It's the Economy Stupid!

I'm not normally so political on this blog but I'm kind of obsessed with this election. Not just because it is so historic but because the country is kind of in the crapper right now, and I'm a little concerned about who is going to be leading it in the next four years, after the past 8 years of misery that we've had to endure thanks to Shrub and his henchmen Cheney and Rumsfeld.

So I watched the debate last night and while the candidates didn't say anything differently really then they did two weeks ago, I was struck by how much this election seems to be turning on the economy, something that McCain seems not to grasp fully. Remember lo those many years ago when Clinton was running and the refrain was "It's the Economy Stupid!" Well, I kind of think that logic applies to this election.

But McCain seems to be running on empty. He and his pit bull Sarah Palin are now bringing up stuff that had been dealt with in previous debates, and stretching the truth to suit their purposes. I'm talking about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. I almost feel sorry for McCain. It's clear that he has absolutely no respect for Barack Obama. Consider him calling Obama "That one" last night on the debate. Right now he seems like a bitter old man. After twisting himself like a pretzel to appease the right wing of the party and choosing Dick Cheney in heels to be his running mate, he has to be aghast that he's still behind in the polls.

I think he looks at Obama and thinks that everything has come easy to him. After all McCain spent 5 years in an North Vietnamese prison, before that he wasn't even at the top of his class at Annapolis, he's spent 26 years in the Senate, and this is what? His third or fourth run at the Presidency and along comes Obama, only in his first term in the Senate, running for President, snatching the nomination out of Hillary's hot little hands, and gosh darn it people like him without Obama really trying. That has got to hurt. McCain reminds me a little bit of Richard Nixon right now when he was debating Kennedy during the 1960 election. I think it was a huge mistake for him to leave the town hall early and to not stay around schmoozing and glad-handing the way Obama did. People are going to remember that.

Of course the fact that right now Obama is ahead in the polls means nothing. What matters is what happens on November 4th when people step into the election booth. Is the nation really ready to elect an African-American president? Not just a Democratic junior senator from Illinois but a man of color.

God, I hope so or we might just be even more screwed then we are now with McCain/Palin in the White House.