New President

So, the fever is over and Obama is the new leader of the US. That's a relief. Not that I was worried. All indications were that McCain had lost this shortly after picking Palin as a running mate. Seriously, if you don't put more thought than that into choosing the other half of your platform, how much thought are you going to put into running a country?

One thing struck me, though. In interviews at various conventions around the states, Democrats were often hopeful, cheerful and generally concerned for the welfare of their rights and their country. Republicans, on the other hand, were more concerned with the fact that the leader of the other party was black, a Muslim, a terrorist and often shouted things like "hang him" or "socialist" to Democratic demonstrators at their rallies. Sad, really.

But then again, I couldn't really see past Palin's religious fundamentalism to even wonder if they had a sound platform. Of course, she actually is a fundamentalist as opposed to Obama's imagined terrorism activities.

So, I imagine we'll have a couple of weeks of election post-mortem and then perhaps things will be back to normal.

Cheers

I really don't enjoy politics

IMO, it would be great if government were different than politics.

Our current government is in the throes of a national election including all the assorted political maneuvering that goes along with it. Obviously you can't please everyone, but you would think that for the sake of a country an agreement could be reached without resorting to lies, innuendo and spin doctors. I realize that the literal definition of liberal and conservative dictates that the parties political agenda be polar opposites, but surely there's some common ground.

I can't even make up my mind which way to vote. I'm sort of leaning in a liberal direction, but the thoughts of putting the party that supported Jean Chretian in power disturbs me. Of course, Brian Mulrooney still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. And I have socialist leanings, but I'm afraid that I'd be wasting my vote in voting NDP. Same goes for the Green Party. Unfortunately, we're left with sound bites to base our vote on.

Of course, it would be even better if religion didn't have anything to do with governing. But, that's another post.

Scarily enough, the American election bothers me more than ours. Sarah Palin strikes me as a pathetic bid on the part of the republican party to score votes with women. However, no women I know are going to vote for someone who feels that we need to go two steps back for women's rights.

My only consolation is that in another month, this will all be over. Well, at least the media circus will be over.