I’ve been writing too much lately, and last night I was thinking it’s time for a bit of a break. However, today as I drove around I couldn’t help but think that this election should be the blowout of all time. We have a very intelligent candidate on the one side who can give a speech that sends chills up millions of people’s spines, is calm and collected under pressure, and has demonstrated extraordinary leadership skills, while on the other side there is a candidate that has made gaffe after gaffe, has shown poor leadership skills, and is too old to reasonably be considered for the toughest job in the world, especially under the circumstances the next president will inherit on January 20th. This “other” candidate is also proving to be the king of the “flip flop,” grumpy in his good moments, a poor judge of character (VP choice), and a liar extrordinaire. So why is this election even close – in any state?

As I pondered all this I kept coming back to the reality that news has become entertainment and the so-called “news” channels are fighting for the “bottom line” and the potential (and reality) of advertising dollars obviously has to be driving back room decisions of the media moguls. The closer this election is the more viewers will be watching various events and the more money they will haul in. That is why I’m sure the TV networks were very excited about John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President. While the republican insiders were probably shuddering, knowing the inevitability of the public vetting process, the networks must have been all smiles at the level of controversy – and along with that the interest from both sides of the isle. The size of John McCain’s crowds has grown considerably since the Palin appointment. Which brings me to the source of my thoughts as I drove around today.

First, John McCain himself, he’s getting a free pass on a lot of issues. For some reason no one wants to talk about the real John McCain. How could the party of “family values” pick this guy as the nominee, a man who cheated on and dumped his first wife for a young rich heiress. The only thing I can think of is that he has a stark resemblence to GW Bush when you look at his history. He owes anything he has as far as position to being the son of Two well respected Admirals in the US Navy and his education was the result of “daddy” – alarmingly similar to Bush. McCain would never have been chosen to enroll at Annapolis without his father being one of the top Admirals in the Navy. And he wouldn’t have made it through either. The stories of his drinking, carousing, and gambling as a young man are undeniable, considering the multiple sources of information. He was not an accomplished pilot in the Navy. Everyone seems to want to portray him as a war hero because he spent 5 years in a POW camp. Well, the way he got there was by being a lousy pilot and being arrogant toward the chain of command due to his “name.” And others who were there with him have little respect for him due to his caving in to his captors. How many pilots destroyed 5 planes and were still flying? I don’t know the answer to that, but it seems to me that it should be part of the discussion in this election cycle.

Additionally, McCain wants to pin some kind of lable on Obama because Obama served on the board of a school initiative sponsored by the Annenberg foundation (very pro republican) which also had William Ayers, an admitted 1960’s Anti-war radical who was never prosecuted for deeds that Obama called “deplorable,” on its board. Ayers is now a professor of education at Chicago University where Obama was a Constitutional Law professor for 12 years. OK, Obama doesn’t deny being on this board and that Ayers was on it too, although that is about as far as the relationship goes – aside from the fact they live in the same general neighborhood and their paths cross inadvertently on occasion. If that is fair game, why isn’t the media making a big deal out of some of McCain’s acquaintances. I suppose republicans don’t call G Gordon Libby a terrorist, despite four years in prison from the Watergate affair and numerous threats since then, because his targets are always democrats. But Libby has apparently been a fund raiser for McCain, and actually had a fund raiser activity with McCain present right in Libby’s home. Shouldn’t that be investigated and discussed as relevant? And the Keating five scandal, considering the state of the banks in this country and the widespread belief from every economist I have listened to or read that the problem is deregulation, shouldn’t that be extremely relevent – especially at this time in history. The story is on the fringe media – blogs, U-tube, ect. – but shouldn’t it be fully investigated and either debunked or proven relevant by the mainstream media. I don’t think voters should go to the polls unaware of McCain’s involvement in that disaster, and also this one.

Then there’s Sarah Palin, the darling of the republican base. I’ve even seen bumper stickers that read “Palin for Vice President,” with no mention of McCain. I fully believe that millions of right-wing republicans will hold their noses while they vote for McCain simply because Palin is on the ticket. Should they pull off a miracle comeback and win, I believe these voters will immediately start praying for McCain to have health problems. They actually think she is qualified to be the President of the United States! Ughh! Ultimately, I believe two decisions on McCain’s part will be considered the “nails in the coffin” as far as his campaign is concerned. One will be his vote for the “bailout” and the other will be picking Sarah Palin. Her faithful are already “poo-pooing” the decision by the special prosecutor in Alaska that she violated state-ethics law. They say it was a political “witch-hunt” despite the fact that the inquiry began prior to her selection for VP(you have to wonder about John McCain’s vetting process) and that the committee voting for the inquiry had 10 republicans and only 4 democrats on it – and the vote was unanimous. Worse than that to me was her husband’s membership in, and her speaking at, the Alaska Independence Party which wants Alaska to succeed from the Union. This group has ties with southern successionists in the lower “48” in addition to the John Birch Society. Why isn’t this headline news?

Can you imagine if Barack Obama was part of some kind of successionist movement. The other day Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania Senator, brought up the “no flag on the lapel” argument again after the debate against Obama, and “upon further review” at all three debates – Obama was wearing his flag on the lapel and McCain was wearing his in none of the debates. Now, I have to say that McCain not wearing a flag on his lapel would have nothing to do with whether or not I would vote for him, it just shows how scurilous this campaign has become, and how the media will give air time to the most curious of assertions – with little or no fact checking – and let some pretty serious foopahs go unmentioned.

And, finally, the other night I watched the third debate with some friends and left right after it was over, but stayed long enough to see that the republican “pundit” was Bill Bennett, infamous for preaching morality, while secretly running up huge gambling debts. But what really bothered me about CNN’s choice of Bennett to apparently give his opinion as to who won (I didn’t stay long enough to hear him, but I’ll bet he was one of the minority of Americans who thought it was McCain) was the fact that I can still remember him saying at one point in time that the way to lower the crime rate in the United States was to abort all the African American babies. I really don’t get how he still has any credibility (well, I guess the fact that he does speaks volumes). This is the part that I’ve just got to get off of my chest, people like Bennett pretend that racism doesn’t influence them, but when you look closely at the choices – McCain and Obama – and you consider comments these republicans have made in the past (I use Bennett as an example – but the republican party is full of leaders who have proven themselves to be bigots – this is what originally pushed me away from them) The writing is clearly on the wall. A close election makes them piles of money and many of them could stomach McCain/Palin because the idea of a black president “scares them to death.”