America! Go out and vote!

And please choose carefully because our country is far to important to waste on beautifully delivered speeches, and charismatic rhetoric.

Choose the candidate who can help heal the divide caused by partisanship.  Choose Sentator John McCain as the next President.

Iowans are especially privileged to have a chance to elect somebody just as capable of fixing the bitterness in Washington in Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.  I hope that we can make the right choice.

All voters need to see this site: http://professorpacman.com/ .  Learn the truth about Congressman Loebsack… and vote for Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks on November 4th!

Opening Scene:

Countdown with Keith Olbermann:

McCain on Weekend Update:

Yesterday, while introducing Sarah Palin at a rally, View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck said that criticizing Governor and Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin for the Republican party’s $150,000 wardrobe update was sexist.  It’s easy to see how Democrats laugh at the idea of this being sexist; after all $150,000 for clothing by most standards is excessive, especially in a time when the economy is doing so poorly for so many Americans.

But think about it: Male candidates can get away with much cheaper clothing because they aren’t scrutinized in the same way that women are.  Candidates that are women have to work almost as much as campaigning to make sure that they fit the public’s idea of what women candidates should look like.

It really is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.  Palin would have been osterized for not fitting societies expectations, and then after taking steps to make her fit into what people expect, she is demeaned with comments like “Sarah Palin, pampered princess”.

For along time people thought the uphill battle would be getting a black man into the Presidency.  It is still to early to tell if they were right.  But I believe it’s a much harder battle to get passed sexist attitudes, especially when almost nobody recongizes that those attitudes are sexist.

Ok, well maybe not.  But many Americans are already in or desire to be in a position like “Joe the Plumber”.  Democrats laugh at how the McCain campaign has run away with the Joe and how they’ve attacked Obama for his “spread the wealth” mantra and that is part of the reason why they will lose yet another election.  They get so close to connecting with the voter but they fail because they don’t yet understand how voters think.

American voters don’t like solution to a problem to entail a redistribution of wealth.  They don’t like having their hard earn dollars be spent for gigantic spending increases for more socialist programs (the United States, to a degree, is already somewhat socialist in nature).

Check out the new McCain ad and get out the vote for the McCain-Palin ticket:

As Election Day gets closer, more people are prematurely name Barack Obama as the winner of the 2008 Election but I am going to make a bold prediction… Barack Obama is going to lose.  Now I’ve been wrong before (2008 Primary season) but I strongly feel that the Barack Obama will not win for 15 reasons (some of them his fault, some of them out of his hands).

15. Left-wing outlook on America - American in recent times has been a very center-right country.  Our country is far too moderate to support the “most liberal member of the Senate” as President.  Americans won’t vote for Barack because he’s seen as liberal.  Instead, Americans will choose the “safer” route.

14. The Economy - Liberals claim this as their strong suit in this election, but I believe average Americans understand that raising taxes on anybody in an economic slow down isn’t too bright and even more so understand that raising taxes on their employers isn’t a good idea.  John McCain wins on this issue because he’s promised less taxes for everybody and will cut the corporate tax rate.

13. Misconceptions about Obama (ie his religion) - Too many people think of Obama as a Muslim or an Arab.  For whatever reason, these misconceptions seem to disqualify him from being President in many people’s eyes.  Why, I do not know because there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim or an Arab.  Yes it is unfair the deck is stacked this way, but life really isn’t fair.

12. Obama’s inexperience - While this has become a nonissue from the perspective of many pundits, it is defiantly something that voters consider when voting for President.  Like I said above, I may be wrong on any or all of my assertions here.  People may argue that this balances itself out with the McCain-Palin ticket because of Palin’s inexperience but the difference that I think many voters understand is that Obama is at the top of the ticket, Palin is in the second seat.

11. “Joe the Plumber” - Liberals don’t really understand why the McCain campaign is trying to make “Joe the Plumber” into a sort of mascot because they don’t understand what he represents.  Joe Wurzelbacher may not be a licensed plumber or even named Joe, but many Americans want to live the life that is represented by Joe. It’s about the American dream and Americans don’t like when the government prevents them from living it out.

10. Allegations of Voter Registration fraud by ACORN - People who may not have considered voting for McCain will have changed their minds after the allegations that ACORN, a group hired by the Obama campaign, was committing voter fraud in an effort to tip the scales for Obama.  People don’t like thinking that a candidate is buying the vote.

9. Picking Joe Biden as his running mate - Joe Biden was a weak choice for Barack Obama as VP nominee because Joe Biden doesn’t get Obama anything.  He doesn’t help heal the wounds left by a long and tiring Primary/Caucus season, he comes from Delaware (a state with few electoral votes, that Obama is already going to win), and he is the very Washington establishment that Barack Obama tried to run against.

8. Running Against John McCain - Had Barack Obama been fortunate enough to run against a Mitt Romney or a Mike Huckabee, he would have been the winner.  These men, though they mean well, are far too conservative for America’s own good.  They wouldn’t have been able to reach across the aisle as President.  But John McCain is just “maverick” to pull out a win against the inevitable Obama.

