1. The Rock-star status he's been given. I wrote earlier that he's treated like the messiah returning in glory to redeem the people. I remember when he spoke in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. He was this big deal for not accomplishing that much. Not that I'm in position to become a senator or anything. He was just a state senator running for the senate against...NOBODY!!!! I know Alan Keyes got in the race...LATE, plus that man is certifiably nuts. To me, that's not an accomplishment that deserves the acclaim that appeared to be given to Obama.
2. The Oprah endorsement is an issue, not that it's necessarily Obama's fault. Oprah kind of bugs me as it is, because she promotes things like 'The Secret'. She generally does a poor job of taking the role of Devil's Advocate, much less bringing on voices that would adequately question the notion. If I were in Obama's position, I'd probably take the Oprah endorsement. I'm really just bugged when it comes to Oprah, because she's never endorsed a candidate before, then all of a sudden Obama is this magical candidate. Let me just say, if he'd been white (as opposed to half-white) Oprah would have passed over him. As Steve Salerno has stated on his SHAM blog, this is considered racism (the idea of voting for Obama because he's black - you'll have to read the comments to get to this point). I think Oprah would have gone with the Dem anyway, but the endorsement would have been held back. Personally, I'm OK with Oprah endorsing Obama in a general sense, though the celebrity endorsement thing bugs me on all sides, but that's another story. Basically, I'm bugged by the BS of Oprah trying to come off that it's not race and Obama is some transformative figure. Maybe I'm just cynical, but that really set me BS detector off.
3. Obama does give me the same feeling I get when I see Kevin Trudeau on TV. I think I'm just distrustful when people sound a little too positive about things. It just doesn't seem natural to me. A lot of it is just politics, because politicians speak in ways that make listening to their speeches like reading horoscopes. They sound specific, but they're really general and can be applied to just about anything. Change we can Believe in vs. Country First. To me that's all the same and meaningless.
Overall, I'm going to give Obama a fair chance. He does seem to have the personality where he's be open to outside information, certainly way more than Mr. Bush has been. I think McCain would have been too closed, much more like Bush, in that area. I think I would trust McCain's decisiveness in a crunch over Obama. Maybe we should let Prop 8 fail, then Obama and McCain can move to Cali and have a kid who will balance these traits perfectly. Obama's pick of Biden as a running mate was brilliant. I wanted to give Biden a chance in the primaries, but he sunk to fast. Obama certainly showed wisdom in his choice, where McCain showed complete desparation.
Kim asked me this weekend, for the umpteenth time (since dodge the question every time), if I could only vote for McCain or Obama, who would it be. Usually I said something like 'I have more than two choices'. I finally gave her a real answer and told I'd probably go with Obama. I still stand by that and hope for the best. I still tend to think that we're in for a one-term presidency. We've had two 2-termers in a row and with the current situation, there's a lot on the table with extremely high expectations.
Being a third-party person, it makes it easier to accept the winner of the race. I am really bugged by those of either party who act like the winner is not their president if he came from the opposing party. Even if McCain had won, I'd still support him as president. I'd piss and moan about some things, as I will with Obama. I think I'd do the same had Bob Barr won. I think complainers like me are necessary to keep us in from turning into dodos.
I do think the republicans made a mistake selecting McCain. I don't think the field was that great on either side, but the republicans were pretty bad. I wish that Ron Paul hadn't been so nutty. He injected some great points into the debates and it's unfortunate that the other candidates didn't take some of those point more seriously.
As an aside, a fella in my toastmasters club called Palin as the running mate about a month before the announcement. Very prophetic, if you ask me.
Anyway. Cheers for Obama.
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