Nay, we are but men. Rock!

I didn’t get to watch the first presidential debate, but I’m watching some of the PBS local time replay of the second debate. With the growing use of the interwebs as a news medium I have found myself reading the stories, and hearing the soundbites online, so this is the first time I’ve seen the candidates together. The following is a little bit of a running log of my thoughts during the debate.

Cronyism is just a grating word. It’s totally descriptive, but when it is used it makes me feel a little bit dirty. It just sounds like a four-letter word, especially when John McCain says it.

And speaking of John, I haven’t seen him on TV in a while (don’t watch the news much, remember the interwebs), but he’s not looking so good. He unfortunatly looks every bit of his 72 years of age.

I find it funny that “the campaigns” agreed to the rules of the debate, but it apparently wasn’t conveyed strongly enough to the candidates themselves. Gotta love Tom and his velvet gloved smack-downs.

I tire of the candidates (veeps included) talking not about themself, and what they would do, but what their opponent has or hasn’t done in their public service tenure, or their lack of public service. Obama correcting McCain on history, and McCain correcting Obama.

I tire of the offshore drilling argument. Pretty much everyone agrees that it won’t have any noticible impact on fuel supplies and prices for around 10 years. I’d rather see us with a lower demand for oil in 10 years, rather than holding out hope for that being our saving grace.

Obama talks long. Follow the rules please.

McCain is very thankful tonight. The first thing he does with every question is thanks the questioner. Every. Single. Question.

John’s not very good a self-deprecation, nor pointed humor. He also talks long, too.

I don’t think Tom’s idea of a “quick discussion” is on par with what Obama and McCain think a quick discussion is.

This debate has degraded to really bad cartoon where Obama is on one shoulder and McCain is on the other. No comment on who is the devil and who is the angel. Neither is presenting themself as angelic IMHO.

In case you missed it on Saturday night, here it is. Enjoy!

I’ve been a registered voter since 1996, when I turned 18. The presidential match-ups that I’ve been “of age” for are Dole v Clinton (1996), GWBush v Gore (2000), and Kerry v GWBush (2004). I even remember my Freshman year of high school, when the school did a bunch of stuff around the 1992 election, Clinton v GHWBush v Perot (the mock election by students selected Perot).

I find it interesting that the media seems to be telling us that the match-up is Obama v Palin, and not Obama v McCain. And honestly, I think the GOP wants this to happen. John McCain is not a far-Right Republican, who will excite the staunch Republican base, and get them out to vote. In order to solidify his support from the Right, and make this election more of a race, they paired him with someone who is on that Right, and have positioned her as the person to vote for, not him.

Sure, she’s a woman, and McCain’s election would be historic for the role of women in politics. And yes, Barack is a black man, and that would be historic for the role of African Americans in politics. So the media has setup this “showdown for history,” when it’s really a black man v a white man, not a black man v a white woman.

We aren’t going to see Obama v Palin in the debates. McCain and Biden will not be dueling it out with the League of Women Voters moderating. Get the public debate back to Obama v McCain; let’s get back to comparing apples-to-apples, not apples-to-pitbulls.

This will be my attempt at blogging this years presidential election as an editorial on the individuals as much as the process, and politics in general. Part 1 is as follows.

This year’s presidential election is anything but the same old song and dance. However, Republicans are still saying things about “tax and spend” Democrats, and Democrats are still saying things about “big business” Republicans. Here’s my breakdown of the landscape right now.

Barack Obama is an inspiring speaker, who seems to look for, and get, the best out of people. His supporters are very passionate about him, and getting him elected to office.

John McCain is a Vietnam War veteran, and ex-POW, who has served his country more than any other presidential candidate has, save for a select few (e.g. Washington, Ike). His supporters play up the fact that he is a center leaning Republican.

I am a registered Independent. I think the two party system is broken, yet we are stuck in a horrible political landscape that we can’t break out of. I agree with issues on both sides of the political spectrum, yet I am forced to choose which side I want to “agree” with more than the other.

