I've got all kinds of opinions about this race. I've made a decision a few weeks ago and it's become very cemented the last week or so. I'll leave it at that. I don't want to discuss specific partisan opinions here because first it's probably not allowed and second of all it can only end badly.
But a few interesting observations I've made along the way. I'm not one to have a ton of hope or trust by nature, but I do try to be optimistic and somehow I think that being really weird keeps me grounded and keeps me from going insane. Bipolar optimistically cynical.
The hurricane and devastation in New Jersey is horrific. But while some people are either demonizing Christy for being so grateful to the President or seem to be throwing it back in his face there is one thing that I got from it that I consider to be a positive. We're SO divided as a nation right now and whether it's the news outlets feeding it or the politicians themselves doing it there is absolute proof from this tragedy that people from different sides can recognize when the political bullshit is appropriate and when it's time to do what is needed by your people. Anyone that politicizes this situation for their own agenda is a special kind of sleazeball. Now the cynical side of it....it's a pretty damn sad state of affairs that we should be this moved by two men doing their damn jobs. See? I told you that I'm warped.
And for something that I find really funny. How badly do you think that these campaigns cringe when Donald Trump makes a $5MIL offer to Obama for his college records or when Michael Moore makes a commercial using old people that is really not that funny and highly offensive and kind of violent? I mean neither candidate is putting these two asshats on their Christmas card mailing list this year. I think that Trump secretly wants Obama to win and Michael Moore is actually a double agent for the Republicans after this last wave of stupidity.
Back to serious and probably disturbing. I asked a new co-worker his opinion of the debates while waiting in line for a flight. That conversation went exactly one sentence long because what came out of his mouth did two things to me. First it made me realize that no matter how intelligent someone is that doesn't mean that they are capable of a rational discussion and secondly that he managed to shut me up because I just couldn't respond to it. I won't repeat what he said, but I'll just say that I found something else to do for the next hour; I believe that it was staring at my shoelaces. What it really did was give me a perspective about this election that was probably part of the last election and the simple fact is that I just didn't really consider it before. In case you are completely dense it was racial. Of course I was dense enough to think that it was a non-issue in 2012 up to that point so don't feel too stupid.
I guess that as long as people have different color skin that race will always be a consideration. I guess the best we can hope for is that it's not the only consideration. I'm pretty damn naive for an old guy I guess.
The biggest thing I've gotten from this is just how horrible the "news" media has become. I already knew it was bad. It was so bad that I stopped watching it about 4 years ago. I started again. But now it's not even veiled or anything. I mean basically MSNBC is the 24/7 "Re-Elect Obama" campaign and Fox is 24/7 "Anyone other than Obama" campaign. Its so bad that if you look at their lineups for the big shows during prime-time they are the same exact shows except they have the exact opposite agendas:
Rachael Maddow vs Sean Hannity
Chris Matthews vs Bill O'Reilly
The Last word with Lawrence O'Donell vs On the Record with Greta Van Susteren...this one makes me laugh because they're both so damn authoritative sounding.
I'd have to place a substantial amount of blame for the division in this country on these two channels. CNN has a bit of a slant, but at least they have the damn common decency to try to hide it and be properly ashamed of it.
The only thing that scares me about this election is that its so centered around the economy. Once money becomes a deciding factor then people stop using their heads and start voting with their wallets which is attached to their hearts. It literally crushed my spirits knowing for a fact that the last debate which centered around foreign policy was a mere formality and holds no bearing on the outcome of this election. An election for a country that just ended a war in Iraq, is looking to get out of Afghanistan, is worried a nuclear capable Iran, has a mess in Libya and the worst part is that Israel hasn't been newsworthy because everything else over there is such a damn mess. Romney probably did the right thing in basically agreeing with everything that the current administration has done with the only difference being "but I'd do more of it", but when someone calls someone the worst president ever you need to come to the table with something more than "what he said." The problem is that he knew that he didn't have to say anything because no one cares about it as much as they do their money. I'm not saying that either guy was great here, but it is offensive to me that it was dismissed by everyone including the participants as meaningless in this race. Another one of those things that until it bites us in the ass we don't care about it.
Which brings me to my last point and why I'm worried. This part is completely non-partisan so if you read into it one way or the other than you are just reading it wrong. What I hear is people wanting to return to how things were a few years ago. You know, when everyone had a $700K house that they had no damn business getting approved for a mortgage in the first place and paying interest only. A deal so solid that the lenders sold them off and then bet against our ability to afford that mortgage by buying insurance against the loans. I won't even get into the unethical crap going on in the market because to be honest I don't even understand all the stuff that went on behind the scenes with deregulated crap here and there. The only thing that I know is that when the shit hit the fan the shit really hit the fan and it was bad enough that this country was threatened to the point that the government had to take some pretty costly measures to keep us from failing. Agree with their decision or not we were epically screwed and it was pretty damn bleak. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to put that fire out.
My point being that if you long for those times then you need to be willing to accept the hardship that follows and enjoy them because the higher you climb the farther you fall. The "good old days" of a few years ago were not sustainable and it nearly crippled us. If it happens again I don't think that we'll be able to recover. That's the pragmatic guy in me talking. I'd be happy with somewhere between the two points of utter stupidity and utter devastation when it comes to the economy.
Regardless of who you vote for in this election I pray to God that neither one of them puts us in that position again. We need to have some realistic expectations and be aware of the world we live in and if we don't learn from our past mistakes then we're going to make them again.
Of course I've had the great fortune of picking a loser in every election since I started following politics. The best part of that is I am afforded the Constitutional right to say in a very loud voice "don't blame me, I didn't vote for him."
