Should I Be Optimistic? A Tale of a Young Voter Who Worries Too Much About Politics

So both conventions have come to pass. I spent the better part of the week watching the speechs from the DNC that I missed, and being totally inspired and enthusiastic about the Obama/Biden ticket. Kudos to the Clintons for putting their electoral differences and animosities aside and urging everyone who voted for Hillary to vote for Obama. Al Gore’s speech was awesome; Clinton delivered a speech that made me wish he was still eligible for another term in office (though, I’ve felt that way for the past 8 years); I even give props to John Kerry for delivering a darn good speech, as much as he is a critical disappointment to the Democratic Party. Lewis Black said it best when he said that “For the Democrats not being able to find somebody who could’ve defeated George Bush… It would be like finding a normal person who would lose in the Special Olympics!” But, all of that rubbish aside… The Dems had ideals, plans, and substance. Job well done guys! Job well done!

Now, onto the Republican National Convention. I couldn’t sit through any of the speeches, because all of them I watched seriously provoked me to throw my TV out the window! Fred Thompson…. GO BACK TO FUCKIN’ LAW & ORDER, ASSHOLE. NOT LIKE I WATCH IT ANYWAY. Joe Lieberman, clearly spitting venom in the face of anyone who voted for him to be our vice president in 2000, was no picnic either. And for the record, Al Gore’s stupidest move, besides marrying Tipper, was getting that smirking dimwit as his vice president. I really wish Joe Lieberman would just admit that he’s a closet Republican. After all, he was the asshole who called for a video game rating system after Mortal Kombat had Sub-Zero ripping someone’s head off (as well as their spine), and went after Marilyn Manson, which sounds awfully conservative to me. Yet again, Al Gore spearheaded the PMRC hearings. Still, though. Mike Fuckabee…. Er, Huckabee. Irrelevant. Not even a Chuck Norris endorsement could’ve saved his campaign. Mitt Romney, who wants to change Washington from liberal to conservative (as he said in this speech; so pretty much, Mitt, you want one party to rule? Fascist!). I never for three seconds took him seriously. He’s a Mormon, and has a demeanor of a used car salesman.

I saw Rudy Guiliani’s speech, and all he did was criticize Obama. He didn’t mention any plans that John McCain has for this country (if he even has any), and lead a bunch of jingoistic assholes to chant “Drill, baby, drill!” And, as always, the gopher-lookalike had to bring up 9/11 (I’m surprised they didn’t show video footage of him with his mouth covered, walking through the wreckage), as if he really knows what has gone on since. I think he should realize that President Bush lost sight of Osama Bin laden (you know, the guy who actually planned the 9/11 attack on us), and waged a dumb war in Iraq, and that this war is vastly unpopular with a lot of Americans, and WE ARE NOT MAKING PROGRESS! What Republicans don’t realize is that they are waging an abstract war; The War on Terror. There’s no nation called Terror. No one country is entirely a terrorist state (though, Iran is coming pretty darn close), but rather a network of many of them throughout the Middle East. Of course, this has only lead to innocent lives being lost, and as a result, less guilty ones being brought to justice (given they don’t blow themselves up first).

And so what if John McCain proposed a troop surge in Iraq when it wasn’t the popular thing to do? No offense, but popularity (and approval, I might add) is kind of influenced by these types of things. Just ask Dubya; he’ll tell ya. Do something to piss off the American people, and that a lot of them disagree with, and watch your approval numbers sink like a dog tied to a stone in a lake. The audience at the RNC ate it up though. I guess they haven’t been duped for the past eight years! Now they want four more, thinking that just because the president changes, the party will just transform into a delinquent, corrupt, unpopular mess to a progressive, fully operating unit. What tools!

Now onto the lady of the campaign, thus far, Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin. Wow, what a cuckoo this lady is! Pro-life, pro-oil, anti-gay, moose-eatin’, big talkin’…I already don’t like her. Her speech at the GOP is garnering praise from the press (I dunno why), and she is strewn across headlines all over the nation. People praise her ability to stand up to her critics, and to throw punches at the opponent, but that’s about it. All she did was bash Obama, and undermine his experiences and accomplishments. I think she’s trying to create a diversion from all the other headlines concerning her family life, and she pulled the cheapest cop-out there was; making Republicans jeer the Democratic candidate by putting him down. She may have more executive experience than any major candidate on both tickets, but let’s face it; Alaska ranks 48th in population (that’s 683,478 people), and before she became governor, she was the mayor of the town of Wasilla (population estimated anywhere from 5400-9000). I’m not saying that being the mayor of a town with less than 10,000 people, or the governor of a state where caribou outnumber people isn’t a hard job, but Barack Obama and Joe Biden have been senators in Washington D.C., the nation’s capital, and have dealt with issues that affect about… 230 million people. Compare 683,000 to 230 million. Just the way I look at it. I do not claim to be an expert on politics.

