The Political Landscape

(even beyond the stress over Kyle's grades, see below)

I've been thinking ALOT about the upcoming election.

I'm an Obama supporter. I find him inspirational at a time when we desperately need that. I used to like McCain (back when he really was a maverick... eight through six years ago)... but with his flip-flop on the Religious Right ("agents of intolerance" have become the base he courts with the pick of Palin) and his taking on more Rove-ian tactics, I've lost some respect for the guy. Can he lead? Probably (though being a POW is NOT a leadership resume point). But his age and temperament give me pause. His choice of Palin is the key here... it seems a reactionary choice (Hillary was a woman...), made too quickly. I do NOT like or respect Palin's views (what she has espoused/stated/parroted thus far), and the idea that she could become President (and no, I don't care that she was a governor of Alaska or once mayor of its second largest town) scares me. His choice to "suspend" his campaign (though I saw no evidence that he did) and to pull out of the first debate, only to jump back in, points to a certain erratic nature... not something I want in a Commander-in-Chief. The fact that he wouldn't even look at Obama in the first debate, and (it seemed to me) would look only in his direction (but not make actual eye contact) in the second (especially after the character attacks that had be issued over the weekend), also raises questions as to his temperament.

But all these I can take. But the stuff that his happening on the fringes of the campaign is what's getting me. The rise again of the "Hussein" stuff, the constant reference to Obama's "terrorist" friends, and yesterday's proclamation by Cindy McCain that Obama had personally insulted her by voting to "not support" the troops of which her son is one (when this claim is total bullshit and can be made of her husband as well). It has Rove's fingerprints all over it. And to think that McCain has aligned himself with the same slime-merchants that derailed his own campaign in 2000 (in the ugliest of fashions, filled with rumor and innuendo) just kills me. This insinuation that a vote for Obama is support for terrorism kills me. The underlying implication that Obama is actually a sleeper agent for the Islamic terrorists kills me.

Just remember, folks... the Manchurian Candidate was a former POW.

Anyway... got a little distracted there. Sorry.

So I've been thinking alot about the political landscape, and the impression that Obama leads in the polls and may actually win the election. And maybe I'm just a pessimist... but I'm not buying it. I worry too much about the Bradley effect (something only a few are talking about, and none with any statistical ripple effects). And so I put together a electoral poll viewer, complete with a Bradley effect component. You Can check it out here.

Unless the Bradley effect is worse than 5 percent, Obama looks to be in pretty good shape. But October is said to be filled with surprises... and with Rove's disciples pulling the strings at McCain's campaign, who knows what will pop up (can anyone say "gimme more Rezko and Wright"?)