Case in point. I was flying home from a business trip during the DNC, and caught the last 10 min of Barack’s speech on my drive home on NPR. In the call-in commentary afterwards there was a caller from South Carolina (I think) who said he was a life-long Republican, that Barack was very inspiring, and he would totally vote for him, except he disagreed with him on the issue of abortion. That one political issue is what will keep a lot of people from voting for Barack this November.

For most people, of which I am definitely one, it comes down to choosing the “lesser of two evils.” Which candidate do I agree with more, or rather, which do I disagree with less. I honestly don’t know this time.

My wife and I were talking about the election the other night, and I am in a very different place today than I was four years ago. Four years ago I had a 1+ month old son. Today I have two boys. Four years ago we rented, and today we own a house. I am much more of an “adult” today then I was four years ago, and my opinions have continued to morph into what I currently hold to be good and right and true, but how does that correlate to what the two parties say I should think.

There needs to be more diversity in politics. Less us vs. them, and more “we” (Wii?). There are too many issues, and too many facets to these issues, to try an boil it down to Left vs. Right. Oh, and being Christian doesn’t oblige me to thinking one way (or the other) politically. There’s a reason Jesus didn’t come as a politician.

This evening I remembered a conversation I had with my wife a month or so ago.  At the time I thought, ” I need to remember to put something about this on the man blog. So here it is.  You may recall a while back our illustrious vice president making a comment about his lineage during a press conference.  The comment went something like, “I have Cheney’s on both sides of my family and I’m not even from West Virginia.”  When I heard this I was furious and I mean mad.  It was the type of thing that the more I thought about it the more angry I became.  When I shared this with my wife she asked, “Why are you so worked up about this?”  I replied, “We are both from West Virginia.  How can you not be upset?”  I went on to explain that the real reason I was mad was that being from West Virginia we have grown up hearing the negative WV jokes, having to deal with the stunned looks from people when they find out we are educated and from WV, and explaining to people in Oregon and other parts of the country that WV is an actual state and not merely western Virginia.  For some reason people in the rest of the country seem to think we are all back hills, incestuous, banjo playing, moon shine making, no shoes wearing, one-toothed bumpkins.  I have come to accept that everyone from West ‘By God’ Virginia gets painted with the same brush.  People are allowed to be misinformed and make assumptions about other people groups.

What I do have a problem with is when the person who would be president if anything ever happened to Bush, who wouldn’t even be in office without WV by the way, chooses to perpetuate the hillbilly stereotype on a national stage.  It is impossible for any state to rid itself of unfair labels when those charged with caring for and running the entire country, not just those states with oil, choose to further ignorance.  This is not an anti-Bush/Cheney political rant, we can get into pure politics at another point.  This is a, “Those with power of influence over others have a responsibility to make sure the things they are saying are not bigoted, misinformed, ignorant, racist, or perpetuating stereotypes” rant, I know it doesn’t just role off the tongue.  If someone claims to love and serve this country, as Dick Cheney does, they should love and serve the country as a whole.  If they don’t want to do that they should at least stop short of actively damaging the reputation of the parts they couldn’t care less about.

The brilliant people in the Florida State Legislature have a rousing topic before them.  Some of them feel like it should be made law that people not be allowed to display their vehicles gender in a specific way.

While I don’t think that Truck Nutz are very classy, it is beyond silly that they are looking to outlaw them.  Seriously, you have nothing better to debate?  No debates on immigration?  No talk of health care, or the rising cost of fuel and food?  Truck Nutz are the biggest problem plaguing Florida right now?  Are you kidding me?

The best is hearing it on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me (the audio clip is in Panel Round Two).  ”They are increasingly popular among drivers of pickups, SUVs, and other manly vehicles, which apparently are not already compensation enough.”

Every pun in this post was intended.