Well, I don’t have the heart to post football picks yet and I’m waiting for MobWars over at FaceCrack to give me back enough energy that I can pull off some more jobs, so I figured, what the hell? How about a blog post? Especially since I’m going to BlissDom08 this weekend – which is all about, ya know, blogging.
Here I go. My stream of consciousness thoughts about the Final Four of Clustersmack 08 (tm kaiseralex.com) (In alphabetical order.)
Barack Obama – I didn’t pay attention to this dude till Edwards dropped out of the race. Cuz I figured the white guy from the south was going to runaway with the nomination given his competition of a black man and a woman. (Not that I think skin tone nor internal plumbing affects leadership skills, I just assumed it would matter to enough other people.) I wasn’t a fan of HRC – no concrete reasons on her politics, just not a fan. I’m also just enough of a History Channel dork to watch “The Presidents” and similar fare, and repeatedly I hear about presidents who listened to others and learned from others, and these are the men who then tend to be labeled better/greater/more important presidents. I could see Obama listening to others and taking counsel. And I fully admit this video still gives me tingles, and I’m all for a little hope.
Joe Biden - I watched the VP debate, because I didn’t know anything about either of them, really. I had heard of their soundbytes and read a lot of twitter feedback, but otherwise – I was pretty meh on them. At the end of the debate I appreciated how Biden most of the time attempted to answer questions and give something resembling a specific answer.
John McCain – I lived in Arizona and was surrounded by longtime residents who detested McCain. I guess it rubbed off on me. In retrospect, I think those people were also rabid Democrats which probably had something to do with it. In any case. McCain just isn’t a choice for me. If he pulls off a win, I’ll read Mr. Lady’s words on him over and over and get on with things. I was really hoping he’d pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty – cuz that guy is a major league fucktard as far as I’m concerned. (I spent 3 years teaching in the same district his kids attend – and this dude is SO.OUT.OF.TOUCH. with any student who isn’t white upper class.) If it would have been a McCain-Pawlenty ticket I would have spent the next weeks cracking up and talking smack. As it is, I’ve composed a single blog post in my head for weeks and am just now motivated to write it.
And as long as I’m talking VP picks …
Sarah Palin – on paper, she looked great. As my friend Texas Red read me her bio on the phone (because I’d called to find out if I got to make fun of Pawlenty while I was driving home) we were both pretty impressed with her – she seemed to be like McCain but a younger, less multiple home owning, more in touch… oh and female version.
Then twitter happened and oh mah holy hell … the liberals were having a field day. Links to posts and news articles … and my feeling was that people initially were pissed off that she was …. gasp! …. conservative! Which, I may not have agreed with her opinions on things, but someone like my grandma would. Then the finger pointing that she was only picked because she was a woman. Well, my opinion there was, and still is, that the media would have had a circus if McCain had picked a white dude, they would have screamed about business as usual and no change etc etc. So those arguments sailed on past my head.
Then I heard of some of the comments she made about Obama at the RNC and I thought, “What a bitch.” and then immediately kicked myself in my own ass because I knew full well that if she would have been a man, that I would never have thought that, and I’d likely not thought anything of the comments. Fuck. Fuck me. Caught with my hand in the sexism cookie jar. Dammit. Now I was going to have to pay attention and try to make an unbiased decision about what I thought of her.
I happened across Newsweek while we were staying in a hotel the end of last month – it did a number on her … she came out looking pretty bad … it was the first I’d really heard of the Katie Couric disaster of an interview. Fortunately I read it just before SNL used the exact transcript of what she said, so I could appreciate the full on humor of it.
I watched the VP debate. I wanted to shut it off 10 minutes in. I wanted to get drunk. But I sat and watched it, coming to check twitter comments a couple times to ensure I wasn’t losing my mind (new-cue-lar anyone?) By the end of the debate I wasn’t impressed with her at all anymore. I’m okay with that, because I actually sat down and took the time to figure it out for myself and I’m left with the question – if he wanted a female Veep – why not Condi Rice or Elizabeth Dole?
And there you have it. My brain dump on why this registered Republican is voting Democratic this election.?Ǭ† Only time will truly tell if I’ve made the right decision – cuz God knows I jacked it up in 04. Sigh.
