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Several times in recent years Florida has, literally, been rearranged by hurricanes thundering in from the Caribbean. Parts of the social and economic infrastructure, in particular along the Keys, vanished in the storms. Now, with only four days to go in the race for the presidency, another powerful gale is heading for the Sunshine State. This time, it’s coming from the north, Chicago to be precise, threatening to turn the political landscape upside down.
Barack Obama, the self-appointed wind of change, aims to blow away entrenched voting patterns by becoming the first Democrat candidate for more than half a century to win Florida without having roots in one of the former Confederate states. Since 1950, only three Democrats have carried Florida: Bill Clinton (Arkansas) 1996, Jimmy Carter (Georgia) 1976 and Lyndon Johnson (Texas) 1964. Their victories here helped propel all three to power in Washington. Obama is many things, but Old South he is not.
In 2000, had just 269 of the Florida votes that went to George Bush gone to Al Gore, the state would have fallen to the Democrats, and so too the White House. For the wrong reason, it became infamous as a swing state: the chads that were left swinging on the voting cards made a mockery of American democracy. Eight years on, Florida is again regarded as a make-or-break battlefield, with pundits calling it one of only half a dozen remaining “toss-ups”.
Senator Obama says that he doesn’t need to take Florida to collect the ultimate prize, but if he did, it would be impossible for John McCain to become president. They don’t agree on much, but on this they are as one. With his back to the wall, Senator McCain admits: “We’ve got to win the state of Florida.” So much is at stake, neither camp can make an error. Both are pouring resources and precious time into a final push for Florida. This week, McCain has criss-crossed the state, buoyed by polls that suggest he is narrowing Obama’s lead. Intriguingly, his running mate Sarah Palin, the show pony of Guns-and-God Republicans, was elsewhere. It’s about 5,000 miles from her home in Alaska to Miami, but the cultural differences are planets apart.
Florida counts for 27 electoral college votes,
10 per cent of the total needed to become president. The problem for candidates is that this state has five very distinct constituencies — whites, blacks, hispanics, Jews and retirees. There are so many pensioners in Florida that, for voting purposes, they are treated like an ethnic community, with a separate set of values and concerns. More than any other group, they are likely to back septuagenarian McCain.
The population has exploded since I studied journalism at the University of Florida in the late 1970s. Service businesses that did not need to be in snowy Rust Belt states have flooded in. Waves of immigrants have been lured by an economy that, until the credit crunch, was underpinned by a massive expansion of tourism and holiday homes. Cubans who fled Castro have been joined by millions of refugees from across Latin America. You don’t need to speak Spanish to survive in Miami, but it helps.
French, too, comes in handy with so many Haitians working as taxi drivers. On my way to dinner at Bayside Market, a mini-village of chi-chi shops and restaurants, I asked one if Obama could win. It was as though I had inquired about the likelihood of the sun coming up: “Il va gagner. Sans doute.” At The Other Daiquiri Bar, the Cuban barman was no less certain that the votes of his community would give victory to McCain. That, however, is not the expectation of independent researchers who find that Florida’s non-white voters are splitting 70-29 in favour of Obama, with the black vote rock solid. By contrast McCain seems to have built a healthy lead among non-college-educated whites.
No wonder the polls are erratic. Last week, Republicans were knocked badly by a report in the Miami Herald that Obama was ahead, 49 per cent to 42 per cent. But they cheered up yesterday when a CNN-Time survey indicated the gap had shrunk to 51-47. That, however, was conducted before one of the most extraordinary developments in the history of televised politics. On Wednesday night, the Obama camp, which has the money to outspend McCain three to one on “infomercials”, bet the bank on a 30-minute broadcast at prime time on three national networks.
It ran on CBS, Fox and NBC immediately before what turned out to be the deciding game in the baseball World Series between Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays. Can you imagine half an hour of Gordon Brown or David Cameron before the FA Cup Final? No, neither can I.
Obama’s effort was polished, full of traditional American imagery. When your middle name is Hussein and your last name rhymes with Osama, there is an imperative to stress patriotic credentials.
Obama does television with an ease that would not be out of place on a tightly scripted current affairs show. To a disinterested British visitor it looked like an extended version of those ghastly Labour broadcasts from the early 1990s that failed to make Neil Kinnock an electoral asset. The message was long on sentiment, short on detail. It contained nothing new, but wasn’t meant to. The goal, pure and simple, was to cloak Obama in presidential gloss.
The production was so professional, it even had the confidence to cut live to a rally in Florida where Obama was preaching to an adoring audience. Later, just when we thought we had seen it all, former president Bill Clinton turned up in Orlando and gave fulsome support to a man who had outwitted Hillary in a bruising campaign for the Democratic nomination. At this point we moved from politics to showbusiness. Slick Willy told the crowd that Obama “can understand”. That may not seem like much of an endorsement, but with so many Americans convinced that President Bush does not understand how to tie his laces, the message was profound.
