Right now I am fighting off an electoral anxiety attack. The more time I spend staring at the polls and reading the CNN tickers the less calm I get. Obama's gaining ground, he's losing ground... the race is 'tightening'. I feel like I need a paper bag to breathe into. Time for a little electoral enlightenment. Right now CNN says Obama has 203 SAFE Obama electoral votes. He has 88 LEANING Obama votes. That's a grand total of 291votes. Obama needs 270 to win. Here's where it gets sticky. There are also 87 TOSS UP votes for grabs. Obama needs 67 more votes (not counting the leaning) to win. That's still one hell of a lot of votes needed. Now the McCain camp (boo! Hiss!). He has 121 SAFE McCain votes and 39 LEANING votes. That's a total of 160. He needs 149 more votes (not counting the leaning) to win. That's a whole fuckload of votes. To many people it's a no brainer. But that's not the way to think. What happens if he gets the leaning, toss up and a few surprise Obama states? We have four more years of Bush politics. People say they're voting Obama. They will wear the pins (given to them for free) and cheer him on from the sidelines. But come election day they figure they are too tired or the line is too long and decide that he's going to win even without their vote. That 'why bother' mentality is almost as bad as the 'of course I'm voting for the Black guy' one. People want to sound like they're hip and willing to cross the party lines to vote for change. But when election day comes they start feeling that guilt about letting the team down and vote for what's safe. Vote for what they know.
CNN is talking about a possible late October surprise. That makes me nervous. It also makes me angry. Don't get me wrong... the candidate's character is important. But dirty politics in order to get votes leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They don't care that they aren't winning because people think they're the right choice. They don't care that their misinformation is getting them votes instead of people believing in them. Just get me in so I can be the President. That's what Bush did. That's what McCain is doing now. When a candidate does more to damage the other guy than show you what they are offering... it means they don't have dick to offer. Give me an exit plan. Give me a SOUND economical plan. Give me SOMETHING that shows you are interested in the American people and not the corporations. Their campaign spokesman is a guy who isn't even a licensed plumber and lied on national television about his wages, the fact that he had no immediate plans to buy the business and that said business doesn't even make $250,000 a year. How can you be behind someone that's not even willing to stand behind the people but will gleefully stand behind a farce? Ask yourself that on November 4th.