Saturday, August 2, 2008

The Presidential Race of 2008

I'm not usually that interested in politics but it is hard to ignore this year. I thought, in the beginning, both the Democrats & the Republicans had some great options on the table for candidates. But, some how, we ended up with these two bozos. Well, maybe that's a little harsh but I thoroughly believe there were much better options to begin with.

I am registered as a Democrat mainly because that is what mom & dad told me to do when I was 18. Something about being able to vote in local elections or something that I didn't care to understand at the time & still don't understand even though I would like to now. Having said that, during the election before last, when I was living in Arkansas, I started researching the two parties to see which went along with my values/opinions/beliefs. And, even though I don't agree with many of their policies/stances/platforms, I was clearly Republican. I have never changed my registration but I think I will as soon as I figure out how to do that.

Now, as to the election. I was going to have a more difficult time deciding if it were going to be a Clinton-McCain run (even though I am hard-line against many of Clinton's ideas), but now the decision is beyond easy. I will be voting for McCain. Not necessarily because I like McCain but because I am so against Obama. I think that is probably what McCain is counting on from a large percentage of his "supporters." Especially in the light of some new ads that have been released (For example, Celeb, The One, & Barack Obama Forgot Latin America).

I don't know if any of you have seen any of these ads, & I must confess these are the only two I've seen, but they are crap. They are attack ads against Obama which I know are part of it & don't hold any false expectations that, all of a sudden, this race will be any different from any of the ones in the past & "mud-slinging" will be omitted. If anything, I expect this one to be even dirtier. Having said that, I would like to see some ads by McCain that focus more on what his views, plans, etc... are. McCain, stop telling us how Obama is going to drop the ball & tell us how you are going to be different. Which is a good point that Obama did say in response to these ads & I do agree with him on that issue.

One of the ads, in Spanish, talks about how Obama went to Berlin & mentioned every country except Mexico. This ad made me so angry on several basis. First off, I don't want to offend any of my Hispanic friends. I have nothing against Mexicans or Mexicans who have legally obtained their American citizenship & are a productive part of our society. What I do take offense to are illegals (from any nation) & those who don't feel any need to learn English. Having said that, I will now move on to my point.

The first thing that irritated me was the title, Barack Obama Forgot Latin America. My first thought is, "Hello, he's not running for President of the world, he's running for President of America." So, what.

Then I started watching the video. The first thing you see is some Spanish words. This irritates me also because of what I mentioned before. Why are ads being run in any other language other than English? You have to speak English in order to obtain American citizenship so I just don't understand. If you can't speak English then you can't have an American citizenship then you can't vote. Why are they wasting money on ads for people who only speak Spanish. If you can't read English, then what are you going to do at the polls? Oh, yeah, that's right. They now have the ballots in Spanish. Arrrrhhhh!!!

The third thing that I thought was more funny than irritating was that Obama mentions all these nations but leaves out Latin America, hence the title. But, he also left out Canada, Greenland, Iceland, what about them? Where are their commercials? Again, what are they running for?

Just to reiterate, I am for McCain (mainly because I'm against Obama) but his publicity people need to stop focusing on the competition & start concentrating on the issues!

I have several blog entries I plan on writing between now & November on this & I'm sure it won't stop at November. This is going to be an exciting Autumn this year. Is everybody registered?

2 comments:

W2b said...

Honestly I don't vote and never will. I know that is just horrible, but that is me. I got lucky and my hubby feels the same way. Just not sure if any candidate is good enough to run the country. So forget it. Bad attitude I know I know...But that was a great post and you are a great writer!

Anonymous said...

wow
my first time and an excellent political analisis
you must be in the south if your folks told you to register Dem. It used to be in local elections you couldnt vote if you weren't reg. dem. because ALL the candidates were registered dem. so the election was decided in the primary and never went to a general because all the candidates were in the same party, thats why your folks told you that, good advice at the time. You can change you party with a simple trip to the supervisor of elections dept. and a simple form to fill out. You can prolly do it online actually.
You are spot on (in my view) with your thoughts on McCain/Obama. The reason they don't just go issues is because the undecideds will vote on emotion and not issue based, the issue based have already decided. So they attempt to sway the uninformed with plays on the the emotions.
anyway, I'll be checking back,,,
Good Post.