With the bulk of the US media openly rooting for Obama, McCain’s campaign has degenerated into a series of attacks on his rival’s perceived shortcomings. These include connections with anti-Israeli academics (which plays very badly with the Florida’s huge Jewish population) and allegations that Obama has a secret plan to increase taxes on just about everyone not claiming welfare.
While McCain is talking about Obama, and Obama is talking about Obama, American comedians are talking about Palin. She is the satirist’s dream. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, McCain and Palin have been the subject of almost seven times more jokes from late-night comics than Obama and his number two, Joe Biden. On the whole, it’s Palin they go after.
I had heard much about her bumbling performances during live interviews. Now I have seen them. Put her on stage with an autocue, and she is capable of reaching the parts of the Evangelical Right that others cannot reach. She attracts a lot of cross-party support for her opposition to abortion. But under pressure to discuss other grown-up issues, she looks out of her depth.
Not that Obama seems to know much detail on financial matters. Perhaps he does, but prefers to hide it. With so much going wrong, he can stick to generalities and bathe in the glory that he was not in an administration that wrecked the economy. He can point at McCain and say, “it was your lot that did it”. He can spout warm words about “trickle up, not trickle down”. It is much harder for McCain to talk with conviction about making a change.
As Americans prepare for Halloween, the story that many Floridians find really frightening has nothing to do ghouls and ghosts. It is the fear that in another neck-and-neck finish the state’s voting machinery would again be found wanting.
Expensive equipment was introduced for county elections in 2006 but 18,000 votes failed to show up. Black voters are especially suspicious that the system is rigged against them.
Which helps explain, perhaps, why both parties have swamped the state with lawyers. If it were really close, you could be sure that a challenge in the courts would be mounted by the loser.
Not that I expect that to happen. McCain looks like a tired, angry old man. Even in conservative Florida, Obama seems like an idea whose time has come. More »
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If Senator Obama wins this election, the following is what it has taken to get a very questionable, extremely inexperienced, very junior first time Senator past the mark:
1. Senator Obama’s campaign is outspending the Senator McCain’s campaign 4 to 1 or more in some locations. This is due to Senator Obama backing out of an agreement he made with Senator McCain.
2. Senator Obama’s campaign has opened up about 700 offices nation-wide versus less than 100 than Senator McCain’s campaign has opened up.
3. The mainstream media has been completely biased against Senator McCain.
4. Biased organizations, such as ACORN, have received contributions from Senator Obama, have been openly supporting Senator Obama, and are under investigation for committing voter registration fraud in multiple states favoring Senator Obama.
5 An enormous number of biased celebrities have been supporting Senator Obama and speaking out against Senator McCain.
6. Even though Congress is very unpopular, both sides are controlled by the democrats and have been making biased statements against Senator McCain.
7. Senator McCain is disadvantaged because of the unpopularity of the incumbent President.
8. All four of the debate moderators lean to the left and were not 100% fair.
Even with all of the biased and unfair things mentioned above that are running against Senator McCain, Senator Obama only has a narrow lead. Should he not be way out in front? I have heard people state that on the news from both campaigns. That should tell you something. Also, Senator Obama pulled a cheap shot on Senator McCain and the American public in regards to campaign financing. Both campaigns agreed to use public financing during the presidential campaign. At the last moment, Senator Obama backed out of his agreement and took private financing, giving Senator Obama a significant advantage over Senator McCain in financing his campaign. In addition, Senator Obama is not being totally open as to where all his contributions are coming from. But even though Senator Obama took a sucker punch and tricked Senator McCain and all Americans by backing out of his agreement, Senator McCain is keeping with his word and using public financing. This is severely disadvantaging Senator McCain’s campaign financing by putting much lower caps on the amount of money he will have available. This is the reason Senator Obama can outspend Senator McCain 4 to 1. This also shows that Senator Obama does not keep his campaign promises, just like his past campaign promises.
Just imagine what it will be like when you have both the House of Representatives and the Senate controlled by the democrats, and Senator Obama in the Whitehouse signing everything that comes across his desk from them. In other words, the person writing the check will also be the one cashing it. There will be no “checks and balances”, especially if the democrats pick up a few more seats in the Senate and it becomes filibuster-proof, which means they will have a monopoly. Again, there will be no checks and balances. We will have higher taxes, more government, and fewer rights. They have already promised all of those things. You will have a government that will tax the people that are creating the jobs so they can “spread the wealth around”. Who do you think creates the jobs in this country? Have you ever seen a business owned by a poor person? Are they the ones starting small businesses and creating jobs? Obviously not! So we have established the fact that the people that own the small businesses and create the jobs are NOT the poor. So lets talk about what is going to happen when they start taxing the people that do own the small businesses that create the jobs.
