Twas the night before the election...
And the Ohio Ballot is profoundly boring. No Senators, no governor, very few interesting statewide races, and uniformly dull ballot initiatives. I haven't met a person who yet who genuinely cares about any of them. Seriously:
1 - Change Filing Dates. I haven't seen a compelling argument on either side.
2 - Bonds for various environmental causes. Not a bad cause, but it needs a constitutional amendment why exactly?
3 - obscure point about public/private waterways. Seriously, I don't understand it at all, and I've looked.
5 - fuck over the payday loan industry. Yes, I realize it's a completely noxious industry that probably hurts as much as it helps, but it beats loan sharking, which is about the only type of loan that'll be available for low-income types. I still don't care.
6 - fuck over the constitution to allow a single casino to open. The only one I've received any mailings about. Everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) is opposed to it, except a few casino employees.
Otherwise, there's a contentious County Commissioner election. Normally it wouldn't be contentious at all, since the Democrats always win around here, but even party loyalists tend to look askance when the FBI raids several dozen offices on corruption charges. My distaste for the local powers is sufficiently high that I'm going to vote straight Republic on the local level, which should make darlox happy. Not that it'll matter, as I don't think any of them has a chance in hell.
Otherwise, there's always the local representative. Kucinich is a little nervous, but looks to win easily. I'll vote for him. He doesn't accomplish much, but he doesn't actively make it worse.
I tell you, if there was ever an election to just skip this would be it, except for that often overlooked presidential election. I know it probably snuck up on you, so let's recap: on the one side we have a elderly war hero and a female religious fruitbat. The other side has a guy who defines "white boring Senator", who happens to be running as the second fiddle to a black guy with an Arab sounding name.
If you had gone to Chicago in 1908 for the Cubs World Series parade and told them that a black man was going to be elected president before the Cubs won the World Series again, what odds could you have gotten from a bookie?
Anyway, another way of looking at the election:
John McCain - Republican. Every major accomplishment of his naval career was because his father and grandfather were 4-star admirals. This includes getting shot down, because he'd already crashed so many planes that anyone else would have been permanently grounded. He financed his government career by dumping his wife (who'd had a massively disfiguring accident) for a beautiful rich young woman and spending her daddy's money on his campaigns. Avoided getting slammed in the Keating scandal, reinvented himself (or at least his image) as a crusader for ethics and clean government, and then completely sold out whatever principles he had by embracing everything he hated about the Republic party in 2000 to win in 2008. Oh yeah, but he's a maverick, so that's a plus.
Barack Obama - Democrat. Essentially worked his way up from having a single mother to Harvard to the Senate. Of course, he hasn't seemed to have accomplished much in the Senate, although he's written some nifty books and gives one hell of a speech. No nepotism here, although he was a Chicago politician so there's probably some skeletons buried somewhere.
Obama, of course, is leading in all the polls, even the Fox News poll. His leads range from the insurmountable to 'within the margin of error'.
So is Obama going to win? Well, I'm going to vote for him. But no, I'm not convinced he's going to win. I'm not sure that McCain winning would be implausible on the level of "Dewey defeats Truman", but it's not likely. On the other hand, there's a lot of plausible evidence that the Republicans stole Ohio in 2004 (Democracy Now has documented it extensively, among others), and they could certainly do it again. Heck, it would be explained as the Bradley effect, or as Evangelicals turning out in force for Palin, or liberal media bias for Obama, or flaws in the polling model, or probably all 4 combined. On the other hand, since the polls are still not calling cell phones (and thereby theoretically missing young people who might be inclined to vote Obama), it's entirely possible that the polls understate his support, and we could be looking at a good old fashioned ass kicking. They say the polls correct for this now. We shall see.
Man, voting sucks sometimes. Beats the alternative, I suppose. A few certainties:
- if Obama loses, there are going to be a lot of pissed off and/or depressed people out there. Way more than 2004, because let's face it, Kerry was not likable at all.
- if Obama wins, his supporters are going to expect him to walk on water, and they'll be very disappointed if he can't.
- Dear god, I hope the Dems don't take 60 seats in the Senate. It's bad enough that they're probably going to have both the House & the Senate. If Obama wins, that's the trifecta. I think we're much better off with split-parties.
