commentary on the election....

Image via WikipediaFirst off, I must say that I am not an expert in this area, or for that matter ever want to be, the following thoughts are just that my thoughts. These particular thoughts happen to mostly be related to my listening experience on NPR yesterday while spending many hours riding in beltway traffic.

So let me start, first off, Congratulations to Barack Obama. Regardless of the fact that I didn't vote for you, you deserve every congratulations you get, as does anyone who finished a long race and wins. Hillary you put up a good fight and regardless of the primary results, I think you would of made a great president.

Now comes to the true 'commentary' of this post. Now if you asked me why I voted for Hillary, it had nothing to do with race/color/sex or any minority factor. I voted for her based on her experience level, that and I felt I at least knew what she stood for. At the time of the Virginia primaries, I had heard nothing about Obama's policies and positions other than the fact that he didn't vote for the war... well of course not, he wasn't in office, and I don't care that he says he wouldn't have, because almost everybody in office did. Hindsight is 20/20.... So purely my vote was based on experience level. So where do I vote from here.....

Based on my listening experience yesterday on NPR, there are basically 3 options:

1. vote for Obama
2. vote for McCain
3. vote for nobody and stay home

well for me the 3rd options has no merit and shouldn't even be listed, the reason this country works is because of out democratic process, besides since I didn't vote for Bush and cast a ballot against him, I have the right complain all I want about him, for those who stayed home and complain.... well what did you do to help prevent his 're-election'... nothing you stayed home. So yes I will be voting, but for who? The commentators on NPR Diane Rehm's show mentioned that the biggest factors that will be guiding those of us Hillary supporters will be the party or the experience level.
Well for me, well I'm not a Republican, but I'm not a Democrat, and the only reason I registered Democrat in Florida is becuase I got tired of receiving Republican propoganda in 2 languages, and yes I called it propoganda. But for me I have no true party affiliation, I look at the views and look at policies of the two parties and I'm a mixed set. There are policies that I agree with on both sides and ones that I am so utterly against on both sides that they totally drive me away, but as since the way the US political system has only produced 2 real parties, well I'm basically forced to choose between the two. Back on the policy/issues topic has anyone ever noticed that when it comes down to it, there are only a few real differences between the two parties, things like abortion and gay marriage and such, and in all cases, there are people in both parties on both sides. So what I'm getting at, is that I have no 'party' allegence so I won't be using that as a factor, I may be anti-Bush-Republican, but I'm not a card carrying anti-Republican.
Now for experience, well if you go based on experience alone, then I've got to vote for McCain... but that said, would I want to? While I think there are things about McCain that I like, there are also things I don't like. And as for Obama's 'lack' of experience, well I think most of the experience you need to be in office, is learned in office, which is probably the primary factor I think I had for voting for Hillary as I did for Gore in 2000, they were basically in the office and have learned what they needed to learn. This of course leads me to a story I heard yesterday driving home about Washington-insiders. I don't know who the commentator was, but I agree, I don't care how far outside and away you are from the 'insiders', this is Washington, when you are the president, or any elected official, you've got to work with the insiders, it is called politics for a reason. So this kind of negates the need for tons of experience, mostly being willing to work with the right people, and yes some of those people are corrupt, so again I say the RIGHT people.
So.... between McCain and Obama.... honestly at this point I'm not rulling either out, I'll be waiting for the head to head debates and who they choose as running mates, and no, I'm not saying that I won't vote for Obama if he doesn't select Hillary, but it would be the quickest way for him to secure my vote, but I'm sure there are many well qualified candidates out there.

well that concludes the first rambling of my mind, and now to the second, yes I know this is becoming a very long post.

The second topic relates directly to the 'history' that has been made by Obama winning the election. I leave this to the second part of this post because I don't see it as such a big thing. The fact that he is 'black' or African-American or what ever PC term you want to though at it to me doesn't matter. The fact that he is a minority doesn't matter. Why do I say this... well I'm of a 'younger' generation. I didn't live during any of the civil rights movements. I didn't need to march on anything. I am fortunate to be born after the fact. And this said, I tihnk it is utterly sad and embarrishing that this is such a big momentus occasion in our history. If we are all part of the same society and of the human race, why do we even have terms like 'minority'? Anyways also while listening to NPR, they had 2 commentators on (I'm assuming both African-American but I missed their introductions due to paying attention to traffic and the fact that the show was pre-empted by a weather alert, we were under a tornado warning), one a historian and the other I think a policatal writer. The neat part was there discussion on the generation issue, not the race issue, which is the reason I even wanted to mention this issue. It is a generation factor that it is history. Those from the Civil Rights movement era are praising the accomplishment, those from younger generations mostly just think it is cool. Now I say this as a 'white' guy, but it was really interesting to here a set of soundbites collected from African-Americans, there you could definitely see the generation gap. The 'older' ones were definite looking at it from the accomplishment view point, why most of the 'younger' ones almost sounded like it was a revolution. Anyways... I just hope that now after one of the greatest political races in history, politics and other areas will finally start to level off and we will become a single 'human' race in this country.

So, I guess thank you if you actually read this entire post.... I know it was long and for the most part a pointless barfing of thoughts on paper (well digital) but isn't that one of the great parts about blogs, we can put out thoughts out there for comments and stabs.... we'll see if this gets any.