So what do you think will happen when they start taxing the small business owners? First, jobs will be lost. They will not be able to afford to keep the same amount of people they have now – they will have to let people go. In addition, they will not be able to expand their businesses and hire more people. The second thing that will happen is that prices will go up. Do you think businesses will not raise the cost of their products and services to offset the extra taxes they have to pay? This should be obvious. The prices will go up on everything and will affect everybody – to include the middle class and the poor. When you go to the grocery store, the food prices will be higher. When you go buy a car, the prices will be higher. When you go to the department store the prices are going to be higher. Put yourself in the shoes of a business owner; if your expenses go up, would you not raise the price of your products to pay for them? Of course you would! And taxes are an expense.
Now lets talk about presidential qualifications. When a federal employee or a member of the military has a need to have access to classified materials, they would need to get a security clearance. A security clearance attempts to certify that an individual is of high moral character and does not pose a security risk. If a federal employee or a member of the military admits to using a dangerous drug, such as cocaine, they will not be eligible for a security clearance. In addition, an admitted cocaine user would not be able to get in the military and if he or she is a federal employee, he or she would be moved to a position of lesser responsibility and not have access to classified materials. Senator Obama has admitted to using cocaine in his book that he wrote. As a candidate for president, should he not be held up to the same standards of a federal employee or a member of our military? As President, he is going to be exposed to an enormous amount of classified materials, have his finger on the nuke button, and be the commander in chief of the strongest military in the world. Would you not want someone in that position that can qualify for a security clearance?
Another point I would like to make is in regards to Senator Obama’s experience, which is a drop in the bucket compared to Senator McCain’s. With the world and the economy in such a delicate position, I cannot imagine why anyone would not want the most experienced person in the Whitehouse. Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and even Senator Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, have made statements to the fact that Senator Obama is not experienced enough to be President and that the presidency is not the type of job for on-the-job training. They also said that Senator McCain brings a lifetime of experience to the table. Senator Obama’s running mate, Senator Biden, even said he would even be honored to run “with” his friend John McCain. These individuals are now claiming that they said that during the primaries when they were running against Senator Obama. Does that mean they were lying then, or now? Senator Obama claimed that he had more diverse foreign policy experience because he lived overseas as a kid. Living overseas does not give you foreign policy experience, unless you are an Ambassador, which he was not. If it did, then Senator John McCain would again best Senator Obama’s record since he has lived overseas being a member of the military.
What issue or issues are you going to base your voting decision on? Will it be the economy? National defense? Education? There are so many out there. Because of the current economic situation, a large number of you are going to base your decision on who is best for the economy. I would hope that I have answered this question for you earlier on in this article. Such as pointing out which candidate has promised to raise taxes and spend more reducing jobs and raising the cost to live. But just in case I have not, I have a couple additional items for you to think about. If you look at all of the campaign promises on Senator Obama’s web site, you will see hundreds of them. How is he going to pay for them? I think I answered that already. But, if you add of the costs of all of them, mathematically it is going to cost us a lot more than he will be able to raise in taxes. So many of these are going to be just like so many of his previous campaign promises – they won’t get done. Maybe the economy is not the best issue to use in making a decision for president. What about national defense? In my opinion, if you don’t have a secure nation, the rest of the issues are moot. With Russia and China outspending us two fold to build up their military; with Iran and North Korea toying around with nukes and making threats; with Russia making friends and conducting military exercises not too far from our back door in Venezuela; with Russia helping Iran build nuclear processing material plants; and with the terrorist threat growing in Pakistan (a nuclear country), Afghanistan, Africa, and several other countries throughout the world, I want the most experienced and tested person in that office. Not some junior Senator that has absolutely no experience in national security. The economy is important, but national defense is a must. Remember, if our country is not secure, then the economy means nothing, our freedom is in jeopardy, and our lives as we know them today could easily be drastically changed in a moments notice. Just ask the citizens of the country of Georgia. One last point: Have you see who is openly supporting Senator Obama in the news? Iran and the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah have made public statements that they would prefer Sen. Obama to win. Go figure.
So after reading this, where do you stand? The differences in these two candidates are very apparent. On one hand, you have an individual with many years of applicable “real world” experience, has been a public servant and leader for about 50 years, has a proven record to reduce taxes and government spending, and is dedicated to growing the US economy and jobs. On the other hand, you have an individual with very little experience, questionable associations, has a proven record to increase taxes, government spending, and earmarks, and has promised to increase taxes and government spending. As I said at the beginning of this article, I cannot imagine why anyone in their right mind, after doing a real comparison of the two candidates, would vote for Senator Obama. I admit, he presents himself well and has a good appearance, as long as he has a teleprompter to read from. So the bottom line is what do you want in the next president, appearance or substance?