The Periphery of the Mind

To be blunt, I don't think Obama can fix anything. I think the problems are too great at this point, and I don't think Obama is the person to fix them anyway. Experience really does make a difference, as does timing, and Obama doesn't have enough of either I fear. He might surprise me, but I kind of doubt it. And I'm not comfortable with the idea of the Democrats controlling both the Executive and Legislative branches of government, but that can change hopefully by voting in a bunch of Republican Senators and Representatives. But if nothing else he sends the world the message that America has changed. That Bush is gone, and the American people are ready for Change.

McCain however, unintentionally scares me. I figure he's a good man, a successful man, filled with a good deal of luck in his later life. If it were truly just "Obama versus McCain" I'd feel better voting McCain. My fear comes from those McCain surrounds himself with and those he in turn supports. I expect four years of McCain really would be another 4 years of Bush. And while McCain has digressed with the party enough to anger GOP conservatives, that's more for his social and political reforms than anything else. When it comes to economics and the war effort he strikes me as another Bush, only with a bit more experience actually serving in the military (even if the most distinctive thing he did in the service was get captured and tortured). And McCain's POW history kind of sums up my view of his presidency: a proactive approach that will end with a crippling rather than any sort of victory. Being a POW does not make him another Patton or MacArthur, and people shouldn't assume McCain will magically bring peace to the Middle East.

And then there's Palin. Between reports of her "hypothetical book banning questions", the secrecy surrounding her income, e-mails, and ethics investigations, her desire to teach creationism alongside evolution in public schools, her initial "no media" protection bubbles, her flip-flopping on all these issues, her nomination as an attempt to pander for female votes who are still pissed Hillary didn't get the nomination, and general inability to answer questions posed to her with anything other than irrelevant "vote McCain" cheerleading, she scares the hell out of me. She'll be VP to a man that could very well die from the pressures of the job mixed with old age. A vote for McCain as president is a vote for Palin as president. And I can see McCain as a slightly better version of Bush, Palin most certainly is not.

So basically, while Obama strikes me as not being "the One", McCain really does feel like "more of the same". And I don't think this country can take another 4 years dumping our resources into propping up foreign nations that hate us as much as they hate each other.

Labels: politics