The day the past will become the future - 01/20/09

As I watch this election campaign transpire, it becomes more and more clear to me that what we're watching is the transition from the twentieth century into the twenty-first.  

McCain, of course, represents the past - a candidate who can't embrace the future (or the present, as it turns out) and who runs a campaign identical to the evasive, hateful, B.S.-laced campaigns that became vogue years ago when someone figured out that it was easier (and more profitable) to be a slime and lie about it than to do the right thing.  He's a multi-millionaire, lives lavishly & well beyond the means of his constituents, yet wants to come across as "Joe Everyman" who's going to stand up to the status quo for you and I in Washington.  A questionable claim coming from someone who's been in Washington since 1983 and employs the very same lobbyists who fight against the best interest of the people day in and day out to run his campaign.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, came up (and lives in) a wholly different world.  He worked his way up by doing the right thing.  He was admitted to one of the best schools in the world, not by way of a wealthy and influential family (read: George W.), but by busting his ass.  He graduated and went to work for peanuts in the ghettos of south Chicago because his goal was to do the right thing for his community, not get filthy rich from it.  He continued to gain influence by working his way up in the community, first as an Illinois state senator, and because of his success there the people of Illinois selected him to represent them on the national level.  Now, he's asking the other 49 states for their support.

Obama's campaign is disciplined - very few missteps have taken place - and his policies are clearly mapped out and available for anyone to review.  He is incredibly bright and looks at the world from a broad, international perspective & not from an arrogant, xenophobic standpoint as has been the norm for the past eight years.  He loves America and seeks the presidency arguably for the sake of his country and the world, not as a means of wealth and power.  Obama could have made more money than the president makes in his first year or two out of Harvard.  He chose public service instead.

Senator Obama reaches the people by 2008 standards.  He uses the Internet & communicates directly with his supporters using text messages directly to their cell phones.  He allows people to get directly involved with his campaign through his website which airs all of his speeches from all over the country in real time.  You can create an account and literally "join" the crusade by campaigning directly from your desk at home or at work or at a coffee shop in Ocean City, Maryland or on the banks of the Tochi River in Waziristan.  As long as you can access the Internet, you can campaign for Obama.

Senator McCain doesn't use e-mail.

His vice-presidential candidate does use e-mail, though.  She uses whatever e-mail accounts she can that can't be traced or reviewed as official Alaskan state e-mail can. According to the Washington Post,

Gov. Sarah Palin maintained a private e-mail account that she used to communicate with a small circle of staff members outside the state government's secure official e-mail system, according to the Wasilla company that established the site.

The account was separate from the Yahoo e-mail address that was abruptly abandoned by the McCain campaign on Sept. 17, the day hackers penetrated the account and posted pages from it on the Internet. Palin had routinely used her Yahoo address for state business.

Quentin Algood, the owner of ITS Alaska, said a discreet e-mail system was created from an old campaign account, with access confined to "a group of people, her closest confidants and co-workers and advisers and the person she sleeps with."

Kagro X notes at Daily Kos,

Like Karl Rove and the rest of the Bush/Cheney gang before her, Sarah Palin has been evading public oversight and record keeping laws with what it turns out is an ever-expanding network of secret e-mail accounts designed to keep her cordoned off and unaccountable to Alaskans while she conducts official business...Sarah Palin is every bit the sneak and the snake in the grass as the rest of the rotted-out Republican gang.

Governor Palin has given few interviews to the press in the six weeks she's been on the McCain ticket.  Those she has given, however, have proven her to be intellectually unprepared for the vice-presidency.  Her answers to basic questions are filled with gibberish and mixed-up talking points - even some hard-core Republicans feel she's unprepared and should vacate the ticket.  This transparently shallow and unprepared selection for the number 2 position speaks volumes about McCain's "Country First" mantra.  If he really believed in "Country First" and wanted to put a woman on the ticket he would have chosen from a whole host of qualified female candidates, including Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, Olympia Snowe of Maine, or even Linda Lingle, the governor of Hawaii, who doesn't have a tremendous amount of experience but has at least participated in national politics and appears to be intellectually competent.

In order to prepare us for the vice-presidential debate tomorrow in St. Louis, Missouri, the media types who have reviewed her prior debates are warning us of her penchant for the generality and non-statement.  The only way she's going to pull off a debate with Joe Biden, it seems, is going to be to completely pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate.  She can't match the expertise of Biden - she's not even in the same league, so she'll have to be deceptive and evasive.

All-in-all this deception and misinformation is sooo 1968.  You'd think Nixon was here orchestrating the whole thing.  The type of campaign that thrust Nixon into the White House, and fooled the entire country into allowing George W. Bush into the White house for eight agonizingly long years is the type of campaign that McCain is running.  Truth be known, it's working in states like Texas and Mississippi and Utah, but the nation is catching on.  We're just a few disastrous more days on Wall Street shy of not getting our paychecks largely because of the failed policies of the aforementioned George W. Bush and his Republican party.

It's McCain's past versus Obama's future.

On November 4th, America will vote for either the past, or the future.  Much of the rest of the world, it should be noted, has already moved into the future & is leaving us (and our economy) back here in their dust.  China, one of the world's fastest growing economies, owns a substantial percentage of ours (roughly 20% or of our debt), and in the wake of the current financial meltdown, if that doesn't scare you, it should.

If you haven't already, register to vote, join the Obama campaign and spend this last month before the election fighting for our future.  We're up against a monster, and it's going to take all we've got to beat this thing.  YOU are the future of the United States of America.