For the Record II
For the Record II
A number of online articles have appeared with headlines stating
"McCain takes responsibility for losing"
or asking "Did Palin lose?"
And I was very tempted to just post a pithy quip:
"McCain didn't lose, Obama won."
Truthfully, though, that would be disingenious.
In any competition between two competitors, there is a winner and a loser.
So really, Obama won and McCain lost.
Facts is facts.
Really, in any Presidential election, there are two possible candidates that have any chance of winning, which is why America is referred to as having a two-party system. And since "none of the above" is not on the ballot, often there is a third party candidate - an Anderson, Perot or Nader - to offer an option or protest vote for voters who want it known that they don't like either viable candidate.
Beyond that, there is the "lesser of two evils" strategy. Decide on which candidate you like least and vote against him by selecting the only viable candidate with a chance of beating him. In this case Obama was the anti-McCain.
Saturday Night Live resurged to remarkable relevance this election. and in one memorable sketch Will Ferrell returned to reprise his portrayal of G. W. Bush Jr. and endorsed his parties candidate by saying "[pointing to self] Remember this face when you enter that voting booth. Right here. A vote for John McCain is a vote for George W. Bush."
Even a branch of the Democratic party distributed bumper stickers reading "no third term".
McCain himself acknowledged this perception in one of the debates when he said "I'm not George W. Bush, Senator. If you wanted to run against him you should have done so in 2000 or 2004."
And yet, no doubt a lot of people who voted for Obama were voting against the last eight years of unjustified warfare and economic crisis and mounting national debt and misguided policies.
And I suspect more than a few Obama voters were disappointed Clinton supporters who threw in their support half-heartedly in order to vote against "four more years" of same old same old.
Although I am not a huge fan of politics I did feel obligated to watch the debates and compare the candidates.
What I saw was two candidates reciting their campaign platforms and talking points. but one candidate's talking points sounded like catch phrases, the others like well reasoned and eloquent expressions of well thought out plans and intentions.
And when C-Span showed a split screen so you could watch one candidate while the other spoke, well...
I saw Obama shake his head in disbelief at McCain's misinformation and half-truths and untruths - the same lies that seemed to make up the majority of his campaign ads - and then utter a curt "That's not true."
But when Obama spoke I saw McCain smirk and smugly grin with an undisguised and unsupported overconfidence that suggest he believed what some Americans believed and, I'll admit it, others feared: That he couldn't lose.
Say "African-American". Say Black. And no doubt in your sub-conscious you are aware of a variety of other nicknames, slang terms, epithets, guarded hand signals and outright offensive racial slurs that you might never speak in polite company. But deep down many of us feared that America was still rooted in the Montgomery, Alabama of George Wallace in the early '60s, the racist Amerikka that would never elect a Black President.
The thought that the common voter might believe or fear that is one thing - the thought that a candidate and possible President might believe that was simply unacceptable.
I, like many Americans, am very proud that we have shown the world that this is no longer so.
All over the world there are people who are happy and proud that this is no longer so. Apparently Obama's election day has been declared a national holiday in Kenya.
I turned 18 the year American lowered the voting age to 18. Lucky me. Although America provides the assurance of a private ballot, I am not afraid to go public with my voting record.
In 1972 I voted against re-electing Nixon. America voted for him, but see where that got you?
I very much voter for Carter. Both times, though he only won once.
Yes, I voted against Reagan's Contra-gate tinged reelection. And I voted against the real Bush both times.
With Clinton under siege, I wanted to vote for his reelection. But there was a larger issue: The remote but very possible issue that a deeply religious President might actually believe that the year 2000 or the start of the new millennium in 2001 would actually be the start of the End Times and trigger the Apocalypse on Earth. So I entered the 1996 race on a "Just Say No to Armageddon" platform and ran against Bob Dole. I withdrew from the race in the final weeks before the election and threw my endorsement and vote to the non-Dole candidate - though as criticism of Clinton continued I did reserve the right to claim "Don't blame me, I ran against him".
During the 2000 election a Democratic fund raising mailing sent me a very nice 8X10 portrait of Al Gore. After the narrow-squeak election in which the Supreme Court improperly assumed the right to appoint the man with fewer popular votes the winner I framed and hung up my picture of my President Gore in the stairway gallery where it remains and will remain until the end of the W. era.
With Kerry, I must admit, my vote was cast against Bush.
But as I said, I watch the debates and observed both candidates. What I saw supported my choice of candidate.
As many people pointed out, with either candidate, the Bush era was at an end. As McCain himself said, it was too late to again vote against W.
And as I have written, I did not vote against the white guy or against the female VP candidate or against the old guy. I voted for the smart guy.
And more to the point, I did not vote against John McCain.
I voted FOR President Barack Obama.
= Randall Hugh Crawford =
So much for a private ballot...