Anyway, I predict Obama. But it's going to be very, very close. Close enough that I'm not going to bet money on it this time around.
1 - Change Filing Dates. I haven't seen a compelling argument on either side.
2 - Bonds for various environmental causes. Not a bad cause, but it needs a constitutional amendment why exactly?
3 - obscure point about public/private waterways. Seriously, I don't understand it at all, and I've looked.
5 - fuck over the payday loan industry. Yes, I realize it's a completely noxious industry that probably hurts as much as it helps, but it beats loan sharking, which is about the only type of loan that'll be available for low-income types. I still don't care.
6 - fuck over the constitution to allow a single casino to open. The only one I've received any mailings about. Everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) is opposed to it, except a few casino employees.
Otherwise, there's a contentious County Commissioner election. Normally it wouldn't be contentious at all, since the Democrats always win around here, but even party loyalists tend to look askance when the FBI raids several dozen offices on corruption charges. My distaste for the local powers is sufficiently high that I'm going to vote straight Republic on the local level, which should make darlox happy. Not that it'll matter, as I don't think any of them has a chance in hell.
Otherwise, there's always the local representative. Kucinich is a little nervous, but looks to win easily. I'll vote for him. He doesn't accomplish much, but he doesn't actively make it worse.
I tell you, if there was ever an election to just skip this would be it, except for that often overlooked presidential election. I know it probably snuck up on you, so let's recap: on the one side we have a elderly war hero and a female religious fruitbat. The other side has a guy who defines "white boring Senator", who happens to be running as the second fiddle to a black guy with an Arab sounding name.
If you had gone to Chicago in 1908 for the Cubs World Series parade and told them that a black man was going to be elected president before the Cubs won the World Series again, what odds could you have gotten from a bookie?
Anyway, another way of looking at the election:
John McCain - Republican. Every major accomplishment of his naval career was because his father and grandfather were 4-star admirals. This includes getting shot down, because he'd already crashed so many planes that anyone else would have been permanently grounded. He financed his government career by dumping his wife (who'd had a massively disfiguring accident) for a beautiful rich young woman and spending her daddy's money on his campaigns. Avoided getting slammed in the Keating scandal, reinvented himself (or at least his image) as a crusader for ethics and clean government, and then completely sold out whatever principles he had by embracing everything he hated about the Republic party in 2000 to win in 2008. Oh yeah, but he's a maverick, so that's a plus.
Barack Obama - Democrat. Essentially worked his way up from having a single mother to Harvard to the Senate. Of course, he hasn't seemed to have accomplished much in the Senate, although he's written some nifty books and gives one hell of a speech. No nepotism here, although he was a Chicago politician so there's probably some skeletons buried somewhere.
Obama, of course, is leading in all the polls, even the Fox News poll. His leads range from the insurmountable to 'within the margin of error'.
So is Obama going to win? Well, I'm going to vote for him. But no, I'm not convinced he's going to win. I'm not sure that McCain winning would be implausible on the level of "Dewey defeats Truman", but it's not likely. On the other hand, there's a lot of plausible evidence that the Republicans stole Ohio in 2004 (Democracy Now has documented it extensively, among others), and they could certainly do it again. Heck, it would be explained as the Bradley effect, or as Evangelicals turning out in force for Palin, or liberal media bias for Obama, or flaws in the polling model, or probably all 4 combined. On the other hand, since the polls are still not calling cell phones (and thereby theoretically missing young people who might be inclined to vote Obama), it's entirely possible that the polls understate his support, and we could be looking at a good old fashioned ass kicking. They say the polls correct for this now. We shall see.
Man, voting sucks sometimes. Beats the alternative, I suppose. A few certainties:
- if Obama loses, there are going to be a lot of pissed off and/or depressed people out there. Way more than 2004, because let's face it, Kerry was not likable at all.
- if Obama wins, his supporters are going to expect him to walk on water, and they'll be very disappointed if he can't.
- Dear god, I hope the Dems don't take 60 seats in the Senate. It's bad enough that they're probably going to have both the House & the Senate. If Obama wins, that's the trifecta. I think we're much better off with split-parties.
Anyway, I predict Obama. But it's going to be very, very close. Close enough that I'm not going to bet money on it this time around.