Outspent, out-campaigned, out-maneuvered, out-polled, out-smarted.  In a word…out.

While Barack Obama presented his closing argument to millions via a 30 minute “informercial” on 7 networks, John McCain chatted with the softball interviewer on Larry King Live.  Unable to match the multi-million dollar ad buy. McCain could only whine about Obama’s broken promise of accepting public financing.

While Obama showed vignettes of common Americans with common problems and discussed point-by-point policy solutions, McCain continued his attacks on Obama avoiding any true detail revelation of his own vision.  McCain continued his diatribe of Obama the “redistributor” and raiser of taxes.  Oddly, when asked if he thought Obama was a “socialist” as has been charged at the McCain/Palin campaign rallies, he said “No.”  Perhaps he should tell his running mate as she is repeating the “Joe The Plumber says that sounds like socialism to him” line this morning.

When quizzed on the negativity of the campaign, he again blamed it on Obama, suggesting that if he had only agreed to town hall meetings, McCain wouldn’t have launched such a vicious personal attack.  It’s a rebuttal that still baffles me.

The highlight was when King asked him, “You’re president of the United States, you’re flying over the Pacific between nowhere and nowhere. There’s an attack on the United States. How much confidence do you have in a vice president Palin?”

For which McCain of course had to answer, “Total.”  It was the “between the rock and a hard place question”, the proverbial “Are you still beating your wife?” inquisitive.

McCain has to live with his choice of Sarah Palin.  He defended their differences as typical behavior of two ”mavericks” and suggested that “top aides” suggesting a rift could be passed off by the fact that he has “…about 5,000, quote, “top advisors” that can be quoted by the media.”

Therein may lie the answer to why John McCain is losing in all the polls and is set to lose next Tuesday.  His campaign has no leader.  McCain has shown he wasn’t in charge of the campaign when it was leaked that his first choice for VP wasn’t Sarah Palin.  The campaign has been criticized for not having a central theme.  Sure “Country First” is on the signs, but the message has been all over the map and has looked desperate.  McCain promised a clean campaign, something the McCain of 2000 could say and be believed.  The negativity of the past month again shows misdirection and lack of control in the campaign.

Sarah Palin has gone off script as of late contradicting views of John McCain and even said yesterday that she wasn’t in this for “naught” and inferred a desire to be considered as the Republican nominee in 2012.  That statement was a campaign faux paus with days left in the race, a nearly admission of defeat that raised the eyebrows of staffers.

So with time running out, no solid central message and dismal polling, John McCain has a lot to ponder.  In the end he can trace it back to that fateful move to bring in Sarah Palin. It wasn’t the Republican base that he should have been worried about, it was the rest of America.

Perhaps after next tuesday he can be honest again.  When asked the question again, “You’re president of the United States, you’re flying over the Pacific between nowhere and nowhere. There’s an attack on the United States. How much confidence do you have in a vice president Palin?”

He can answer, “Total….what would I care! I will be in a plane over the Pacific between nowhere and nowhere!”

Terrorist

 noun

 

a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities 

  

     terrorist. (n.d.). WordNet® 3.0. Retrieved October 29, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorist

Evangelical Christian Right operatives are distributing propaganda via email, phone calls and pulpit sermons.  This is not an unusual practice as they preached against gay marriage in 2004.  However the level of scare tactics being used against Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is reaching an alarming tone.

Reports of phone calls to Jewish voters linking Obama to the PLO and warning of an administration comparable to that of Nazi Hitler have been coming in for a couple of months.

Absurdities suggesting an Obama vote fulfills the prophecies of the Bible and signals the “end of time” and/or that Obama is the anti-christ are being heard in churches.  And in extreme cases, people are being warned that Obama will take away guns, eliminate heterosexual marriages, put kids into pornography, kill babies or confer with terrorist organizations.

The main stream media, despite being labeled “bias” and “liberal” refuses to call these propagandist what they really are….terrorist.

That’s right, the small church down the street and the mega pastor who spews intolerance and lies worldwide via satellite syndication are terrorists!

These groups, under the guise of religion want to use fear and scare tactics to affect our political election and dictate our government.  The words that prey on the under-informed electorate also fall on the ears of the unstable.  We have already witnessed a hoax claiming a “black” man who “attacked” and mutilated a “white”  woman McCain supporter.  We have watched as a woman held a microphone at a McCain town hall meeting and said she was scared of Obama because she “read some things” and he was an “Arab”.  Most disturbing in the wake of Sarah Palin rallies where people shouted slurs and “kill him”, a makeshift plot to kill African American kids and Obama was thwarted.

From the party that has spent the last seven years telling us they will protect us from terrorism, who based foreign policy, engaged in an unfounded war in Iraq and received blank checks for the “war on terror”, we allow these terroristic tactics of fear.

If we are truly fighting a war on terror, then we must also include the domestic terrorism being carried out by the Evangelical right wing factions in the United States among the enemy.  Their cover, their organization, their actions, their words and their motives fit the definition verbatim.

Actually it was touching an onscreen icon.   I cast my 2008 vote today during the waning days of early voting here in Tennessee.  The mid-morning line was modest and I only waited 20 minutes, but the line had swelled in that 20 minutes to spill out the door of the old former town hall to the sidewalk outside.  My sister who voted yesterday across the county during rush hour waited an hour and a half.

My experience was uneventful, unlike the previous two Presidential elections where I voted on election day at my “regular” polling place.  That location is a church and I have a philosophical problem with voting in a religious location.  Religion has been interjected into national politics and both 2000 and 2004 prompted me to report my polling place to the election commission.  In 2000 the church’s lobby was adorned with tables with such items as George H.W. Bush photos and anti-abortion pamphlets.  Voters in line had to pass these tables as if at a trade fair.  In 2004, after the war in Iraq had become an issue, the tables were once again there with a copy of  a 2000 Time Magazine  sporting George W. Bush and a display of veteran photos complete with medals and American flags.  The partisan message in light of the political campaigns was clear.

Early voting in the old town hall was void these subliminal attempts to affect the voter.  The walls were blank and the line just wound through a hall into one room to the voting room.  Local candidates (my town is electing a new mayor and alderman) handed out postcards in the parking lot and vounteers held campaign signs along the street, but inside was pristine and bipartisan.

Walking out I realized for the first time that my vote could very well be part of an event that surpasses normal historical proportions.  That I didn’t think about electing the first African American as President when I “touched” the button but only remembered it’s significance once outside the building made me smile. 

If my candidate wins then perhaps next time an African American runs for the highest office, it won’t even cross my mind.