An AP poll just came out saying that more Americans would rather sit down and watch a football game with Obama than McCain. It was close, but Obama edged McCain out 50% to 47%. The other 3% opted for Sarah Palin because she supposedly makes a killer seven layer dip. Polls like this have always been a little silly to me, but they do tend to give an idea as to how people are going to vote. I think George W. Bush won the, who would you rather have a beer with poll in 2000 and 2004. It’s too bad they didn’t run a, who would you rather have as your president in the case of a major hurricane poll. It’s not shocking to me that more people would rather watch a football game with Obama, considering he probably wouldn’t fall asleep by the second quarter on the recliner like the other option. The one thing McCain has going for him on this is his wife would probably be able to hook up plenty of free Budweiser. Although Obama came out ahead, I still think polls like this distract from the real issues, which is a good thing for the McCain campaign. When the campaigns have been talking about real issues like the economy, Obama has had the edge. When the campaigns have veered towards lipstick on farm animals, McCain has had the slight edge. But I guess while we’re talking about it I thought I would come up with a few imaginary polls and see how the candidates fared.
Which candidate would you rather date your daughter?
Obama did overwhelmingly better than McCain on this. 90% to 9.999%. The only place Obama had issues here was with Southern whites and the only place McCain did really well was with parents over the age of 100. The .001% choosing neither was Vice President Dick Cheney who chose Sarah Palin.
Which candidate would you rather have as your boss?
This one was somewhat split. McCain came out on top 55% to 45%. What won it for McCain was the corporate and white collar workers who thought that if Obama was their boss they would actually have to work while it would be much easier to slack off and surf the internet all day under McCain’s watch. The people working blue collar and lower income jobs chose Obama because they thought it would give them a better chance of getting some kind of health care and they may get salary bumps allowing them to afford something more nutritious than Spam and Hot Pockets for lunch.
Which candidate would you rather wrestle?
60% would rather wrestle McCain considering he is quite older and would probably be much easier to catch and pin down. 39.999% chose Obama fearing any crazy death grips McCain may remember from his old military days. The .001% that wrote in his own vote was former President Bill Clinton choosing Sarah Palin.
If you were in a public restroom and ran out of toilet paper; which candidate would you rather have in the stall next to you to loan you a few sheets of their’s?
Obama won here in a landslide 90% to9.999%. McCain only did well with the CEOs and Wall Street guys who figured McCain probably had a ton extra because he had taken all of the toilet paper from the public restrooms in the poorer areas to make sure he had plenty to hand out to the people who should already easily be able to afford their own. Obama did well with everyone else. The middle class, the blue collar workers and union workers who understand that Obama took the extra toilet paper from the people who have a surplus to make sure that all of America gets to wipe their ass. That and they figured his hands would be cleaner when handing it over because there is far less of a chance of him messing his pants. The .001% that chose someone else was Republican Senator Larry Craig from Idaho who chose George Michael.
As Election Day grows closer and the debates coming up I couldn’t help but think of that old Saturday Night Live sketch where Dana Carvy was playing Bush Sr. debating Michael Dukakis being played by John Lovitz. Bush had very little to say in his closing statement and every time he finished, the moderator would say that he had one more minute or thirty more seconds and so on. He would keep repeating, “a thousand points of light, stay the course, no new taxes” and other catch phrases that he used during the 1988 campaign. When he did finish, the moderator asked Dukakis if he had a rebuttal. All he answered was, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”. I sort of feel the same way now even though this race is essentially tied. How is McCain even close? Let’s forget for a second that his campaign has been called one of the most dishonest in history and that his commercials are oozing with sleaze. We will also forget that even Karl Rove says that McCain has gone too far. As our economy sinks into what Alan Greenspan just called a “once in a century crisis”, John McCain yesterday said that the fundamentals of our economy are strong. This same quote was supposedly also said by President Herbert Hoover right before The Great Depression. We all know how that went. Later in the day McCain said he by fundamentals, he meant people; thus meaning the American workers are strong and insisted that the United States is in an economic crisis. He also said that when Obama said the fundamentals of the economy are not strong, he was talking about the American workers, which of course is complete bullshit. I can give McCain the benefit of the doubt. He may have just misspoke, or got confused or flat out goofed when he was talking about the economic fundamentals but that’s not what I believe. I believe that it’s not his area of expertise and it’s a good thing that he has an economic advisor. Well, it would be a good thing if his advisor was someone other than Phil Gramm who said that our recession was merely mental, and the US is a nation of whiners. It’s just going to get more interesting from here folks. We’ll see if he can clean up the mess he made yesterday, but so far it doesn’t sound like McCain is doing any better today. Read the rest of this entry »
It has come to my attention that there are rumors going around that Michelle Obama used the word “whitey” in a speech at the Obama’s church. Something along the lines of fighting against whitey, and that there is a video tape of the speech. As of yet the video tape has not surfaced and this looks like another dirty republican lie used as a campaign weapon. It is quite disgusting how often they pull these kinds of attacks and how low they will go. Besides the obvious fact that this is flat out unproven, the thing that pisses me off most about it is how hypocritical it is. They are insinuating that Michelle or the Obamas in general are racists. If someone could not win the presidency because they or their spouse is a racist I would venture to say that 90% of the presidents that we have had in our history would not have been elected. Probably more. I would include our current President in this 90%. If you think that Bush has never dropped an N bomb while in the White House, you are more of an idiot than he is.
I would be naïve to think that race has nothing to do with this election. Obama has already done what many people thought was impossible to do in our life time. In a nation with a long history of racism and classism, a man trying to be the first minority Commander-In-Chief is going to have every dirty trick in the book thrown at him. With that in mind, if McCain has any dignity or self respect he will run his campaign on his merits and his policy and not the color of his skin. Unfortunately I am not confident that will be the case, but I suppose it is not out of the question. In any event, the Obama campaign understands these tactics. The republicans used them against Kerry and even against McCain back in 2000 among many other past candidates. To dispel this garbage they set up a website to refute any lies that the republican smear factory comes up with. Check out http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/. All in all you should vote for who you think is the better candidate. Race should not factor in to your vote even a little bit. If you think McCain will be a better President, all power to you. I would disagree but you are doing the right thing by voting for who you believe in. I just hope that you think he is the better candidate because of his policy and not because he is white.
Someone commented on my last (and first ever) post asking why I am supporting Barack Obama. I guess this is a fair question since I have link on my page pointing to a place where you can make donations to his campaign. I’ll make it brief.
I hear you. It does seem like the “in thing to do” right now and I hope it stays that way. I hope it stays that way so he delivers that final knock out punch to Hilary and his momentum carries him to the White House. With that said, here is why he’s got my vote. I actually do have reasons for voting for him beyond the fact that he’s an inspirational speaker and uses phrases such as “in the house” in his speeches. I think one reason why so many people may not be able to put their finger on why they are supporting Obama over Clinton is that there isn’t too big of a policy difference between the two. They will run the government in just about the same way. Sure their healthcare plans vary a bit but I think essentially we’re looking at two candidates with very similar views on the issues. This leads people to look at other things. Read the rest of this entry »