Okay…Maybe I’m a Little Interested
I know I’ve sworn off interest in national politics and the presidential election, but I must admit that now it’s getting kind of interesting. It took me a while to finally watch the whole Barack Obama speech at the DNC, but dammit, I was inspired.
He really does have a message of hope that I’ve seen ripple through some unlikely places. He seems to have won over many of my similarly cynical blogger comrades, including some of the Queen of My Universe’s economic bloggers, who tend to be dour and pessimistic about things in general. Here’s Bill Cara’s take on the DNC and all that that implies.
Another reason that I’m starting to care is that, with the news of McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as CD, the McDaddy has gotten just plain silly. I really question his ability to lead. A couple weeks ago I got one of my regular e-mails from MoveOn.org suggesting that McCain, being 72, is unfit to lead and should also undergo a test for Alzheimer’s. At the time I thought this was kind of crass and politically incorrect, but now I’m starting to wonder.
The QoMU has some special insight into McCain’s choice because she grew up in Palmer, Alaska, which is a town over from Wausilla, which is where Sarah Palin honed her not-so-vast political skills. While Palmer is an actual town, Wausilla was a burgeoning series of strip malls with no other distinguishable features. Hence I am to believe that being mayor of such a burg does not imbue one with great amounts of political credibility. Okay…she was governor of Alaska, which means she was pretty tight with Ted Stevens, and all that that implies.
Evidence?
Which devil do we associate McPalin with… Bush or Stevens?
So what the hell was McCain thinking? There are probably scores of other faithful Republican women more capable of filling the VP shoes than Palin. This almost worse than Bush picking Harriet Myers to be on the Supreme Court. At least she’s a lawyer with some cred, and Bush knew her a while.
I applaud Obama for calling the Palin family off limits. It really doesn’t matter to me if her daughter got knocked up or her husband got a DUI. But do you think for a minute the Republicans wouldn’t have Willie Hortoned all over similar smears in the Obama clan if they existed? Look how they crucified him for listening in church.
The McCain faithful have already rationalized this affront to morality. On NPR this morning I heard one woman say how wonderful it is that little Bristol has chosen the moral high ground of carrying the baby to term, marrying the father and raising it in a christian environment. Like she has a choice.
What I’m wondering is if her “trooper-gate” scandal will reap the same effects as Elliot Spitzer’s. Will it uncover some darker secret equivalent to Spitzer’s whoring and hypocrisy? I hope so.
Back to Obama and my gushing. I always looked at his campaign of hope a little cynically. Okay…more than a little cynically. Then after hearing “the speech” I started to think a little differently about his message. In the darkest periods of my life, when I was kicking my addictions and everything in my life was collapsing around me, all that saved me was a profound hope that my recovery program instilled in me. It was that hope that kept me from ending my life.
While I still see our economy and government collapsing, Obama gives me just a little bit of hope that it won’t, and even if it does that maybe…just maybe Obama could be the person to help them rise quickly from the ashes. Hope at its deepest level isn’t rational or empirical… and so I can’t really put my finger just yet on why Obama gives me hope.
Filed under: Politics on September 2nd, 2008
Wow, everything I had in my head about politics was swept aside by your personal story at the end. I didn’t know you were a recovered addict, or formerly suicidal. Congrats on getting sober, I’m not really sure what more to say, just know that I really mean that. I’ve had friends go through that, it’s extremely hard, but its worth it. And thanks for not ending it all, I’d never get comments on my blog if you were dead. Sorry little humor as a defense mechanism there, my oldest cousin killed himself when I was a kid. Whatever pain he needed to cured himself of is nothing compared to the pain he inflicted on his mother. And thats all I’m going to say about that.
Ok now I gotta say something about politics because thats way too heavy. I’ll start at the end, hope. I’d like to think that there is some rational support for hope. I mean if you look at the span of civilization, we are heading in the right direction, so yeah we’ve had a nasty downturn for the last 8 years but it’s not like slavery came back, or women lost the right to vote. The path to a more liberal world is kinda like that graph Al Gore busted out in An Inconvenient Truth, it cycles up and down pretty regularly, but ultimately its heading in a distinct direction. And the cycles make sense. The country gets conservative for a while, say the 50′s, then there is a backlash against that norm and we swing the other way. The late 60′s till the late 70′s were damn liberal, then there was a backlash against them and we got Reagan. Americans are never happy with those in charge, were too lazy to revolt so these days we just tend to vote for the opposite party. So I really think that right now the country is primed and ready to strike back against conservatives. Who knows we might even get to go on the offensive and pass some good laws instead of being on constant defense trying not to lose what was gained back in the 60′s.
As for Palin, um yeah I think its a huge insult to Hillary supporters. Of course maybe I’m naive, I’m sitting here assuming that people liked Clinton because of her policies and wanted to see womens rights. I really hope that McCain isn’t right when he callously assumes that her supporters just wanted a woman in the white house and don’t care about womens rights, which Palin venomously fights against. Maybe I have too much faith in the American people but I honestly don’t think McCain stands a chance so I’m just not that worried.
And since when am I cynical? hehe just kidding.
I ran across your blog when searching for more truth on the invasion of Russia. I completely agree with what you and your friend have said. I grew up in a very conservative household. (If they knew who I voted for in the last election, I might be disowned…) When I watched Obama’s speech, I was inspired as well. Suddenly the country didn’t seem completely ruined by everything around us. He was inspiring and hopeful and believes in maybe not everything he says but most of it.
I watched the other acceptance speech last night and ended up frightened. I hate war. I now fear it more than ever that the media is pushing for us to hate Russia. I don’t. I think what they did in the conflict is very respectable. I searched for more info on sites that allow questions like yahoo but the questions about the real conflict have been removed which is why I’m glad your site is still up. I fear my government right now and I hate that.
I hope more people stumble onto your notions and read excellent opinions.
Thanks!
~Karen Marie
Wow… thanks Karen. I think you just made my week. Sometimes I think nobody’s listening except Kilgore. Corporate media is pushing the ignorant masses in some scary directions.