things don’t change much…

Posted on Friday 12 September 2008

For the last several days, the Presidential Campaign has seemed to be lost in translation to me. Tit-for-tat. This-and-that. Nothing much that matters. The media talks about who is lying, who is mocking, what this or that Candidate needs to do to up their image. Today’s appearance on The View by McCain is more about the interviewers than the issues in the race. "Change" and "Reform Washington" have become buzz words like green or the latest Starbucks take on coffee. I know it’s all posturing and strategizing, but, truth be told, it’s very boring and a little embarassing.

I have the fantasy that there are rooms full of Republicans in one place and Democrats in another place who are being paid a lot to sift through the news, the other guys’ speeches, their past histories, and anything else remotely related to their lives to find a new invective or Talking Point for tomorrow’s news. By the way, I’m sure that fantasy is correct.

The problem for our guy is that it hurts him more than McCain. We all know that McCain is an over the hill fuddy-duddy who will have to rally big time to function as a President in this next term – and we know that Sarah Palin is out of her league. She’s a stumper, not a thumper. So the Republican/Conservative base knows that McCain is full of …., but doesn’t care. For reasons that escape me, they feel safer with a full of …. Republican than Obama. Obama’s supporters are not just the Party faithful, they are hurting people who would otherwise be engageable by a more Conservative message. So if the Republicans can make Obama look as full of …. as McCain, Obama loses.

I know this stuff is getting to me because today I had an "ear worm," one of those songs that plays over and over in your head. When I became aware of it, I marveled that it was a song from a time when I was a teenager [The Merry Minuet by the Kingston Trio]:
    They’re rioting in Africa.
    They’re starving in Spain.
    There’s hurricanes in Florida,
        and Texas needs rain.

    The whole world is festering
    with unhappy souls.
    The French hate the Germans,
    the Germans hate the Poles.
    Italians hate Yugoslavs,
    South Africans hate the Dutch.
        And I don’t like anybody very much!

    But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud,
    for man’s been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud.
    And we know for certain that some lovely day,
    someone will set the spark off…
        and we will all be blown away.

    They’re rioting in Africa.
    There’s strife in Iran.
    What nature doesn’t do to us…
        will be done by our fellow man.

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