I'm Afraid

I'm willing to admit it - I'm scared of Tuesday, no matter which way the vote goes. And an article in the Pinko Times (New York Times to you Socialists who don't know its "real" name) supports my biggest fear.

In a poll of over 1300 registered voters, the numbers in terms of candidate support were about the same as most other polls (except the one posited by Bill O'Reilly, which, to be fair, has a margin of error of 101%), showing Obama with a solid lead. Those, however, are not the numbers that give me some concern about what will happen not Tuesday, but rather Wednesday:

The survey found that opinions of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain had hardened considerably, as 9 out of 10 voters who said they had settled on a candidate said their minds were made up, and a growing number of them called it “extremely important” that their candidate win the election. Roughly half of each candidate’s supporters said they were “scared” of what the other candidate would do if elected. Just 4 percent of voters were undecided, and when they were pressed to say whom they leaned toward, the shape of the race remained essentially the same.

These are the numbers that are starting to frighten me. A growing number on both sides feel it's "extremely important" that their guy win. Everyone involved here feels that nothing less than the very future of America is at stake on Tuesday. And even if Senator Obama wins by the forecasted ten percent - a pretty substantial margin of victory - that still means that approximately 2 out of 5 people in America will likely, according to this poll, be not only disappointed, but "scared" - and possibly very, very angry.

I am concerned at this point that no matter which direction the election goes, there could be a substantial number of violent incidents during and immediately following the outcome. Perhaps never before has the country been so polarized and so deathly afraid (on both sides) of the "other guy" winning.

But there's another more sinister factor: race. Let's remove our PC rose colored glasses for a moment and be honest. If Obama wins, there is a not insubstantial percentage of the white electorate that will be despondent, terrified - and possibly violently so. If McCain pulls off the upset, I will go on record as saying it is my view that many African Americans will feel this is the ultimate outrage and paradigm of White America stealing just one more thing from the Black community - but this time, possibly the most important thing in the world. And I think many of them will feel this is their own personal breaking point.

Am I predicting race riots, a replay of Watts or Rosewood depending on the outcome? No, I don't think so. But do I see this election cycle passing without incident? No. I think we've come very far as a country. However, considering what's at stake on Tuesday, I think that no matter the outcome, some Americans of one color are going to feel the country has been hijacked by Americans of another color... and I think it is naive in the extreme to believe they will take that news absolutely peacefully.

I hope I am wrong and underestimate the American electorate. Something tells me I am not.

Salubrity At Issue

Take it or leave it as "in the tank" liberal drivel, but the New York Times will publish an in-depth analysis on the physical health of both Barack Obama and John McCain in tomorrow's print edition. Reportedly, one of the more alarming findings explores John McCain's skin cancer and the opinion of some medical experts that believe it was diagnosed at a more advanced stage than indicated by McCain's campaign.

If the Ayers connection is a relevant topic in McCain's estimation, certainly McCain's health is worthy of conversation - especially with novice Sarah Palin in waiting. The former issue weighs on Obama's past ability to make judgments of character. The latter weighs on McCain's future ability to serve as President.

From "The Club Of Disaffection" Into The Light

Jonathan Martin of Politico reports:

John Dowd, Cindy McCain's attorney, complained in a letter to New York Times editor Bill Keller earlier this month that the paper had scrutinized the GOP nominee's wife but not investigated matters surrounding Barack Obama including his youthful drug use."You have not tried to find Barack Obama's drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father," Dowd wrote in a two-page letter sent to Keller while the paper was reporting a piece about Cindy McCain.

The McCain campaign released the missive late Friday night in response to that story, to be published in the paper's Saturday edition. It's the first time anybody so closely associated with McCain has raised the issue. Continuing the campaign's drumbeat of criticism against the Times, Dowd wrote on October 1st that the paper was not covering the two candidates equally.

In addition to the reference to Obama's "drug dealer," Dowd notes that the Times also has not "interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them."

At age 33, Barack Obama took a year off after law school to pen Dreams of My Father, a personal memoir about his pedigree as son of a black African father and a white American mother. With stark openness, Obama concedes the underpinnings of a shiftless youth and experimentation with drugs:

"I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though . . ."

Obama couched his normal transience through teenage trial-and-error in terms of race and insecurity:

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man . . . Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."

Obama also stated the leisurely use of drugs as an adolescent was a product of stereotypes (trying to be a "tough young man") and regretful ("The choices were misguided. A serious mistake").

When confronted about his erstwhile flirtation with drugs while campaigning for the United States Senate in 2003, Obama responded that it had been 20 years since his last dalliance with illegal substances.

McCain-Palin incessantly ask "who is Barack Obama?" Perhaps they should read books instead of removing them from libraries (sorry - I meant instead of generally hypothesizing with the public librarian about the potential responses to a fictitious mandate speculatively handed down to remove books for argument's sake. You know, just playing devil's advocate). Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope contain 403 and 375 pages respectively. That might be a good jumping-off point to get to know him.

Has there ever been a more vetted, battle-tested candidate in the history of elections than Barack Obama? After almost two years of the most insufferable campaigning, he continues to succeed.

And the remarkable thing is he is not a Teflon candidate: Everything they throw at him sticks. People just don't give a damn.

Most Likely to Suceed: Sarah Louise Heath, Wasilla High School, Class of 1982

Potatoe contributor, Patrick Bateman, shows there is no love lost between him and Sarah Palin, and no blood left for his puny liberal heart to bleed when he makes this smug wisecrack in his recent post about the Governor of Alaska's current cabinet:

"Her administration looks suspiciously like the Wasilla High School prom committee, circa 1982 (no, really - seven members of the '82 prom committee are on her staff. True story. No - it isn't. But you believed it for a second. Doesn't that tell you all you need to know about this person? That you momentarily believed that? Think about it.)."

Typical. Chairman Bateman and the rest of his red comrades getting a good communist giggle at the expense of Governor Sarah Palin. Disgusting. Sarah Palin: A maverick, a reformer, a lipsticked pitbull, a hockey mom, part of the middle class, just like you and me, the genuine article. Truly a rock star, a real bona fide American . . . . . . huh? . . . say what now? . . .

"The New York Times is reporting today that Gov. Sarah Palin appointed close friends of hers to high-paying government jobs and offered them much higher salaries than they would be entitled to in the private sector. Many of Palin’s political appointees attended Wasilla High School, something which has led observers to note that the school yearbook could serve as a directory of state government.

Let’s look at just a few of Palin’s cronies. Palin appointed Mr. Britney, her former junior high school band mate as her legislative director. Another classmate, Joe Austermann manages the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Palin also hired her former schoolmate, Franci Havemeister to head the State Department of Agriculture. Havemeister previously worked as a real estate agent and cited her childhood love of cows as qualifications to run the agency. Ms. Havemeister earns $95,000 a year as director of the agency."

From the impartially-titled blog Sarah Palin Exposed. But every fact from the Times article has been verified.

Um . . . hmmm . . . well . . . ahhh . . . let me tell you about a gentleman by the name of William Ayers.

I got your back, Bateman.