Despair

The most worrisome aspect of the current political climate is that it has made me, one of the most politically active people I know, completely turned off to it. I was so excited when I saw Obama speak in Berlin this year; I was so excited that a black man, an articulate, intelligent, educated black man who shared many of my ideas politically won the nomination of my party. But now, now that the hope has been sucked out of the campaign, in one stark slap across the face in the form of a 40-minute speech at the Republican National Convention, I am already disappointed even before the fact.

I now believe that Obama will lose the election.

The only glimmer of hope is that some in the media are starting to call a spade a spade and talk about the McCain campaign’s lies, actually using just that word “lies”. That’s really how I feel, that McCain is telling a bunch of whoppers and that Americans everywhere, so easily dissuaded because of “spin”, don’t really care or know whether they are true or not. This election will be about personalities, not politics, as McCain’s campaign advisor so rightly said. Well, that is just sad. So sad.

Dick Armey’s correct assessment of the American electorate with his theories about the “Bubba vote” (voters who resonate with Obama’s ideas, but that will, in the end, not vote for him because he is black) greatly trouble me, too. Chick Todd, on Meet the Press, also understood this incalculable, unpollable danger into account when he said that Obama would need to be ahead in some swing states by at least 48% in order to cancel out these independent “Bubba” voters. They are the ones who have said that they are undecided only because they are unwilling to take a hard stance against Obama, all the while knowing that they won’t vote for the man.

There is only one hope now, that Palin makes some huge, in your face mistake before the election.

The only other hope, one which I do not even flippantly entertain in my mind, is the hope that Americans will simply see through the lies and propaganda. Two words dissuade me from believing this, though: “Swift” and “Boat”.

I hope you all enjoy your soccer mom as president. I hope the international leaders find her charm as folksy as you have once 72-year-old McCain kicks the bucket in his first year.

But, you know what, if it happens, then you deserve the consequences. That is what the last 8 years have been anyway, haven’t they—payback for bad choices? I can understand how the election in 2000 took place, that seemed like a fluke. But you elected that idiot TWICE! I agree that the majority spoke in the last two elections. I also simultaneously agree that you all got what you deserved by making such a stupid choice. The Iraq war, the repeal of habeus corpus, Guantanemo Bay, a plunging dollar, a housing crisis, bringing on an overall economic crisis, these are all what you brought onto yourselves. Now, if you vote for McCain, you will be wishing onto yourselves more of the same, perhaps worse. And you will deserve it.

America, I am so close to giving up on you. I feel like some battered wife who stupidly sticks by her man. And now, in the midst of another beating, I keep repeating to myself “this can’t be happening”.