and he said 'Trust me, I'm serious, I mean this' about a million times in 15 minutes. That makes me nervous. I brought that up to a friend of mine the other day and then I saw a little article about this issue in Newsweek near the front. I think they counted these types of phrases from his nomination acceptance speech at the convention. I guess I'm not the only one to notice...

Plus, he's from Delaware. Is Delaware still a state?

'Hi, we're in Delaware.'

My biggest memory from Delaware is being in an accident with a buddy of mine from college, pulling a dead woman from her car that was leaking gasoline and having the state police tell me 'oh yeah, this happens all the time at this intersection' on Rte 13 north.

Great. Thanks. Delaware = death.

Boy, this really got off the tracks. Did I mention I'm voting for Obama?

Very simple: it would send the best, most positive message to the rest of the world about the US.

You've got your reasons, I've got mine. Things won't change that much even if you put a trained monkey in the White House.

Don't believe me? How about the last 8 years? See!