Obama vs. Clinton vs. McCain

You've got some awkward decisions ahead of you.
Today former governor Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. He took one for the team. While dropping out of the race, he made a plug for party unification against the Democrats. It seemed like a quick move to circumvent you actually thinking for yourself. He says he's out of the race because you must be united against the Democrats.
Should you unite against the Democrats?
That's a question he prevents you from asking yourself. He ignores what your concerns are and makes you think you're concerned with that which he wants you to be. It's sneaky.
Another part of his dropping out is that, in the general election, Romney vs. Obama would be a nightmare for the Republicans. The truth of the matter is that there aren't enough "morally conservative" voters to carry any candidate. The majority of voters in the United States are moderates. They are not 'liberal" nor are they "conservative."
What Republican strategists want is Clinton vs. McCain, and for this they're counting on two things.
First, despite John McCain's talk of late, he's not much of a conservative. They're depending on McCain's ability to appeal to moderate voters. Now, Hillary Clinton's ability to appeal to moderate voters is just as strong as McCain's, but that's where factor two comes in.
Hillary Clinton has been a polarizing figure in the past, and they think that in a campaign to demonize Clinton, McCain is a practical alternative. Now, people like to demonize Hillary Clinton because she plays the man's role in politics too well, but there's currently no room for a woman in politics that doesn't play a masculine role. This often gets her called "bitch," but it's no fault of hers.
For Republican strategists, the ideal match-up for the general election is Clinton vs. McCain. What happens if it's Obama vs. McCain? Well then the Republicans actually have to fight a fair fight.
When you are voting in the fall, do you want to be voting for the candidate you believe in, or do you want to be voting against the candidate you oppose?
The next ten months will be trying. You will have to endure ad after ad after ad. You'll hear hateful language, insecurities, and deceit.
The most important thing to remember this year is that for all our dissimilarities, we are more alike than unalike.
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reprogramming

I've just come from a film screening at UCSC. The film was called "American Blackout." I can't think of anything to occur in the last ten years of as much significance as the voting fraudulence during the 2000 presidential election in Florida. Despite this significance, it is still so poorly understood by the general population. There were so many things about the situation that there was no precedent for in the United States.



You can watch the film in its entirety here.

One of the reasons why I'm passionate about this is because little twenty-year-old Adam was voting in his first election in 2000. My vote was not counted because the process of recounting votes was stopped (unconstitutionally) by the Supreme Court.
This is something that they are trying to do to you. If you don't think your vote will be counted, how likely are you to show up to vote?