A Tightening Race?

Could it be that the hate-calls are working? New Hampshire has gone from dark blue to light blue on electoral-vote.com (meaning having fallen from "strong Dem" to "weak Dem". Could McCain's accusations of socialism in the Obama camp actually be taking root? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. And I know this guy loves the underdog position, so I am officially now, right worried.

The election nightmares continue.

Can this be over now?

VOTE: David Letterman or All of the American Media Pundits Combined?

David Letterman did something brilliant tonight: he actually asked hard-hitting questions of John McCain, even invoking McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy. Now, don't you wish *any* of the major interviewers had done that? How did that slip by Gwen Ifill? She's no slouch.

McCain looked flustered, whiny, defensive about Sarah Palin. I'm sorry Mac, but having a VP whose credentials include having "served on the PTA" as one of her major qualifications does not inspire confidence.

And Letterman's crack about ObL--"Sure, 8 years later, let's go get him!" really made McCain trip up, because he almost missed it, and then didn't know how to respond.

The irony of all this is that the McPalin ticket talks about change even more than Senator Obama does. And that's an excellent strategy: rob the opponent of their most powerful weapon by co-opting it yourself. Excellent.

But it's the kind of thing that accrues some really bad Karma.

I vote that David Letterman conduct all presidential debates from now on. What do you think?

Here's the YouTube clip:

The Madd(en)ing Crowd.

I read this article on Yahoo today: "McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd". When your own supporters won't listen to you defend the integrity of your opponent, that's a sign that your own rhetoric has gone too far.

The fact that the GOP has whipped up the troops into a frenzied hatred of Obama strikes me as being more than reckless in the face of what could potentially be an Obama win. Disrespecting the opponent in such an irresponsible way just seeds further divisiveness on the whole, and can only lead to disaster in the long run, especially if the Dems win.

I'm thinking now of how much I've come to resent Bush and his cronies, not to mention his social conservatism and general ideological platform... But I can't imagine ever shouting things to the tune of "kill him!" or "off with his head!" or even "traitor!", mostly because that kind of thinking represents only the basest and most violent tendencies of our (animal) behavior.

The xenophobia that appears to be the lifeblood of the Republicans these days scares the hell out of me. This is barely concealed racism. In the case of calling Obama a terrorist, it is out-and-out racism, just not in the form that we were expecting, tying Obama to a religion (one that he doesn't profess, by the way) rather than to his skin color. But at the end of the day it's the same thing: they just don't want the guy who's "different" to be their president.

I used to respect McCain for being a different kind of Republican. I used to buy the "maverick" tag line. But his choice of Palin and the way he's been running his campaign has destroyed my trust in him, just as surely as for the other side his camp has made it impossible for nearly half the country to ever trust Obama.

Unwise policy when we all have to live together.

I am frightened.

Sorry for the cop-out post last night

I know that was a cheap post that I "wrote" last night about Stouffer's Mac n Cheese, but I had to post *something*, and I was not digging the blog vibe yesterday... I had a bad taste in my mouth after thinking more about memoir, which made me feel like more of a narcissist than I really am. But I am a Writer Chick, and that lends me to being a little more self-involved on the whole... And thus the reticence with the blogging.

That and the utter appreciation of Stouffer's Mac n Cheese.

So, I looked at the map at www.electoral-vote.com and was dismayed to notice that overnight, NC had swayed into Barely Republican territory, and Missouri went from Barely Dem to Exactly Tied. I don't know what caused the shift, but it's scaring me a little. Something must've happened in the news that I'm not aware of, since I'm boycotting TV.

"McCain needs a game-changer." "McCain has to stop the hemmorrhaging of his campaign." Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that he's doing it? That somehow he's finding a way to play dirty pool and shift things in his direction? Is it the Ayers thing? Is it the low-down-dirty pool he's playing? I've never seen a nastier campaign. Please don't let McCain swift-boat Obama!

I had a dream Obama won, and there was such joy in me that I was virtually bursting at the seams.

I hope it's a premonition.