Shouzer

We are quickly approaching the end of the year and the end of an era. 2009 will see a new president, and I think everyone here at Shouzer is pretty excited about that. My question is, how excited are you? How much is Barack’s presidency worth? Let’s play a little game of what if.

What if John Kerry had defeated George Bush in the 2004 election? We would have been saved from the last four years of destruction, replacing them with a period of blandness. Now, when the 2008 election came along, Kerry, as the incumbent, would have been on the Democratic ticket. Some other Republican would have been flying the “Change we can believe in” banner, and Barack would have been a nobody.

The incumbent has a strong advantage so Kerry probably would have pulled off reelection. So let’s look now at the 2012 election. Kerry’s VP, Edwards, would hold a strong advantage in the Democratic primaries, though he probably would be fought by HR Clinton and Obama. Obama, by this point, would have been a senator for around 10 years part of the Washington establishment, no longer seen as an agent of change. Though it is obviously still plausible that he would come out on top here.

I could go on to list other scenarios, but I think you see my point. No George Bush for the last four years means no Barack Obama now. So is he worth it?

I am not your friend, nor do I want to be.  Quit calling the American people “your friends” everytime you address them.  Frankly, it’s presumptuous and insulting.

NYTimes. Aaaron Sorkin. Obama meets Bartlet. Truly refreshing stuff.

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

Read: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1222228800&en=007cf9e8faaaf52a&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

Eight years ago, I distinctly remember making an argument that, while his qualifications were meager in comparison to Al Gore, George W. Bush would make a good presidential choice. After all, his father was a former president, he had Colin Powell on his side, and he ran with a well-publicized inner-circle of strategists, experts, political leaders. Surely, this team would not fail.

I was wrong.

And I won’t be fooled again. Sarah Palin has given an opinion, spoken, writen or otherwise, about the war in Iraq, how to fix the economy, or international relations. She is going to need a gigantic team of advisers feeding her every line in every speech and in every town hall and in every debate. She is not ready to lead, and I highly doubt she will ever be ready to lead. The candidates themselves must be ready to govern the country and represent it in world affairs, not a committee of party insiders. It doesn’t work. The past eight years have proven is doesn’t work.

And a word of advice, if you happen to be a community organizer, I guess you should just quit your job and go the unemployment line. What a laughable role in this country you have! You deserve no respect.

I’m having trouble formulating this thought into words and sentences in my head, so the following could be a mess.

What’s so wrong about voting for someone who appears to be smarter than you? Better yet, should that not be our collective mission? When electing someone to public office, especially that of the executive branch, I’m quite certain that it is in my best interest to mark the box next to the name of the person who is least likely to be at the same aptitude level as my friends and neighbors. I want someone who is overly intelligent, whose education far exceeds my own, who, when faced with a decision that affects the lives of millions, would be better equipped than me to lead in the right direction.

Nevertheless, popular opinion seems to reflect that this is not something to be desired in running for office. That “aw shux,” “just one of the guys” act was probably one of the biggest reasons that our current president was elected over either of his opponents. How has that worked out? Again, what is the appeal? When one candidate attacks another for being “elitist,” that should be almost a backhanded compliment. “Thank you very much, yes, I do consider myself to be well-educated, and knowledgeable about many things in which you are not.”

That is my thought for the day. If presidential decisions were easy enough to be made by the guy whose locker was next to mine in high school, then the framers of the constitution probably wouldn’t have been so concerned about it. But things are not that way. One of our candidates has graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law, was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, has over a decade of experience in Chicago politics and the U.S. Senate, and picked a VP mate who has been in the Senate for over 35 years, heading up multiple committees. Those two men are WAY more equipped than me to do almost anything. But that makes them the lesser candidates, according to some… I just don’t get it.

Over the weekend, Obama announced that he had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden is an experienced, six term senator from Delaware, currently serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You’d think that’d be a good thing, right?

No, apparently in politics it underscores the fact that Obama isn’t ready to be president.  Why else would he have chosen somebody who had so much more experience than him?  Oh, it also shows that Obama can’t deal with other countries.  That’s why he needed somebody with Biden’s experience in foreign relations.  Mmmhmm.  That’s how it works.

Obama’s selection couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that he believed Biden might be the right person for the job.  No, of course not.  Realistically, he probably could have picked somebody who would deliver more votes (ala Edwards).  Instead, it looks like he focused on choosing somebody that deserved to be vice-president (that should not be taken as a shot against Edwards).

This is why politics is stupid.  Rather than focusing on who Biden is and what he brings to the table, everybody’s analyzing the choice and coming to dumbass conclusions.  What a waste.

1. After the Bush administration, the country will have an extremely lopsided election with 100% of democrats and a fair amount of republicans and independents voting blue, no matter the candidate.

Recent evidence shows that I was far too hopeful, and I am still surprised. I thought most people wanted to stop losing lives in Iraq. I thought most people were being hurt by the economy. My assumptions must have been wrong. I now see that there are still many, many voters who want to stay in Iraq, and many, many voters who want the same leadership in the economy. I also thought that universal healthcare would be be a welcome matter, but here again, I was incorrect.

2. People who support Hillary Clinton are doing so because of her stance on issues.

This one is just as big of a surprise to me, because statement #2 is clearly false. If it were true, we would see every single HRC voter throwing his/her weight behind Barack Obama; as far as issues go, they are nearly in complete alignment. However, HRC supporters are taking stabs at Obama, threatening not to vote in the GE, and backing the stance “McCain in ’08, HRC in ’12″. Someone please explain this to me. It is utterly inconceivable. It’s like wanting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with grape jelly, but you only have strawberry, and instead of eating the strawberry jelly, you eat peanut butter and mayonnaise until your mom gets back from the store in 4 years. It’s f–king fruit jelly, and you’ll probably never know the difference! Eat that sh-t, so you don’t have to swallow the mayonnaise!

Further, if HRC supporters think that Obama primary voters were sexist, what do they call not voting at all? Is it not also sexist to abstain from voting for a man because you favor a woman?

Someone explain these things to me…

I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to any political news lately, which would probably be fairly surprising to anybody who knows me.  I was trying to figure out why, and I realized I think it’s because I just can’t stand Hilary.  She just pisses me off.  I’m not sure exactly what it is, honestly, but anytime I hear her talk I want to rip off my ears.  And that can’t be a good sign.

I’m really surprised that Hilary’s even still around.  It doesn’t seem like anybody really likes her more than Obama, and yet she keeps get votes.  I hear talk about people being inspired by Obama and believing he can make a real change in the country.  I don’t hear the same  things about Hilary.  So who the fuck keeps voting for her?  For real, Hildog, I wanna know what your game is.

i am hardly the most qualified of those who write in this space to suggest anything political. in fact, i may be the least of these. you could say i have a heightened sense of “seeing both sides.” i am only just beginning to sculpt some concrete political views. this aside, i want to pass along a video i saw for the first time today. i assume i might be late to the scene on it, but maybe some of you are in the same boat. if you can watch it sans party lines, i know you will be inspired. trying to get me excited is about like trying to get a pile of rocks excited, but this did it.

Take the quiz at GlassBooth. For the second time in 4 years, I’m closely aligned with John Edwards. Here are my top 5.

1. 84% John Edwards
2. 80% Barak Obama
3. 76% Hillary Clinton
4. 71% Dennis Kucinich
5. 64% John McCain

Those were followed by Mike Gravel, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Rudy Guliani, and Duncan Hunter.