Face Off

Joe Trippi: As bad as this may seem — this campaign has been much more positive than any I can remember (at least so far).

 Elections have always been ugly. Since someone first stood on a soapbox and said pick me, there has been another person ready to say something bad about them.  I hate what elections end up breaking down into.  That said, I would call this election the ugliest ever.  Sure, we’ve had horrible untruths spread about candidates in the past.  This election, however, has brought out the ugliness in everyone else.  See, America has a problem facing itself and as of late things we used to do in back rooms have been more in the forefront.  

For example: The Russian response to the United States Human Rights Report.  Of course, Russia has said similar things in the past…but this is one time that the validity of their major points about American policies are hard for a sane person to question.

Many people will dismiss it out of hand because of Russia’s past (really our past with them), just like they’ll dismiss sentiments about the current election.  When a black man and a woman are up for the lead roster spot everyones baggage comes out.  For instance: many people are claiming that if 80 and 90% of Black people are voting for Obama it has to be racism.  What they won’t acknowledge is that black people as a whole were the most skeptical about Obama when he began his run.  He was challenged as not being black enough and running as “race neutral”.  I find it incredulous that on one hand I was upset that we (black people) looked on the man as some kind of trick, that when we finally start seeing him as a candidate we are accused of mass racism.  Women are accused of sexism for supporting Hillary.  So is it agism when Obama gets the majority of youth votes and Clinton gets the majority of the elder vote?  Are all the white people who voted for McCain racist too?  Then there is the other side that I’ve seen alot of angry white people pull out over the last few years that Geraldine Ferraro summed up very well:

    “Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says, ‘Let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world,’ you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,” she told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California. “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”

I almost burst into laughter because I’ve heard this several times from people online as a way to (pardon the pun) whitewash an ignorant statement they’ve made.  Of course other people picked up in saying Obama’s campaign was playing the race card…despite the fact that Ferraro stated his being a black man as the reason for his success.  Naturally people have jumped to her defense and agreed that the uproar is a pure “race card” tactic.  I even read somewhere that her previous service has not shown her to be racist.   Even though in 1988:

“And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”

Hmm, I guess there is no reason to say anything about her then?  What I find incredible is that this is coming from democrats.  I expected this to come from republicans, in the meantime McCain has been able to sit back and pick on issues, while Clinton’s camp has been pulling out every dirty kitchen sink they can find to throw.  Meanwhile people are eating it up.  Even though I like Obama, I would be a fool not to recognize the similarities in the policies of both democratic candidates.  So on one hand, what does it matter if I want to have the black guy executing those policies and who cares if women want another woman doing it.  On the other hand a further look at education and experience helped me make my choice.  I didn’t even dislike Hillary Clinton initially, although I found her 35 years of experience suspect.  I could say it’s because I’m not racist or sexist, but that doesn’t even matter.  My point of view was: convince me why should I vote for you.  Since most who make it to Maryland in the primaries tend to be the last two runners, we end up with basically the same policies being presented.  My choice has been made by character and presentation.  The fact that Obama has initially started down and then moved ahead to win would indicate that a lot of other voters are using this system.  So why cries of racisim?  What I find more hilarious is that they aren’t coming from Obama supporters…not unsolicited at least.  Why are we sexist if we don’t vote for Hillary?  In my view there are reasons to vote for Hillary, the problem is coming out of such an unethical administration we need to restore respectability to the presidency.  The last few weeks of campaigning put me in the mind of ”swift-boating”.  Not to mention (despite the fact that he couldn’t vote at the time…ok)   Obama’s public stance against the war before it began speaks to the type of leadership I want to see.  He still put himself at risk being that he had future elections to look to.  That was the leadership I really needed to see.  Still, when he began his run I wanted to know his background because I saw the main attack before I heard it…not enough experience. So despite all of his experience, his stances and the support he has from others…I’m racist.  Despite the fact that he is leading in pledged delegates we are racist for voting for him.  It’s alright though,  I expected this to come up sooner or later.  The same with charges of sexism for those who didn’t vote for Hillary.  This election has given people the chance to unleash the animal within them after 8 years of an animal cannibalizing our government.  The sad thing is the background reasoning is, “Republicans will be even dirtier”… meanwhile the Republican party is on cruise control.  Check the animal in you folks.