Election Time

I know this is the Mahan family blog, and I always try to stick to talking about said family, but I'm really sick of the election. I'm taking this opportunity, like a true American, to complain bitterly about some issues that bother me about the upcoming presidential election and our esteemed candidates - some trivial, some not so trivial.

To you innocent blog readers who visit this site to see cute pictures of kids, I'm truly sorry. Luckily, this only happens every 4 years. Please feel free to make a hasty exit and return only after I recharge my camera battery and add more pictures to the blog.

In the meantime, making my list of the most annoying are, in no particular order:

1. CNN. I have seen enough Campbell, Gloria, John, Anderson, David, Dana, "Republican strategists", "Democrat strategists", electoral maps, AP polls, swing voters, and focus groups for a lifetime of elections. I wish for the good old days when people didn't have to know EVERYTHING about every candidate and every voting trend. And yet I still am drawn in to watch the "best political team on tv". As a side note, that is such a dubious - and annoying - achievement for CNN. I mean, really, who is their competition in the "political team" category - the ladies on The View? That's a little bit like calling Larry King the "best suspender-wearing t.v. host", or Paula Abdul the "best slightly loopy American Idol judge".
2. Smarmy political ads. A candidate running for office (we'll call him "Deuce Brunsford") in Kentucky owns health clinics. His opponent, the incumbent, runs an ad accusing him of "cutting corners", starring, yes, the actual widow of a man who died, allegedly due to the fault of a practitioner at one of these clinics. Basically, the gist of the ad is that Deuce himself killed her husband. You will need to take a long, hot shower after you watch this ad - that is how dirty it seems.
3. Lies, lies, lies. I enjoy looking at the website http://www.factcheck.org/ after debates and interviews. It is pretty nonpartisan in showing that both candidates for president and vice-president are big fat liars. Or, to give them the benefit of the doubt, they are just sloppy with their facts. Either way, it is scary to think that millions of people are making their voting decisions based largely on debate performance, when in fact a lot of what is said is "untruthy".
4. Barack Obama. The main problem with lawyers is that they are so lawyerly (and I'm just a part-timer, so I'm giving myself a pass here!). I find that they often make for the most word-twisting, smoothtalking, condescending candidates. I am paraphrasing this quote I once heard, which seems very fitting: "He rides in a car powered entirely by his own self satisfaction." Add to these traits the benefit of a fancy Ivy League education, and being the darling of the media and celebrities, and the combination is just...ugh. Despite this, he markets himself as "one of us". I don't know where all his "g"s have gone from his words - pretty soon, he'll be shopping at Dollar Tree and buying Michelle knockoff Coach purses at flea markets. (Listen to his speeches. Everything is "makin'" or "campaignin'" or "talkin'". There is no way he really speaks like that.). And don't get me started on the whole "spread the wealth" philosophy.
5. Potential Presidents. Joe Biden. This guy gets a pass on every one of his goofy statements (FDR on t.v., anyone?) and antics over the past few decades simply because the media is focused on Sarah Palin. She seems like an adequate governor, a fine family person, a good ambassador for bespectacled moose hunters everywhere, but President? I don't know which would be scarier, a President Biden or President Palin. Cue the Macauley Culkin "Home Alone" scream.
6. John McCain. I really liked the "straighttalking" John McCain that ran against George W. Bush. Where has that guy gone? The John McCain of this election seems like a watered down version of the old John McCain who cannot for the life of him get past his talking points of "pork spending" and "wasteful spending" and "special interests", or stop with the cliches he keeps repeating. The first two debates went like this: Moderator question: "Senator McCain, how do you propose we better regulate our financial markets?" McCain answers: "Well, first you have to get rid of the pork barrel spending, and by the way, I wasn't voted Miss Congeniality of the Senate..." at which point his entire audience passes out from boredom. We get it. You don't like wasteful spending, Maverick (what's up with his constant "Top Gun" references?). Now get your wingman Goose, er, Palin, and focus on issues that directly affect peoples' lives in 2008, such as the economy and terrorism.
7. Campaign fundraising. The Obama campaign has released its September fundraising amount: $150 million. That's a lot of "free speech", and that's just for one candidate. For one month. I know making I Heart Obama sandwich boards is very important, but what if even part of that money had been donated to charity? A "mere" $50 million could really benefit a lot of worthy causes. And this is just talking about Obama's presidential campaign fundraising. Look at McCain's, and that of all the other candidates during the primaries, and it just seems like such a waste.
8. Joe the Plumber (astute Ms. M's comment reminded me about this one). Not since Mario and Luigi have plumbers had so much press. The guy just wants to be left alone. He said so right on Fox News, Huckabee, Laura Ingraham, and others. While it makes for a lot of good puns - his chances of getting invited to the Obama White House have been flushed down the toilet, yuk, yuk, yuk - isn't there a war or something else going on that merits news coverage? And on a practical note, we have a hard enough time getting an honest person who won't ask for our firstborn to come to fix plumbing issues as it is; once they start becoming politicians, too...it's a chilling thought.

Thank you for bearing with me while I gripe. I'm Sara Mahan, and I approved this message.