Fascinating times in the US elections

It would seem that writing about the US elections and the financial crisis would be everything but original. But, as a comedy group from my country just said last week, originality is way too overrated. :D


I think we're at one of the most interesting times in our history. The usual day-to-day affairs, ongoing wars, what-you-see-is-what-you-don't-get hypocritical politics and just about every other matter you hear or see just pale in comparison to what is happening right now in the US and spreading throughout the rest of the world.

I usually don't pay what I would normally consider excessive attention to the US elections; I used to watch the news on my local tv stations and read a few newspaper articles mainly on portuguese media.

But all that changed for me in late August as I delved deeper into what was already at the time effectively the most interesting US elections ever - it had started as an epic and historically remarkable and unique battle between the first african american and the first woman with a real chance of being nominated by a major party to be the next candidate to the US presidency - and then, on the republican side, Sarah Palin had just been announced as McCain's VP candidate; everybody was trying to figure out who she was, where she had come from, what she could bring to the election, etc, and there were a few Hurricanes threatening the country.

The financial crisis hadn't even gone up on the stage at that time.

I have been closely following CNN and other news channels ever since, along with many incursions into the political section of their websites.

The events just kept on coming: whether it be Sarah Palin's disastrous interviews with Katie Couric on CBS, revealing all her ignorance, or John McCain's increasing nervousness regarding his widening gap in the race behind Obama, while trying to make political moves such as momentarily suspending his campaign for errr... one day ?, to suposedly go to DC and help solve the financial crisis that suddenly put him in his weak spot. We all know how well that went...

A month and a half later I almost don't hear of hurricanes, but I already know too well who Sarah Palin is, why she was chosen, and mainly why McCain and the republicans are going to lose this election.

It can all be summed up in one sentence: John McCain has poor judgment.

He showed it back in the Keating Five scandal ( http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/06/fact-check-did-mccain-intervene-on-behalf-of-charles-keating/), and he is doing it almost everyday now. His latest proposal during the last presidential debate to actually renegotiate the home loans directly with the americans, in a move that means effectively changing the bailout plan he voted for just a week ago, is just the last sign.

He is liberally prone, populist, erratic, desperate, and old. Being old wouldn't be a major issue hadn't he chosen Sarah Palin. Just compare it with Obama/Biden and you clearly see the difference. True, Obama is in his mid forties, and Biden in his mid sixties.

Clearly nobody is thinking Biden is "one heartbeat away" from being the President of the United States (although it is possible that some mad republican might want to attack Obama given the latest insults and race related hatred heard at the Republicans' rallies), although the majority think Biden is actually able to take up the job if needed.


Sarah Palin, on the other hand, went through the though scrutiny of the media and simply didn't pass it.

Her executive experience she often touts against Obama and Biden's lack thereof is: mayor of a city the size of a neighborhood in New York (6.300 residents), and less than two years as the Governor of a peripheral state that has most of its revenue guaranteed (oil) and a population of around 683.000, which is less than many cities. Moreover, something nobody seemed to notice, she had a baby while she was governor, effectively reducing even more the time she actually spent in office.

But that really isn't that important compared to her obvious ignorance relating to everything, from not being able to say which newspapers and magazines she reads to keep herself informed; not knowing what the Bush doctrine is; what the bailout is about; not being able to name a single US Supreme Court decision she disagrees with; being pathetic when she speaks about abortion, saying that someone shouldn't go to jail because of it, but at the same time saying she is against every type of abortion (including in cases of rape and incest) except when the life of the mother is at risk, and that she would even support a constitutional amendment with that effect; moreover she was filmed "being rid of the devil" in a religous ceremony; she is under investigation for allegedly having illegally fired the Public Safety Commissioner during her mandate as Governor of Alaska; she had two yahoo e-mail accounts, one of which was accessed by someone else without any hacking at all, just by using publicly available information on the internet to answer the security question she had (cleverly...) set up, and as it seems she might well have used these accounts for political management, which is illegal and clearly not transparent.

Oh, and she only got her passport last year. Her first passport ever. That should say something about her foreign policy experience. That and her saying that she can see Russia from her window.


In all seriousness, this is the ultimate test for the american people. This will tell if the americans have good judgment or not. Picking McCain/Palin to rule the country during the next four years would just show that americans are overly conservative, afraid to change their mentality, and that they don't really know what's at stake.

The United States is on the verge of losing its status as the superpower, a country that talks about other countries as if they were badly behaved sons; a country that has its presidential candidates talking about what they think is best for other countries, about invading some and attacking certain groups inside other countries' territory. The economic crisis and the bad judgment used in the Iraq war may however mean they may soon be just talking about wishful thinking.

Without economic power you really don't have much left to enforce yourself on others. And the problem is, as much as we europeans sometimes hate the self-imposing attitude of the US government, we do need a strong United States of America. They surely won't lose their power overnight, but we are on the verge of a decline. The US economy has a strong influence on the world market, and that is showing everyday in Asia, Europe, and even putting Iceland as a country on the verge of bankrupcy!

We may be looking at a shift towards another world dominance, perhaps from China (albeit their milk powder problems), interestingly the biggest US creditor (estimated at about 1.5 trillion in January, and growing).


This may sound simplistic, but I believe that if Obama was white, he would be well ahead of McCain. The world is not nearly as modern as we sometimes think. We have computers and all this technology to write blog posts everytime, everywhere, but prejudice is still deep-rooted in a lot of people's minds.

I'm not saying Obama is the perfect candidate, nor is Biden, but they are much better than McCain/Palin. Obama may be young and not the most experienced candidate ever, but he has a clear vision, he seems to understand those who surround him on "Main Street" and has dealt very well with the bailout approval stage by not embarking on any political moves to boost his image. He acted sensibly in a time of crisis, and he is still acting that way.


By now the americans (and I dare say, us all too) have had eight years of moronic and deceiving politics, lead by someone who doesn't know what he is doing, let alone feel it. Just watch this statement about the 700 billion rescue plan where George W. Bush is almost laughing at the crisis affecting almost every other american:



Will americans go for something similar, if not worse, and above all, as dangerous as the McCain/Palin duo ?

Unless there is a big change, and massive voting in the democrats , there is still a chance we will again see the more than imperfect american electoral system not working like it should. And that is, ufortunately, a big part of the story. The last eight years' story to be precise.