Face

Ezra Klein theorizes that the Obama camp may have had the concept for this add sitting around for months, just waiting for McCain to say "I'm not George Bush!" in a debate. As impressed as I've largely been with the Obama campaign's strategic maneuvers these past few months, I'm still not sure about that. They could have just got lucky and thrown this together. Wouldn't be that hard. Still, this may be the most effective anti-McCain ad I've seen:



This ad succinctly makes the best case for voting Obama-Biden. Honestly, health care plans and tax plans are all well and good. Amazingly, if Democrats take control of 2 branches of the government - as it seems they might - some of them may actually come to fruition, at least in part. But all the American people have really needed to hear is, I think:

(1) You know John McCain. He's been the guy you've seen on TV for the past 8 years telling you everything is going awesome. Meanwhile, everything's fucked. You want to keep going?

(2) Barack Obama is not a shifty, unreliable, foreign, Muslim terrorist-sympathizing America-hater who subsists entirely on lattes and his own inflated sense of self importance. Republicans have been making that case for a while, and I think actually seeing Obama on TV day-in day-out kind of kills this message - he's almost stridently level. I think there's a reason the Obama camp has tagged McCain with the word "erratic." It's the exact opposite description of their guy.

I mean, say what you will about the "Gore is a lying dullard" thing...It IS possible to portray him that way. It's certainly not the whole truth about him; he's actually kind of witty, and he likes "Futurama." But it's one side of his persona (the "dullard" stuff...the "liar" part was manufactured) that kind of tended to come out when he was talking about things he takes very seriously. Obama's nothing like how McCain describes him, and it blunts the attacks.

Now that Americans have been convinced of these two things, the tide is starting to turn. I just hope it's enough to push him over the top.

One more, somewhat connected point I want to make, vis-a-vis Election 2008...

If you over 18 and you don't vote, or you vote for a 3rd Party Candidate, or you write in some other person's name, or you vote for McCain-Palin, you're a jerk. There, I said it.

I've made this argument before, but I think it bears repeating, because I constantly hear people talking about their personal politics in terms of ideological purity. "I don't like either candidate...No one speaks for my views..." Like, exist only to assure them that they are the most rational and fair-minded of Americans. I'm not a PARTISAN. I make well-reasoned decisions that aren't swayed by emotionality or wanting to belong to a team.

Bullshit. Presidential politics are not about your purity or your personal morality or even ideology. It's pure pragmatism. There are two options and you are morally bound to choose the one that will do the overall least amount of harm to your fellow Americans, and even the other peoples of the world. I don't usually think it's that hard to figure out which way to go, but bear in mind that thus far in my voting life, the Republicans have offered me George W. Bush twice and now John McCain. Um, well played.

Look, it's fine if you want to be politically active in any way you so choose. But when it comes to your November 2008 vote, it comes down to two options and that's it. Crazy McPalin Sr. or Barack Obama. One of these two men WILL BE PRESIDENT. Joe Biden or Sarah Palin WILL BE VICE-PRESIDENT. I know you may not like either of them. I'm not a huge fan. They both piss me off. But only one of them has shown even the remotes signs of being a decent president. I might be disappointed, sure. But I won't be disappointed by President McCain...I know exactly what to expect. And I won't have time to be disappointed by President Palin, because we'll all be vaporized within 20 minutes of her taking office. Don't ask me how...I'm sure she'll think of something.

Let me once again stress that this is not so much about Barack Obama being super-swell, or about you feeling good about doing your civic duty. This is about not letting a war-loving lunatic and an insane asshole who loves forcing rape victims to give birth to their attacker's kids become the President. Or has 8 years of Republican rule been going really well for you, Mr. Fuld?