The State of the Race

The Democratic Party has put forth its most unelectable candidate in who knows how long.

The Republicans are still likely to lose.

Sad, isn't it? Here, briefly (I'll have an in-depth profile on each of them later), we have the candidates:
Barack Obama is young, charismatic, and eloquent. He is vastly inexperienced (he just finished his first term as a Senator; before that, his only experience consisted of being a legislator in Illinois). He is relatively unaccomplished (yes, being a Senator is an accomplishment, but he's done very little as a Senator other than to run for president). He is the most liberal Senator in the Capitol Building. And he lies.

John McCain is a hero, very experienced in military matters, and loyal to a fault. He is old. He has a vile temper. He can't give a good prepared speech to save his life. And when he's nervous, it shows-- a friend of mine says that he looks like a dog about to throw up. She's right. McCain is neither conservative nor liberal, which might play well except for his habit of kidney-punching conservatives just for the fun of it. And he lies.

I'd pick McCain. But unless something changes-- either a catastrophic mistake on Obama's part or America snaps out of its usual election-year amnesia-- Obama is going to win for one good and simple reason: he makes you believe that he should. The man is a speaker like none I've seen before.

This is not a reason to elect a person to the presidency. I can't force any campaign errors on Obama's part (let's hear it for unforced errors!). This blog exists, in part, to fight against the collective amnesia that seems to grip people when it comes to politics. Because this is important stuff, people. You can only ignore politics if you're sure that politics will ignore you, as the saying goes (anyone have a citation?)-- and politics is not leaving us alone right now. Talk to people. A person's political opinions are not sacrosanct-- this country was founded partly on the belief that you need to talk about politics. The Founders trusted us with this country, not an aristocracy, political parties, or anything else. Just us. Vote your conscience, but make sure you do it because you're informed, and have thought long and hard about who the Leader of the Free World should be. That's what George Washington and the rest trusted us to do.

Make 'em proud.