Thoughts on the U.S. election

Sure, like so many others, I’m glad it’s Election Day. Tomorrow the ads end, today is a bit like the political Super Bowl Sunday (speaking of which, the Washington Redskins were beaten soundly last night, that means Obama will win (quite possibly in a landslide) according to NFL-Presidential Election history). So here are a few things I’ve noticed.

I have to agree with Jay Leno who noted last night the 8-14% who were still undecided on the Presidential vote as of Monday. Who are these people who have STILL not decided? Haven’t they at least reached the point of voting according to party rather than candidate? This is one of the most covered elections, certainly of the last few decades, wouldn’t you decide at least a couple of weeks before the election this time?

I’m watching Sarah Palin speak after voting in AK. She noted that in Alaska she “cleaned up corruption.” Weren’t her actions just found to be unethical, but not illegal? (Specifically, “Investigator Steve Branchflower ruled that [Palin] had violated state ethics rules for public officials” – Sky News.) To me, that’s still in the domain of corruption.

Does anyone actually vote for the candidate from their state out of state pride? Isn’t that a bit silly? Nearly every candidate in history has won their home state, with at least one notable exception of McGovern in ’72 (he was from South Dakota and only won Massachusetts; his opponent? Nixon. You bet that MA people said “I told you so” after Watergate). How many times, though, has winning the home state been the result of people just wanting to boast that the President is from their state?

I heard from a friend earlier that someone took a personal letter from the mail as a form of identification to the polls. I’ve moved to a different state before, sometimes you have to use personal mail as your identification when setting up accounts with utilities, etc. But that shouldn’t count as ID for voting.

Does anyone really think much will change no matter who wins? Didn’t people think that when Clinton won or the current Bush won the first time (or about their opponents)? For me, here’s how it works. Many changes from the President affect either minority groups (which I’m all for, but those don’t directly affect me most of the time) or business owners/economy. I don’t own a business, I don’t care to own a business, nor do I own a house or stocks. So those changes don’t have much to do with me. Minimum wage is the only one I can think of that would have an effect on me (and I’ll be done undergraduate work in May, there goes any reforms on tuition affecting me; those reforms would be on undergraduate, not graduate, most likely).

Here are a list of things I am aware of in my daily life which I can, and often do, attribute directly to a President: Kennedy established the Peace Corps, which I’ve thought of joining; Clinton established AmeriCorps, I’ve talked to AmeriCorps a few times about working with them (contrary to popular belief, Carter didn’t start Habitat for Humanity, he became their biggest proponent, and Clinton did not establish Teach for America, it was started in 1990). That’s it. Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. I’m quite sure Presidents have done other things that affect my daily life, but the public relations department didn’t do a very good job of getting the public to associate the change with the President.

I suppose you could add the Bush Wars to the list. A few people from my family were sent to the first war and I know of people who have been sent to Iraq/Afghanistan this time around. But, so far, everyone has come home safely. If I were to be incredibly selfish about it, I could point out that I personally have not been sent overseas. In that sense, I have not been affected by either war.

At some point in time, I really don’t know when, I became disillusioned with the idea of voting for a candidate based on just one or two issues. If I’m not mistaken, especially in the case of the President, they work on many issues and, at least in theory, have an influence on all areas of our lives. So if I strongly disagree with a candidate on immigration policies but agree with the candidate on everything else, should I really elevate immigration to the level of being the deciding factor? Of course, there are plenty of other issues to put in immigration’s place, and two or three are quite obvious, but I think the principle stands. The President does more than deal with laws and situations on one or two issues, why not vote based on the entire person and their stance on a variety of issues?

I was also told a story about surveys done on the candidates and their policy statements. Apparently, once people thought the survey was all about one candidate, as in the candidate they wanted to vote for, they blindly attributed every statement to their candidate. The story also got into racial aspects of this (it was specifically African American voters in cities being asked about Obama, from what I recall). This is either ignorance of what the candidates really said or blind allegiance to a candidate. Just assume it’s your candidate without really listening to what the person giving the survey says. (I can’t find a story on it online, so I’m sure my details are off, but the conclusion is still spot-on, it’s what we talked about when I was told the story.)

And finally, from watching so much coverage, I’ve found I like McCain in many ways. He seems personable, he might actually care about the state I currently live in, and he’s more than willing to make fun of himself as seen multiple times on Saturday Night Live. Seems like good qualities to me! I took a quiz at ABC News where you answer questions and it tells you which candidate you agree with. It only offered McCain and Obama. On the economy, I agreed with McCain, on everything else I either agreed with Obama or when it said I agreed with McCain, I noticed that I agreed with both and something small caused me to favor McCain’s position (ie. Obama wants to reduce greenhouse gases 80% by 2050 while McCain wants to reduce it 60% by then; I felt McCain was more gradual and realistic but Obama’s 80% would be terrific, besides, it’s not like either one will have any influence on the issue beyond 2020). The reason I just couldn’t get myself to vote for McCain at the end of the day was because of his VP pick. I couldn’t find the side-by-side video of Couric/Palin and Poehler/Fey, but search YouTube for Couric’s interview of Palin. You’ll find the parts that get laughter in SNL are often exact quotes from the Couric interview. Here’s the SNL one:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/couric-palin-open/704042/

It’s a bit scary how Palin/Fey’s answer to the question about the bailout is pretty much an exact quote from the real interview. When I first saw it, I had to find the Couric interview to check how much SNL changed. Not very much is the answer.