After so long, it’s finally over. Barack Obama has won the presidency. I can’t express how happy I am. It’ll still be up to Obama to prove to America that he’s got what it takes, but at least Americans are willing to give him a chance.
It’ll never cease to amaze me how many people want to believe Barack Obama is some kind of secret Muslim. I mean, first off, what will it take to get people to finally believe him when he says he isn’t a Muslim? And second, what exactly is wrong with Muslims? I happened to be reading the Constitution the other day and I didn’t see anything in there that said, “Muslims cannot be president and if one does become president, that’s a sign of the apocalypse and the United States will turn into a nation of gay abortion-lovers who rape children.” Seriously.
The latest weapon of the “HAY GAIZ, OSAMA IS A MUSLIM” campaign is the fact that Obama used to go by the name Barry Soetoro when he lived in Indonesia. This is hardly surprising considering that his mom married a guy with the last name Soetoro. Oh wait! That’s apparently bad, too! Why? Because Obama didn’t make it public. No, I’m serious. Apparently, presidential candidates are supposed to be up front about everything in their lives, regardless of how important it is to the job they’re pursuing. And this isn’t that important. From what little I’ve been able to dig up on the whole Barry Soetoro thing (seriously, search for the name on Google and you’ll get pretty much all anti-Obama links), it wasn’t a legal name change, which means it has absolutely no impact on anything. Just like McCain’s five years as a POW. It’s irrelevant to the presidency.
The argument goes that if Obama used to go by a different name, he could be a different religion (?) or even have a dual citizenship (?!). There’s scant evidence to this effect, and a dual citizenship wouldn’t necessarily bar Obama from the presidency. The requirements, listed in the Constitution, say that a person must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be 35 years old, and have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. There’s nothing in there about dual citizenships, but, to be fair, dual citizenships didn’t exactly exist when the Constitution was written. It’s a rather weak attack on Obama, but that’s nothing new. After all, the secret Muslim accusation has been flying around forever and we still have yet to hear what’s wrong with being a Muslim…
The uproar surrounding this election is proof the world has gone insane. Rationality flew out the window a long time ago and it depresses me. I really can’t wait until November so this can all finally be over. Of course, I’m being optimistic. Even if Obama was to win in a landslide, the anti-Obama crowd would claim he stole the election (kind of like how the anti-McCain crowd will claim McCain stole the election if he wins) or whine about how the country will go downhill now that a Muslim is president. I don’t think I’ll ever escape from the madness.
Can I just say: please, I don’t want to hear anything more about Sarah Palin. I already know she’s a horrible pick for McCain and I certainly know I won’t be voting for that ticket come November. Yet I’m still subjected to every detail about her life, from her religion to her children to her hunting hobby. Seriously. Stop focusing on the negatives of Sarah Palin and focus on the positives of the other candidates, namely Barack Obama. Or even third party candidates. They can’t get exposure if everyone’s too busy complaining about Palin and McCain.
Ugh, I can’t wait until this election is over. I doubt the country will be better off no matter what candidate, but at least I won’t have to endure the barrage of mudslinging that accompanies every major election.
Wow, I kind of haven’t been updating this at all. Strange, considering I couldn’t stop posting while school was in session. There’s not a lack of stuff to get irritated about, that’s for sure.
I do have a bit of good news, however. Washington state has abandoned the rather short-lived party ballot primary system, where voters would choose which party (Republican or Democrat) to vote for during the primary and only vote using that ballot. I don’t even know what the original reasoning for that method was, but it’s been dumped in favor of the new “top 2″ primary system. Now, voters can vote for whoever they want on the primary ballot, regardless of party preference. The top 2 vote-getters in each partisan position then go on to the actual election.
It’s a much nicer system because it allows people to vote for the people, not the party. It used to be that if you wanted to vote for a Republican governor in the primary, you’d also have to vote for Republican senators, representatives, attorney generals, etc. Now, you can vote for a Democrat governor, a Republican senator, and an independent attorney general all on the same ballot.
Of course, the choices haven’t gotten any better. The majority of the people running for governor this year are either complete nutcases (one guy wants to ban cars) or more concerned with attacking their opponents than telling people what they would do as governor (seriously, this one guy used his entire statement to rip into the incumbent; nothing in there about his positions on the issues). Ugh.
At any rate, I hope to start publishing more updates to the blog. I’ve let it go so long, I posted once in the entire month of July. I really need to start getting indignant more. I must be losing my touch.
So it would appear that Barack Obama has all but clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. According to the Associated Press, Obama has the most delegates, putting him far enough in front of Hilary Clinton that she will probably concede the nomination sometime soon.
Now it’s Obama versus McCain for the presidency, assuming Ralph Nader doesn’t make a surprise comeback and ruin everything. Again. However, I’ve heard that a strong third party candidate would be more injurious to McCain than to Obama. I guess that remains to be seen.
As to who I’ll be voting for…I’ve decided that in November, I will be voting for Obama. Yes, I know how often I go on about third parties and how I’m not, in fact, throwing my vote away. But when I look at what’s available, I have to say that Obama is a better choice than any of the third party candidates I’ve looked at. The Libertarian Party candidate, Bob Barr, is anything but a libertarian (well, not the kind I am, at least; he even wanted to ban Wicca from the armed forces), Ron Paul is still crazy, and I have yet to hear about any good independents. My favorite candidates (like Mike Gravel) have vanished back into pre-presidential anonymity, so I’m left with a bunch of candidates I can only half-heartedly support.
Therefore, I’d rather put my vote in for Obama. I hate to buy into the “vote for the guy who’s most likely to win” mentality, but he’s the best choice I’ve got.