7. Residual damage from Jeremiah Wright - Jeremiah Wright’s blatant racism against White Americans is just too much to swallow, especially considering that one of Obama’s books, The Audacity of Hope, is named after one of Wright’s famous lectures.

6. Not picking Hillary Clinton as his running mate - By not picking Hillary Clinton as his running mate, he alienated quite a few Clinton voters who were concerned with Obama’s experience and judgement.  He also allowed the opportunity for McCain to pick up a woman candidate to further chip away at Hillary Clinton’s base, many of whom won’t vote for Obama (some will vote McCain, many will stay home).

5. Affiliation with William Ayers - While in Chicago, Barack served on a few boards with William Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist from the 60’s.  Ayers helped found the radical, far left organization Weather Underground, which is responsible for murder seven individuals during a bombing spree.  Obama has refused to admit his mistake on this and this will hurt him on the 4th. 

4. Complacent Party base - The mood in the country is that Democrats will take the election so some of the party’s most “reliable” voters (ie old Democrats), won’t bother the effort to vote.  The Republican party, unlike the Democratic party, isn’t complacent and will go vote.

3. Relying too heavily on the youth vote - America’s youth voters are the least reliable and though they say that they will turn out for Obama (and they do support him), also won’t bother the effort to get up and vote.  Other candidates that have relied on the youth vote have always turned up empty handed.

2. The Bradley Effect - Democrats don’t want to admit this, but there is a gap between who voters say that they will vote for in polls, and who they will actually vote for when there is a “non-white” candidate running for a given office.  I predict the the “Bradley Effect” will have a major impact on the outcome of this election.

1. The media has already declared Obama the winner of the 2008 election - This is not good news for the Obama camp, and they have been, of late, denouncing the media’s premature declaration.  Americans don’t like being told how to vote, or being discounted before they have even cast their vote.  For the reason, “undecideds” will break last minute for John McCain. 

So I encourage Republicans not to give up hope that their candidate will win and I urge Democrats to keep believing that they will win.  

*Note: This post is purely about Barack Obama’s chances of winning.  While Senate and House races do follow the vote for President, it is my feeling that Democrats will pick up a few seats in the both houses.  Probably not enough to be filibuster-proof.

Opening Scene:

Weekend Update: Palin Rap

Yesterday a friend I decided to finally get around to putting up a few McCain/Palin and Miller-Meeks barn signs so I thought I’d post a picture of our work:

Though I haven’t written it here before, I have long maintained that Senator Obama’s allegations that a McCain presidency would be a third Bush term are bogus because of McCain’s long record of actually reaching across the aisle and doing something about the problems that face America. 

It has also been my feeling that an Obama presidency would be far more like President Bush’s presidency because even though Obama talks about bringing the country together, he has zero record of doing it.  In his short time as US Senator, Senator Obama has not reached across the aisle to accomplish anything meaningful.

In other words though there may be some general policy changes, the atmosphere under a President Obama would be little changed from the partisan attitude the currently dominates the state of affairs under President Bush.

And much to my surprise, I’m not the only person that thinks that Obama and Bush aren’t so far apart.  Apparently one of the opinion writers at CNN has a similar opinion and even goes as far to make policy comparisons between the two.  It’s actually surprising how similar the two are.

So Democrats, I call on you to remember how much you complained about Bush.  Remember how unhappy you were with him as President.  Now step back from your partisan attitude and view Obama for what he is, a Bush generation partisan.

Current polls show trouble for John McCain and the Republican party and many analysts and pundits are predicting a huge downfall similar to 2006.  I’ll be the first to admit with the current state of the race, this is entirely practical and from a spectators point of view, it’s entirely possible.

But all of the pundits and analysts have forgotten one thing as McCain said Monday, “they forgot to let you decide”.  Nobody can possibly predict with any certainty who will win but the left-leaning bloggers, journalists, and talk-show hosts seem determined to have this election all wrapped up before it has really even begun.  Americans, by and large, still have to stand up and choose who they want to be their next President.

McCain goes on to say “we’ve got them just where we want them”.  While this may seem like kind of a desperate statement, consider what is only recent in McCain’s past; his victory in seeking the Republican nomination for President.  By all accounts, McCain’s victory there was one of the most amazing comebacks in Presidential politics.  Is it possible the “Maverick” could do the same thing again?

In my mind, his chances of winning all hinge on two powerful forces that are at work in this election swing.

The fact is that many polls don’t even account for the people who haven’t yet made up their mind on who they want to vote for; the polls typically only measure people who have already decided on which candidate they are choosing.  This obviously could break either way and still is a valuable voting block for McCain to hopefully tap into.

Secondly and perhaps most importanly, nobody can account for how much race will play a factor on November 4th.  Many of my liberal friends would like to deny the existance of racial bias citing the fact that Obama is currently leading in the polls.  But polls don’t matter!  Only the vote matters and most political scientists agree that many people might be willing to conceal their bias in a poll but when it’s time to actually to pull that lever, they chicken out.

It is a sad that Americans might choose the better man for the job based upon the other candidate’s race.  I guess we can’t address that until it happens though.