Election Analysis--a unique perspective

Below you will find some observations and opinions from a friend of mine. I think he's dead on and I wanted to share it.

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My friends get upset with me for refusing to vote for the presidency. I'm sorry. I feel ashamed about it. I know my forefathers died to give me that right. I do vote in local elections. But the presidency? This campaign has been two years. It was about laying low enough, not saying anything controversial enough to make headlines. It was about reporters following these guys day in, day out, looking for the nuance that could morph into a story. So they never said anything deviating from their stump speeches. I've worked for 2 national news organizations. One, upheld as a bastion of journalistic integrity, one lampooned as being in the tank for one party. Neither assumption was true. My pals at one network posted Obama's picture - from the Economist's cover shot endorsement -on the wall of their offices, were vocal in their support for him, buzzing around their myspace pages. It was all just so exciting, they forgot their roles as dispassionate observers.

The Obama supporters were so fervent and so hateful towards Sarah Palin that it was a complete turn-off. I'm seeing mothers pinning "Obama" buttons on their toddlers. Really? I would have loved to seen my parents pin a Nixon button on my brother. In line at the grocery store, I had a rather large, imposing gentleman with an Obama t-shirt, start leaning in and making friendly intonations about 'hope' and 'change,' just bucking for a conversation. When I didn't bite, he just started making statements about how there was so much riding on this election. Forget the people canvassing my commute. The pins and bumper stickers. This Obama crowd - they're like Apple users. I know it is probably a better product than the PC, but the people who use it are so apostolic about them and so annoying in their fervor, that I couldn't buy into it. It was this whole cult of personality. Speech after countless speech, all i heard was "blah blah blah... four more years of George Bush, attempt at clever punch line, hope, change," raucous uproar. Maybe Obama didn't cultivate this whole thing. Maybe he did. It feels cultish. He has good cadence. Good flow. Good emphasis on the right syllables. For a party that put up John Kerry in the last, go round, it was a refreshing change. As for the substance? It felt weak.

I hear this guy talking about change. And one of the changes i heard proposed a few weeks ago was putting a moratorium on home foreclosures. Oh yeah? Who is going to pay for that? Who will be accountable for that? Its a campaign that's one big state of the union address; big on promises, short on follow through.

And Governor Palin... a Governor with an unheard of 80% approval rating in her job, who became the target of such a disturbing hatred, I came to like her just for being hated. And hated she was. Viscerally, fervently, an unabashedly. The shock! The outrage! The irony of women who want another woman to advance, just one who propels their ideals.

She wore jeans and a hoodie to the polls. She (gasp!) hunts!! Can i get a tally of the meat eaters out there? She probably was in over her head. She was a little too strong on the conviction and a little too light on the information. But Sarah Palin represents to me, the huge disconnect between red and blue state America.

What if a white person voted for the white candidate because- well- they were white? Not JUST because, but for a big reason. Because they were tired of someone of their skin color. It's not that I don't want someone to succeed in spite of their skin color, but i don't want someone's success to be pinned their skin color. The numbers of black voters who turned out for Obama makes it too hard to think it ISN'T just about that. While some rejoice in the accomplishment of one being the first black elected president, it matters so much, that Jesse Jackson, who months earlier, wanted the guy's nuts cut off, but was moved to tears Jesseee freakin' Jackson crying? Did ANYONE believe that? To top it off, a political rally is held at Ebeneezer Baptist CHURCH? Don't tell me this wasn't about race. For some, it was only about that.In Obama's defense, I don't think he sought it out or asked for just the black vote. I don't think he campaigned just for that. It just ended up that way. I'm politically incorrect enough to say that being black was reason enough to get people to come to the polls and vote when they other wise would not have.

Maybe I'm too cynical to be inspired. Maybe I just can't invest anything into the soundbite candidacy. Maybe I believe so much in democracy, that i think whoever wins, it matters little because the gears of of democracy grind so slowly, that no one person can enact such radical change, no one would be shocked into something.

For McCain, what does a 72 year old man want to run for president for? And I just didn't believe the 'fight' he called for in so many speeches was coming. For a guy who stayed in the senate for so long and managed to nab headlines only when he fought against his party stalwarts, I wasn't sure I could believe in him. He was more inspirational and substantive than Bob Dole, but it was hard to not look at that campaign and think this ship had passed. Turns out, it did.

So I'm sorry i can't find the fire in my belly to be inspired enough to call the DMV - who of course messed up my voter registration- to fix it. I'm sorry I can't be motivated enough to wait in line after these two years, but to just want it over and to move on.