A number of online articles have appeared with headlines stating
"McCain takes responsibility for losing"
or asking "Did Palin lose?"
And I was very tempted to just post a pithy quip:
"McCain didn't lose, Obama won."
Truthfully, though, that would be disingenious.
In any competition between two competitors, there is a winner and a loser.
So really, Obama won and McCain lost.
Facts is facts.
Really, in any Presidential election, there are two possible candidates that have any chance of winning, which is why America is referred to as having a two-party system. And since "none of the above" is not on the ballot, often there is a third party candidate - an Anderson, Perot or Nader - to offer an option or protest vote for voters who want it known that they don't like either viable candidate.
Beyond that, there is the "lesser of two evils" strategy. Decide on which candidate you like least and vote against him by selecting the only viable candidate with a chance of beating him. In this case Obama was the anti-McCain.
Saturday Night Live resurged to remarkable relevance this election. and in one memorable sketch Will Ferrell returned to reprise his portrayal of G. W. Bush Jr. and endorsed his parties candidate by saying "[pointing to self] Remember this face when you enter that voting booth. Right here. A vote for John McCain is a vote for George W. Bush."
Even a branch of the Democratic party distributed bumper stickers reading "no third term".
McCain himself acknowledged this perception in one of the debates when he said "I'm not George W. Bush, Senator. If you wanted to run against him you should have done so in 2000 or 2004."
And yet, no doubt a lot of people who voted for Obama were voting against the last eight years of unjustified warfare and economic crisis and mounting national debt and misguided policies.
And I suspect more than a few Obama voters were disappointed Clinton supporters who threw in their support half-heartedly in order to vote against "four more years" of same old same old.
Although I am not a huge fan of politics I did feel obligated to watch the debates and compare the candidates.
What I saw was two candidates reciting their campaign platforms and talking points. but one candidate's talking points sounded like catch phrases, the others like well reasoned and eloquent expressions of well thought out plans and intentions.
And when C-Span showed a split screen so you could watch one candidate while the other spoke, well...
I saw Obama shake his head in disbelief at McCain's misinformation and half-truths and untruths - the same lies that seemed to make up the majority of his campaign ads - and then utter a curt "That's not true."
But when Obama spoke I saw McCain smirk and smugly grin with an undisguised and unsupported overconfidence that suggest he believed what some Americans believed and, I'll admit it, others feared: That he couldn't lose.
Say "African-American". Say Black. And no doubt in your sub-conscious you are aware of a variety of other nicknames, slang terms, epithets, guarded hand signals and outright offensive racial slurs that you might never speak in polite company. But deep down many of us feared that America was still rooted in the Montgomery, Alabama of George Wallace in the early '60s, the racist Amerikka that would never elect a Black President.
The thought that the common voter might believe or fear that is one thing - the thought that a candidate and possible President might believe that was simply unacceptable.
I, like many Americans, am very proud that we have shown the world that this is no longer so.
All over the world there are people who are happy and proud that this is no longer so. Apparently Obama's election day has been declared a national holiday in Kenya.
I turned 18 the year American lowered the voting age to 18. Lucky me. Although America provides the assurance of a private ballot, I am not afraid to go public with my voting record.
In 1972 I voted against re-electing Nixon. America voted for him, but see where that got you?
I very much voter for Carter. Both times, though he only won once.
Yes, I voted against Reagan's Contra-gate tinged reelection. And I voted against the real Bush both times.
With Clinton under siege, I wanted to vote for his reelection. But there was a larger issue: The remote but very possible issue that a deeply religious President might actually believe that the year 2000 or the start of the new millennium in 2001 would actually be the start of the End Times and trigger the Apocalypse on Earth. So I entered the 1996 race on a "Just Say No to Armageddon" platform and ran against Bob Dole. I withdrew from the race in the final weeks before the election and threw my endorsement and vote to the non-Dole candidate - though as criticism of Clinton continued I did reserve the right to claim "Don't blame me, I ran against him".
During the 2000 election a Democratic fund raising mailing sent me a very nice 8X10 portrait of Al Gore. After the narrow-squeak election in which the Supreme Court improperly assumed the right to appoint the man with fewer popular votes the winner I framed and hung up my picture of my President Gore in the stairway gallery where it remains and will remain until the end of the W. era.
With Kerry, I must admit, my vote was cast against Bush.
But as I said, I watch the debates and observed both candidates. What I saw supported my choice of candidate.
As many people pointed out, with either candidate, the Bush era was at an end. As McCain himself said, it was too late to again vote against W.
And as I have written, I did not vote against the white guy or against the female VP candidate or against the old guy. I voted for the smart guy.
And more to the point, I did not vote against John McCain.
I voted FOR President Barack Obama.
= Randall Hugh Crawford =
So much for a private ballot...
posted by Napoleon Park at 5:21 PM
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