Oct292008

Obama is still an Underdog

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I sometimes wonder how many readers I’ve driven away with all the political links I’ve been posting lately. There’s the obvious liberal bias: linking to Obama speeches, moderately left places like HuffPo and attack dogs like Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan. And I do have this mildly-disturbing man-love thing going for Obama in the same way that I have for Brad Pitt: young, personable, high-brow and at the top of their game.

But I’ve probably lost more readers just because I’m posting less often. I stopped looking at my stats when I stopped posting. I’m going to assume they’re in the gutter anyway. I never had more than 25 regular readers at any given time. Considering class sizes today, the average kindergarten teacher probably has a larger audience.

Obama Supporters – Don’t Let Up

Anyway, enough navel gazing. I am writing this to tell you that America is a week away from voting for its next president and even though all the polls say Obama is ahead and projected to win more seats, he’s still got an uphill battle. So get out and vote for him.

First, McCain is still on the attack. McCain’s campaign has not elevated the level of the political conversation in America. They have rustled up so much hate, fear and ignorance in their campaign and have sold their integrity to the highest bidder. They’ve become as antithetical to republican principles as they have to democrat ones. The reason true Republicans won’t vote for him is because the campaign no longer represents the interests of the party. John McCain hasn’t gone maverick, he’s gone rogue and he’s certainly not going to start taking the high ground now when thinks he’ll lose.

Second, people are complacent. This American system of optional voting is both enviable and frustrating to me. I think it’s important that, if you give a damn, then you should stand up and be counted. Even if you’re in one of those “gimme” states that are thoroughly Democrat or Republican, it’s important to be counted as a person who cares. Let the politicians know that you are paying attention. My radical proposal would be to make election day a holiday and force every American to fill out a ballot as long as they have to option to vote “Present” like senators do.

Finally, remember when Al Gore lost? Al Gore wasn’t even a secret Arab Muslim communist. He was just a Super Grandpa that invented the internet so we could surf for porn and organize bake sales. I am convinced that in the aftermath of November 4, we’re going to see a whole lot of shit flying about voter suppression, ballot stuffing, hanging chads, and voting machines that are dumber than vending machines. I’m not kidding. You ask for Doritos and I’ll bet you that machine will give you Doritos; I don’t have that kind of faith in voting machines.

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4 comments »

deutlich

I will be voting with bells on — and I am still worried we’ll have the same kind of issues that we’ve had in the past.
Karan
My radical proposal would be to make election day a holiday

Or, y’know, make it on a weekend, like Australia?

And also, it puzzles me no end why America has all these needlessly complex and broken systems for voting, when pencil-on-a-paper voting seems to work just fine everywhere else in the world, India (world’s biggest democracy) included. Sure, results aren’t computer-instantaneous, but you can bet the controversy would go away. This shit shouldn’t be this complicated.
Jack

@deutlich Awesome. You should take photos of your vote. :D

@Karan It would be hard to move it to a weekend. There are already protections in place so that citizens are allowed to take time from work to go vote. Moving that to a weekend would just anger people.

Perhaps the argument against pen and paper is that it worked a little too well. It’s easier to change 10,000 database rows than it is to update 10,000 pieces of paper.
Maxie

It still is insane to me that lines are so long everywhere– I already voted and the lines here in WV are not bad at all… I can guarantee that most of my friends would just walk away if they had to wait in any kind of line.

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