rock the vote: with knowledge

The last debate for the presidential election is on tonight. It’s been a long road for both candidates. At one point McCain’s campaign was broke, only to sore through the Republican primaries and win. Obama, he’s been fighting stereotypes and tough competition. McCain seems to be fighting to win the election now, after what seemed to be a 50-50 battle for a while with Obama. If McCain wants to win the election he is going to have to come out fighting tonight. His supporters have been calling on him to be tougher with Obama. Other critics suggest quite the opposite, that McCain’s attacks have actually been hurting him in the polls. Obama has been fighting critics on his own.

When Obama first began to run for president and for most of his run I thought he would have a tough time winning the election because of his ethnicity. He’s black in America - and racism however invisible it is, is still there and very powerful. I think it has played a pivotal role, but may not have hurt him as much as I thought originally. However, I think his race has hurt him in another more prevalent way and that is very visible in the news and elsewhere. It is the fact that Obama is being associated as being a terrorist. No exaggerations here. To think that people could actually think that a person running for president could actually be a terrorist is absurd. That not only insults Obama, but Secret Service Agents, the Senate, the FBI, CSI, for somehow letting a terrorist though. But it happens, even at McCain rallies.

Living in Illinois and Chicago I am surrounded by Obama supporters. I don’t get to hear a lot from supporters of McCain. Four years ago, I was also in a heavily supported Kerry city, but was also surrounded by Bush supporters to the point where I was a minority voter. I was often asked why I was voting for him. I would give five to ten reasons why, depending on how well they were listening. People usually don’t except people to be knowledgeable about those things. I would usually voice some concern about Bush as the Plame case was in the midst. I asked after I was done why they were voting for Bush. Most of the time I got three answers. Either the subject was then changed after listing to me, that Bush is ‘pro-life’, or Kerry was a flip-flopper. I don’t think any of those reasons are good enough to vote for someone. I was disappointed at the quality of knowledge people had about their candidate. On the verge of this next election I hope you not only know who you are voting for, but also the reasons why.

Additional resources:
Barack Obama
John McCain

PBS Election Guide
NY Times Election Guide

One Vote 08
Select Smart
Open Secrets