BREAKING: Barack Obama Wins 2008 Presidential Election

Barack pledges to stop smiling, start working

Hopefully I beat MSNBC with my projection (by a hair I’m sure), but DC Hero is now prepared to project Barack Obama as the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election!

I’m not a pawn, so I won’t classify myself as ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’, but I certainly lean conservative… in a good economy. Thank God it’s over. I don’t have to watch or listen to anyone go on a post-teen-angst/sexual-frustration fueled emotional tirade defending a party or a platform they don’t understand anymore. These people don’t know how to argue or prove a point. How do they make it on television? I was watching Bill O’Reilly the other day (don’t ask) and seriously wondered if I was the smartest man alive, or at least the best arguer. If you find yourself getting emotional in a political discussion, it’s time to take a deep look in the mirror.

One of the few things I hate, and I mean I legitimately hate, about young people is their strangely innate desire to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re right about something. There are more young/immature people now because of the failure of the modern relationship, and their barrage of stern and uninformed opinions is pathetic to watch. It’s strange, because they all have an inferiority complex about the quality of their educational background, but they completely dismiss the importance of “structured learning”. It’s also strange because they have such a contempt for ignorant and uneducated Americans, but are oblivious to the fact that a semi-informed opinion is 10 times as dangerous.

Reddit is a good place to fine these circle-jerk youths. Oh, here’s a good one. Vote up if you want the United States to end the war, make wiretapping illegal, invest in clean energy and rid Congress of people who will get in the way of these goals. The only thing worse than this is the bands that reiterate these primitive opinions and call it “getting political.” Give me a break. What does Rage Against the Machine call it? Activism? Call it what it is: poorly informed and oversimplified opinions on complex geopolitical issues. And every fan they have that internalizes those opinions is worse off as a result.

So wait, what is this about? The complicated political issues that actually matter (this doesn’t include gay marriage, abortion, or flag burning) are never cut and dry. There are usually very intelligent people that disagree with each other on them. If you think it’s cut and dry and you can’t see both sides, you don’t understand the issue. These issues include the Iraq War, the Bailout, Nationalized Health Care, etc. This just got boring, I’m stating the obvious.

What If Michelle Obama Was White?

Barack, you're so smitten!

I voted “absentee-in-person” today, and realized that “absentee-in-person” was just a clever way to open polls for 2 weeks instead of 1 day (You can vote in Arlington County if you plan on being outside of the county on 11/4 for undisclosed personal business). Because, honestly, how does it make sense to have everybody vote on the same day? Fucking none, that’s how much.

In any case, as I was voting “No” on a measure to spend $50M on a water treatment plant, it hit me: if Michelle Obama was white, it would have completely changed this election. I was completely sure about this, but it was unclear to me exactly what would have changed. I came up with the following talking points:

1. Black Women Would Hate Barack: He’d be just another rich/powerful Black man who married a White woman, which could have drawn enough ire from Black women to propel Hillary to the nomination. The only reason I’m unsure is I don’t know if single and married Black women would both vote against him. Totally unsure if either group would be cool with the White chick.
2. What Kind of White Girl, Exactly?: If we’re talking Carla Bruni here (the obvious comparison), Obama would get absolutely slammed. It would be the double standard of all double standards, but there’s no way working class White people would vote for a Black man married to a White model, especially not one they already see as a tad ‘elitist’ (educated). If we’re talking Lucy Page, then I think it definitely works in his favor. Put it this way, people would listen to a Lucy-Page-type-wife when she talked about how they can trust Barack.
3. It Would Completely De-Blackify Barack: I almost don’t want to write this because I voted for him, but this isn’t that big of a blog, so whatever. I’ve always thought it’s kind of strange how Barack was abandoned by his Black father and raised by his White mother/grandparents, but he married a Black woman. It goes against the whole “mom-impression” thing, it just doesn’t happen very often (see Tiger Woods for a good example). And I mean, he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, which aren’t exactly Black-culture hotspots. I really need more information on his exes (I can’t find any info), but I assume he dated Black chicks all the way and was banging nothing but Marvin Gaye when it was time to get business done. The Black wife makes him a Black man more than a halfie. Not sure what effect this has.
4. White Women Would LOVE Him: Ah, the hidden truth. Who am I kidding, Hillary wouldn’t have stood a chance. So we’ve all heard the “men love Sarah Palin because they’re attracted” thing, but why haven’t we heard the same about women for Obama? Is it just underreported, or is it just not as strong as it would be if Michelle was White? I’m just saying.
5. In The End, It Wouldn’t Matter: The economy is all that matters in the end, and he would have cruised to victory either way.

