Poli-ticked Off

I really don’t want McCain to win, and I don’t think he’ll steer this country in a good direction, but I’m pretty certain he will win. Why you ask, let me tell you.

1. Young people don’t vote. A large part of Obama’s base is made up of young people. Where are young voters found? In college. Where will they be on election day? In college. Unless they’re registered to vote in the town they attend college they’ll have to use an absentee ballot. I would say that out of 100 students who support Obama, 5 of them will actually use an absentee ballot. These numbers are certainly a guesstimation, but I was once a college student who felt strongly about a candidate and I didn’t vote that year.

2. Military. Believe it or not most military families and people serving don’t enjoy going to Iraq, they really would like not having to go back to Iraq. Pro-military John McCain even voted against increasing the GI Bill so former military people could actually afford to go to college on it. Why did they vote against it? They want people to get stuck in the military. McCain believes that if after serving four years in the military that soldier, or that Marine that signed up for money for college could actually afford to go to college on the GI Bill that they’ll get out. Well, increase the GI Bill or don’t increase it, they’re still getting out. Retention is a major problem right now, ask any recruiter and they’ll tell you that their numbers are way down compared to four years ago. If they weren’t down people wouldn’t be getting called back to active duty. I was in the Marine Corps – I went to Iraq – I’m now using the GI Bill while working full time, I have a decent idea what I’m talking about on this one.

Why won’t this silent support of soldiers, marines, seaman, and flyboys help? For the same reason young college supporters won’t help. People are willing to vote when it’s convenient, getting an absentee ballot requires planning.

3. When democrats have a fighting chance, republicans will come out in mass to support their candidate even if they don’t like him. There will be Clinton supporters that won’t vote in November, they’ll simply stay home. Republicans though, most true conservatives hate McCain, but they see him as a lesser of 2 evils, and so they’ll come out and vote. Short buses full of senior citizens will roll into the polling place. The hard truth is that democrats will bicker and fight and never unite, while the republicans can put all their shit aside for 1 day and vote for their candidate.

4. Evangelical Christians. The church is one of the most profitable and influential industries in this country. I’m not debating the corruption that organized religion has become, but I will say this. People in America have short memories, and when John McCain rebuked the support of Evangicals he came crawling back. Now Governor Palin is in the mix, and you would think they’d frown on the fact that her daughter is a pregnant high schooler. No way, not with the political spin that exists. They simply say that everyone makes mistakes and its proof that they’re prolife. The spin machine, working overtime.

5. Vice presidents don’t matter and everyone will forget them in a week. All of Biden’s foot-in-mouth moments aren’t going to matter because people don’t vote for the VP. Likewise, when McCain said a week before he announced Palin as his running mate that he wanted someone that would be qualified to take over if something happened to him, it didn’t matter. Why didn’t it matter, because it really doesn’t matter. Who cares if John McCain has had cancer 4 times, or that he is 72 years old. People can simply forget stuff like that.

Now, I do believe the VP would have mattered if Obama picked Clinton. I think all the disenfranchised Clinton supporters would have voted for Obama with Clinton on the ticket, and the Obama supporters would have still voted for Obama because his name would be at the top. Likewise, I think if McCain chose Lieberman* he would have lost a lot of republican votes.

6. As much as it pains me to say this, Obama is half black. And there are a lot of people in this country that are racist for one reason or another. I’m sure I’m not the only one that saw the interview with the people in Nashville, TN, one of which said she thought Obama was “a muslim” the other said, “change, the only time I’ve seen change in a black man is when he’s had a cup in his hand”. I was so pissed when I heard those two statements I was ready to declare war on toothless redneck hillbillies. But you know what, there are a lot of toothless redneck hillbillies, and they usually vote republican anyway, now that the democratic candidate is black, you can certainly bet there will be a lot of pick-ups rolling into their polling places.

*Lieberman – He better pray every day that McCain wins and gives him a job in his cabinet because if McCain doesn’t win, he’ll be screwed like he was in prison. No one from either side of the isle is going to want to work with this guy. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.