An interesting politics-related exchange I saw on the SA Forums
This is inspiring but also kind of terrifying, because it reminds me of what this election stands to prove about America.
For almost two years now, Barack Obama has run a near-perfect campaign. His people haven’t misplayed a single card; they’ve spun negatives into positives, trumped the Clinton political machine, overcome a complete lack of name recognition, outmaneuvered and out-managed the opposition at every single turn. It’s been genius.
In contrast, John McCain has run an inept campaign based on gimmick after gimmick, has a universally reviled VP pick, suspended his campaign, seems old and lifeless on the campaign trail; it has been miserably and objectively bad no matter who he was running against.
Obama and Biden have drawn crowds larger than any seen before. Raised more money than any other ticket in history by faaaar. Won 4 out of 4 debates decisively.
Basically, we are seeing the best campaign possibly ever against one of the worst ever. The McCain campaign has less talent, less organization, less volunteers, less money, less issues to run on, less everything.
Yet they are somehow still within striking distance in the polls. And with everything above taken into account, if we somehow lose this election based on obvious character assassination and dusty old socialism accusations, I have to for the first time in my life agree with conservatives. This IS Bush country. This is a conservative, Republican country that does not trust Democrats or liberals. We will never be handed this good a candidate, this well-loved and well-funded a candidate, let alone against this horrible and inept an opponent EVER again. If Obama loses this election in 16 days, I really see no reason to believe any of us will ever see a Democrat elected president again in our lifetimes unless the Democrats shift over a couple decades to as far-right as the GOP is now and the Republicans shift right to fascism.
I’ve always thought about elections in terms of expressions of the national consciousness- there is a schism in the psyche of our nation which is expressed by our two party political system. This election represents the nation attempting a massive breakaway from one path— a damaging, self-destructing path but one that we’ve grown comfortable on— and turning onto an untested, frightening new path that deep inside, we know is for the best. It’s an enormous course-correction of the entire national conscious, the difficulty of which cannot be understated.
We’ve seized the helm, grabbed the wheel and now we’re turning the entire fucking nation from waaaayy on the right, all the way over to the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. From the red-blooded beer drinking flag-waving conservatives represented by Bush and McCain (a bona-fide war hero), to the mixed-race liberal newcomer with an Arabic middle name. In two years.
Essentially what I’m saying is that the issue is far more complex than simply ‘Good candidate versus Bad candidate’. It represents a deep seated shift in the thoughts, prejudices, values and ideals of an entire nation as we attempt to make our ruler a man who would have been property less than 200 years ago. It represents taking a political newcomer, elevating him to the heights of national power and pitting him against the strongest, sturdiest and nastiest political establishments to ever occupy the annals of power in the United States. This election is a fucking perfect storm that has produced a damn-near political miracle- books will be written about this shit years from now and they will still wonder at how this small-time freshman Senator came out of left field and beat down Hillary Clinton and the entire might of the GOP. I’m reading a history of Abraham Lincoln here and the sheer unlikeliness of both candidates- along with a million other parallels- is fucking eerie. America is not Bush Country, we’re just a center-right nation that went too far too the right and now we’re swerving in the opposite direction in a desperate attempt to balance things out and dig ourselves out of this hole we find ourselves in.
This is going to be a big election, and in a different and more substantive way than the last few elections were also big elections. We won’t see until November 4th (and afterwards) whether this will be the type of giant re-alignment that American politics only sees every few decades, but all signs point to YES.
