I don’t claim to be a political expert, and I will be glad this will probably my last post about politics for a while, but I wanted to share my thoughts about why Obama won and McCain lost.
Obama stayed on message for his whole campaign. I watched his speech 21 months ago in Springfield, and his message in Grant Park was more or less the same. His ideas are strait forward and laid out on his website. He ran a brilliant campaign and choose a solid running mate. His coffers were deep, but for a good reason, people really want change. Put it all together, and he is a hard man to beat.
McCain led a disjointed, almost bipolar campaign. It was very negative in tone, which I think turned off a lot of voters. He spoke of how liberal Obama’s record is, but he states he is a ‘Maverick.’ Last time I checked, mavericks are not too conservative. He criticized Obama’s lack of experience, but then chooses Palin as his running mate. He called Obama a socialist, but then proposes a massive health care program and bailing out mortgages. He gave us a lot of reasons to not vote for Obama, but no solid reasons to vote for him. With a very disliked President sitting in office of his own party, he didn’t have that much chance. The tumultuous economy did not help as well. He offered the classic Republican solution, cut taxes, mostly on the rich. Guess what, after 28 years of trying, trickle down economics does not work. At all. The crumbs of the super wealthy don’t make anyone rich. Time to try something new, which McCain did not offer.
In the end, I think the man better suited to the challenges ahead won and America was able to put aside its petty prejudices to elect a black man with good ideas.
Well, that’s enough politics for a few years. There are more pleasant things to think about, like how Glenn is growing up and challenging is with the terrible two’s.