While watching the debate tonight, I sadly felt as if I were watching the SNL version. McCain was cartoonish and nonsensical and oddly on par with Tina Fey's representation of the Sarah Palin character. I was irritated that the post-debate analysis ignored Obama's attempts to center discussion on urgent issues of health care, economic crisis and quality education, as well as his proposal to eschew meaningless discussion about mudslinging and scare tactics employed by campaigns. I was proud of how Obama handled the debate. Schieffer's overt verbal interruptions of Obama compared to his compliance through lack of time enforcement with McCain revealed his inadequacy as moderator. McCain's use of hyperbole and emotional outburst during debate were disturbing, and as I said earlier, on par with an SNL skit.
Nonetheless, I am not down about our collective futures. With all of the news of the McCain campaign's attempt to rally racist domestic terrorist groups at political rallies, I became a bit concerned about the gravity of such a tactic. Dancing on fear and false claims of scarcity have influenced masses of insecure people to make choices that are clearly not in their favor in past campaigns. I have lived in an area that was home to the headquarters of 17 different white supremacist terrorist organizations, and I am quite familiar with the organizing strategies of these groups. McCain lovingly referred to these as his "fringe" group supporters tonight. I am relieved to hear from many past acquaintances who continue to live in this area that the Obama support is alive and vibrant even there. Many have told me of plans to organize "van loads" of people on election day and others have been working to support early absentee voting.
With this recent news, I have my heart set on hope.
Now we have to focus some of our energy on making sure people are educated about the many other propositions possible to vote on after they cast their votes for a better prospect in the presidency. But that's another blog...
1 comment:
Dr. Def, you just made me feel so much better. I thought I was the only one that thought that McCain looked like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas every time he grimaced at Obama’s comments.
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