how does it go, tomato

And so Roctober arrives to a blustery finish, another weary month drizzled by with little fanfare, depressing the world with it's economically troubling events, and few (if any) half-decent movie releases to sew up past a crazy-blockbuster summer. But no one is complaining about any of that. America's codpiece is tuned towards the coming elections, about a week and change to go. And of course, everyone has an opinion on the topic - and so, I am no different.

I seldom touch on politics in my blog, for several reasons, but it's always coloring my life, my mind, and all who cross my path, to be sure. When it's as relevant as it is now, I feel somewhat compelled to spit out a couple of words here or there on the topic, and so then..

"Vote Ron! Wy don't you vote? Vote, vote, vote. or you can't complain when things aren't running the way you wish they were." To the contrary. I am tired of explaining this, but I will put it out there once again - I don't vote for much the same reasons I will never by a lottery ticket, it feels like a WASTE OF TIME. If I wanna make a difference in an election, then I must do something to raise my visibility and develop my voice or something like that. Otherwise, punching a confusing card (in a state which always votes Democratic, anyway) feels somewhat pointless. But the larger issue, is the fact that it just goes against my philosophy - bearing witness to the past two elections, it has pretty much been proven to me how things work, and how much of a BS job the whole electoral process is. It just does what it wants. It makes us feel like "we have a voice, we have control" of this fiasco to some degree but honestly, it's so far out of our hands it's just not even funny. Is this a bad thing? Ummm.. well.. is it even relevant? Sure I would say "I WISH things were different and "good would prevail over evil" but at the same time, to be a superpower, to run the world "for the betterment of mankind" in the way that we do, things just sort of follow the way that they do in sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not to say that massive foreign policy arguments wouldn't be different under a democrat-controlled white house - but at this point, with all the groundwork laid down by the GOP, there's nowhere to go but up, anyway. This war we are in, whatever state you'd like to call it now, isn't going to peter out no matter who is in charge... It's not a faucet that can be turned on and off.

I will give the Dems this much, though, they may be wussier and less shrewd than the Republicans, but at least to some degree they seem a littttttle less evil. Ah well. We will see. This is all pointless anyway, because as I have maintained all along McCAIN WILL WIN THE 2008 ELECTION. That's right, look at history, look at what's happened in the past as the prior Electoral Eves drew closer, how tight those races were, and here we are again, same old business. I think we all easily forget about what John Kerry pointed out last time, "The Two Americas" - you have us, the creative dudes, the hard workers, the intellectuals, the businessmen, the trendy hipsters, etc etc. And then you have THEM. The rednecks. The old-fashioned people with much worse grammar. The people who fear Jesus, Aliens, Terrorists, all with the same ferocity. I would still say those guys have us beat like 4 to 1 easy, at least. And these aren't the folks who go out to rallies, they don't "put out the vote," they sit at home with their curtains drawn and their shotguns loaded and their grits cookin'. They mind their own, but they fear everything, and they've been taught that, they've had it beaten into them, and they beat it into their own kids likewise, and it festers, it perpetuates. The Star Wars generation can't really touch it...

And these people aren't "bad." They are just people. They are our brothers and sisters, they watch the same movies an TV that we do, but it's all viewed through a slightly different prism - one that would never ever want to vote a black man into office, I will say that. On top of being black his name is "Barack Obama." Tell me that's not the one-two punch. Yes, America professes how badly it wants change, and it knows it needs it, look at the sorry state of affairs we've got ourselves into now. But it's not going to come that dramatically, not with all the hatred and confusion and Mickey-Mouse constitution we've still got, it's our foundation, it's our backbone, and in this way it is sort of our shame. America is the great big Melting Pot, but it's being tended by a fat old white guy with a straw hat, cowboy boots and the thickest southern drawl you ever did hear.

In spite of all I say, some part of me thinks that the Republicans put McCain out there to dry. Like they send him over ("is this REALLY the best we can do?") And some crazy person decides to strap a handgrenade named Sarah Palin to his chest and pull the pin. That was some craziness if I ever did see any. All they had to do was play it straight, get some good-looking large-chinned rich goofball in there as a subordinate, some no-name, it would have been boring but it would have been safe and, dare I say, pret-ty smooth. But no, somehow they decided to embrace this whole "America needs Change" attitude as well and wanted to pick up the Lesbo Vote which Hillary left in the lurch. Well this was not the way to do it, that's for sure. Anyway, that's what's frazzled my radar. Are the Pubs trying to throw the fight? Are they leaving us in this big stinking mess with the war fallout and the economy in cinders and trying to wash their hands of the affair, "let the dems clean it up!" It wouldn't be easy for anyone to take that mess and make sense of any of it, and by the time the next election rolls around the Pubs'll be sitting mighty pretty like the old father figure "it is okay son, we can handle it from here, you gave it your best shot." I don't know, something about that feels a little believable to me. As for all their investors, constituents, etc., they have enough firewood to keep warm during the long winter, and this will just weed out the wannabee's. I don't know. Something is up.

Anyway I stick to my guns. McCain's got this one locked in spite of all the weirdness. I would prefer to see Mr. Obama taking charge in his stead. I guess we can all just watch and wait - nailbiting.