Now onto her personal life. Her 17 year-old daughter, Bristol (nice name, ay?), got knocked up, and isn’t married (yet). Normally, it’s a sore spot for the Republican Party in their agenda of family values, morals, and all that other horseshit, but the Republicans and fundies are backing her up, and the press is having a field day. Now that the press is dragging Palin through the mud, even amidst her speech at the RNC, the Republicans are now crying foul. That brings me to a point; they say that private lives are nobody’s business. And, you know what? I’m for that. I think a public figure has a right to privacy. But, you have to remember the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky fiasco ten years ago. The Republicans crucified Clinton on a cross made of cigars, cum-stained blue dressed, and 50 million dollars the U.S. never got back for a bullshit investigation. I think Clinton was dumb to have lied about it, but I didn’t care. The economy was great under his administration, and we had the largest surplus in our history when he left office (only to have the biggest deficit ever a mere administration later), not to mention a better job market, no inflation, and him being aware of Bin Laden’s threats, in which a Republican controlled House & Senate cared less about. Nonetheless, the Right exploited Clinton’s flaws, and impeached him. In fact, there are many who still groan at the mere mention of Clinotn because of that. Now that Sarah Palin’s daughter is only 17, and unmarried (nice family values), it’s ok. It’s a double standard in the worst possible way. If, say ten years from now, one of Obama’s daughters got knocked up, the right would create a firestorm over the issue, and would be calling his daughter a whore faster than a bullet from Sarah Palin’s gun into a moose’s head, and put an emphasis on how liberals have no family values.. But don’t make fun of Sarah Palin and Bristol!

Speaking of which, Sarah Palin has some pretty dumb fucking names for her kids; Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig (who has Down’s syndrome). Did she just flip through pages at random of a Webster dictionary and pick a name at random? Seems like it. What’s her grandchild’s name gonna be? Pyx? And her husband’s name is Todd. My dad and I were watching the news, and there was a story on Alaska’s “First Dude,” Todd Palin.All we could think of was that George Carlin skit where he talks about guys named Todd. “Hi, what’s your name?” “TOOOOODD!!!!” I’m sure if George Carlin stuck it out for just a little while longer, he would revise that skit and add Bristol, Willow, Piper, Track and Trig to his list of goofy names.

The Republican National Convention was just a barrage of insults to an idealistic candidate, with very little substance and very little talk about the issues on most Americans’ minds these days; jobs, the economy, health care, the government fucking them over. Instead, most of the speakers rallied over the right-to-life (yet the right to hunt animals and execute retarded people), the elimination of the writ of habeus corpus (Sarah Palin actually jabbed that Obama’s main worry about terrorism would be whether or not their rights were read; a real bummer to those few who were innocent like Murat Kurnaz). As for John McCain’s acceptance speech, he did do something noble; he stated that he admired Obama…. And then went on to attack him. Nothing good can last. He also just told the crowd his life story on how he was a POW, and now he’s not his own man, but his country’s man, and yadda yadda yadda. He states that he will bring change to Washington, but he never said exactly what. I have no fucking idea what the GOP plans to do if they do get elected in November (and if they do, God help us all!).

So, now the conventions are over. Now it’s the time, like back in 2004, where I obsessively, and daily look at poll numbers to see where the candidates stand. Right now, Obama is still in the lead, but McCain is not far behind him, probably because the RNC just ended yesterday. I remember back in 2004, John Kerry and George W. Bush were deadlocked in the polls, so this could mean that we have a decent chance of Obama winning the election. Also, recent poll numbers have Obama leading slightly in noted “red” states, such as Indiana and North Dakota, two states Bush won by over 20% of the votes back in 2004, which makes things certainly more exciting (but I’m not sold on North Dakota voting for Obama; Indiana? Maybe, since it neighbors with Obama’s home state of Illinois). It’s still early to tell, but Obama’s lead has been for quite a while. Now with Palin possibly being a detriment to the GOP ticket, voters still unsure of what McCain is exactly going to change if/when he’s elected, and rather lackluster reviews for McCain’s acceptance speech, it might be safe to say that the Democrats will be victorious in November, if only slightly. But is it safe? We still have the debates. Should I be optimistic for an Obama victory at this point, or is it just wishful thinking?