A Sad Attempt At Political Discourse

I try to mostly keep this blog politics free (I assume that the internet doesn't need any more political opinions clogging it up), but after last night's thrilling (honestly!) primaries, I figured it couldn't hurt to pipe in with my two cents on the Democratic elections. I don't know if this will be smart or funny- if you want smart and funny, watch Stewart and Colbert. These are just my opinions, take them or leave them.

I'll start be reasserting the fact that I'm fine with either one of these candidates getting the nomination. They'd both be fine presidents. At the very least, they're both a massive improvement over what we've got now (hell, even McCain's a slight improvement). I get why no one's dropped out of this primary yet. Really, I do. It's close enough that it just seems silly to drop out at this point. Still, Obama has a lead that's practically mathematically insurmountable. Clinton, however, continues to say in speeches that she's in this fight to the end, no matter what the numbers say. First, I think the end is coming pretty quickly for Mrs. Clinton. The numbers just aren't there for her, overall. Second, I realized this morning why Hilary has been rubbing me the wrong way for the past few weeks: She sounds like George Bush. Not policy-wise, of course; it's the rhetoric. "Not backing down, no matter what" is just a paraphrase of "stay the course." The kind of stubbornness that causes people to stick with their plan long after the evidence started to pile up that the plan wasn't working has not proven to be beneficial to our country. Last night, both candidates were steering their speeches toward unity, and I hope that's where the message stays for the rest of this process.
Another thing that worries me about Hilary is her campaign spending/financing. After Pennsylvania, Clinton made a HUGE point of the fact that Obama had greatly outspent her in the campaign and still come up short. Let's be honest- Hilary would have tripled what Barack spent if she had the funds to do it. He was spending the money because he had money to spend. Hilary keeps throwing her own money, large sums of it, into her campaign just to keep it afloat. This raises two issues with me:
1) Clinton is trying hard to court her rural base and play up Obama as an elitist. She's wants to paint herself as more of an "ordinary" person. Well, ordinary people couldn't afford to put $6 million of their own money into their own campaign. I'm just sayin'.
2) Our country is in an economic crisis. It doesn't bode well for Clinton that she's having such a hard time keeping her campaign fiscally solvent. Is she capable of keeping the country out of debt when she can't due the same with her campaign? I just don't know.

As for Obama, well, I guess there's the whole Jeremiah Wright thing to discuss. Now, I've been to churches where I don't agree with everything the pastor is saying. Heck, most of the churches I go to I don't agree with the pastor. But then again, I don't go to church very often. And I'd guess that Barack Obama isn't the most religious person in the world, either. He doesn't strike me as the type to attend church every Sunday (I should note that I'm basing this entirely on a guy instinct, I have no evidence to back it up. I could be way off base here). He obviously could never actually admit this or the media would have a field day with it (Obama Hates Jesus! Film at 11, only on Fox!). But basically, I'm not going to criticize him for something that someone else said, even if Obama did attend his church. I would hope that John McCain has the common sense not to bring this up in the general election. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell said basically the same thing that Jeremiah Wright said about 9/11, and John McCain likes them enough to speak at Falwell's university (even though there is ample video from various talk shows of McCain condemning Falwell and saying he'd never speak there- straight talk, indeed). I'm certainly sick of hearing about it.

Anyway, that's what I've got for today. Now you know where I stand.

Cheers,
Eli

NYT- 10:11
CS- 4:29
LAT -3:49(!)
NYS- 11:33
This was a Wednesday? The New York papers were tough on me, but the other two! Wow! I even accomplished a personal goal and beat the venerable Orange on the LA Times and came close on CrossSynergy. This was a big day for me.