Ed note: I have nothing against Michelle Obama. The question I should have asked was if a White woman would have been strong enough to be his rock during this 2 year campaign….

Links of the Day

The 4 part Barack Obama interview on Bill O’Reilly’s show was really great. I suggest anyone check it out:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4  

2 weeks ago, Russian PM Vladimir Putin gave CNN an exclusive 30 minute interview. You probably didn’t hear about it because it wasn’t allowed to air.

Pizzeace!

Women Are Replaceable: Sarah Palin

I love being right.

John McCain is about to exploit something about women that, deep down, everyone knows to be true: they’re replaceable. This woman in some “Hillary supporters for Obama” group summed it up best:

Does John McCain think that women are just Lego blocks? Like he can just swap out a red one for a green one and the Hillary supporters won’t notice?

YES! He sure does! That’s the whole plan! It’s so obvious, it’s undeniable! And let me tell you something: it’s going to work. We’re talking about women here. Women are illogical and vindictive. They’re not going to look at her voting record, her NRA membership, or anything like that. Women will vote for her because she’s a woman and they’re mad at Barack for edging out a victory, end of story. Republicans are geniuses.

Now, this certainly doesn’t lock things up for McCain, but it gets him right back in the game. So here’s some advice for all you politicos out there: The election will be decided on how people feel the country is doing at the time of the election. The best predictor for this, by far, is gas prices. If gas prices are really high, people will want change and vote for Obama. If they aren’t (and things are going ok in Iraq) people will vote for McCain. It’s that simple. I’ll have my election prediction sometime in Mid-October and I won’t be wrong.

Obama’s VP

I think when he said “I want someone who will challenge me every step of the way”, he made it pretty clear that Joe Biden is going to be the guy. Especially with the deadlock in the polls, I don’t see another way he could go. Last I saw, sportsbooks.com had Biden at +300. I like those odds right now, go ahead and make some free money.

Word of the Day – Democrating

To Democrat (verb): To argue for no reason, often over trivial points, to appease a strong inner desire to be right.

There’s a big Rules meeting today about how the delegates of Michigan and Florida should be split.

Both campaigns agree on the Florida delegates.

Clinton wants the Michigan delegates split 73-55 Clinton, Obama wants them split 64-64, and the compromisers want it split 69-59. In case you’re counting at home, they’re arguing about 18 delegates. Holy shit, why does anybody give a fuck about 18 delegates? Obama is 201 delegates ahead.

If this happened in the Republican party, the doors would close, there’d be a lot of screaming, somebody would take the blame for this mess and resign, and a few hours later the delegates would be split 69-59. They wouldn’t have a huge public hearing where everybody gets to speak, a huge committee decides what is most fair for everyone, and everybody claps and cheers when somebody says something they agree with. What kind of people do that anyway? What a fucking joke.

Politics is about leadership, not about doing what’s fair and equitable for everyone.  You do the best you can and don’t waste time doing it. If Obama was White, he’d be a Republican. You heard it here first.

Topic of the Day: Super Tuesday

If you don’t care about the primaries, so be it. I like politics because it’s a big game, and waxing is more important than substance. See my previous post on waxing.

This guy‘s moniker is the Blogging Caesar, and I’ve found him to be the most accurate predictor of elections over the last 4 years. He’s very thorough, and he won me a lot of money in the 2004 presidential election when he made it clear how difficult it would be for GW to lose.

To sum up his predictions: John McCain will effectively clinch the GOP nomination today, while Hillary and Obama will not make any big moves since it will be difficult for either one to get more than 55% of the total delegates at stake today.

Personally, I’m rooting for a situation where no democrat gets a majority of the delegates and there’s a huge fight over who gets the Dem nomination at their convention. I love drama.