Palin As President

This is the most hilarious thing that I've seen... this morning... and I subscribe to the laughter trumps coffee in the morning method.

So... wake up you Maverick!

For Love of the American Dream

I voted with a smile. I didn’t need to get up before the sun and stand in line, but I couldn’t sleep any longer. In fact, when I saw the line I became more exhilarated for the great opportunity that we have in this country to make a statement with our vote.

It was chilly and it took an hour to complete the task, but no one complained and absolutely no one that stood in line, or even did a drive by, turned and left. There was a sense of community amongst those nearest me in line. We were all telling jokes and talking about hope. We were liberals and conservatives, and we were there to fix the country.

However, no one was talking about politics and I find that to be a problem with our country. Just last night, a friend said to me, “Can I ask you a personal question?” He wanted to ask about my candidate preference. I have no problem talking about politics (or religion), for my freedom of speech gives me the right to do so. We ‘should’ talk about these things at the dinner table and amongst friends. “Of course,” I replied and continued with conviction, “Obama.”

There is passion in politics and that is the beauty of it! How do you form your own opinion if you don’t listen to the opinions of others? We should talk these things out whether we have a solid stance or we’re sitting on the fence. The community aspects of social marketing and Web 2.0 are making opinions more visible. I hope that will eventually make its way to the more traditional forms of media. In fact, we’re seeing some of the 24-hour news channels run opinions on their tickers and incorporate them into the newscast.

The fear machine is alive and well here in the mid-west: a Muslim, a terrorist, an illegal immigrant in the family, a harbinger of racial riots, the destruction of small business. For every person that brought these concerns to the conversation I asked, “How can you vote based on fear and not the issues?” You have to vote based on what they say they will do and, to a degree, what they have done. You have to do your homework and skim off the contextual slander to get to the foundation of the candidate.

So many people are voting based on what they think the candidate will do for/against them personally. I’ve always found that to be a faulty way to cast a ballot. It’s the hangover from issue-based, divisive voting that has made up the past couple of elections since the far right pushed to make the focus of the election such issues as abortion, flag burning, gay marriage and gun control. They did this to get more voters to the polls. I’m happy to see that more people are going to the polls for issues other than those that have historically divided us so greatly.

Vote for what is best for our country. We are a resilient, innovative population of Americans, but we need a true leader that can rally our spirit to forge a new world. It’s been a long time since there was a beacon of hope in the world. Today we have the opportunity to resuscitate the American Dream.

Go. Vote. Now.

The Choice for Change

If you want to read a moving Editorial, then this is the one that you should put on your radar today. The Editors of "The New Yorker" have written an amazing piece on how our country must believe in the word "change" and make as large a change as we possibly can to make progress at home and abroad.

The article is called "The Choice" and I urge you to read it by clicking here NOW.

I'll warn you in advance that this is simultaneously a pro-Obama and anti-McCain article. In any Presidential election, we rarely get the ideal candidate, but in this one we've got one candidate that gives us a chance to avoid the pending collision of the economy, war, health care, entitlements, education and environment. A "maverick" is the last thing that I want in this age... please give me someone with the intelligence and charisma to make a difference... to be the change agent that we need.

The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

Read the full article... for your country if not for yourself.

Thanks to @fredwilson for pointing out this amazing article in a Tweet this morning.

To Clear Up the Confusion about Obama vs. McPalin

* If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're exotic, different.
BUT IF...
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
BUT IF...
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
BUT IF...
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
BUT IF...
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive and next in line behind a man in his eighth decade.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
BUT IF...
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and then left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a true Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
BUT IF...
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.
BUT IF...
* If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

This really clears things up for me, you?

The Election is an 8-course Meal, not Fast Food.

Great post on 3 Garzas & La Gringa today about how people don't take the time to really understand how politics impacts their lives... much beyond the divisive issues that continue to permeate our decision-making: abortion, immigration, war.

I'm not saying that these issues aren't important, but you have to see the whole menu people. Even though you prefer fast food news to fuel your tank, we're taking about an 8 course meal here and you can't get up from the table early.

Americans have to learn to take the time to understand that "change" is real, whether they like it or not. And that change can come at you from so many different directions that you better take the time to know what's going on with the war, the economy, social security, health care, education, immigration, energy and crime before you run off to the polls and vote for a barbie-doll VP who won't even be running the country.

Obama out-fems HRC

I constantly wondered why Hillary never took advantage of the fact that she is a woman. She tried so hard to be like a man during her campaign that she ultimately lost because her opponent, Obama, was more feminine than she.

Seriously.

A friend, author (The Culture Code) and respected psychologist, Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, recently wrote:

"Hillary lost the nomination because she was not wearing a skirt; she missed the feminine trend. She did not lose because she is a woman, she lost because she is not
enough of a woman – she is not feminine enough.

Obama won because he was more feminine than Hillary. He is soft, integrative, is not exclusive and for unity. Men make definitions by exclusion. Woman are into inclusion, they make definitions by adding – “this is it, this is it too, and this is also it” and it never really ends. This is the Obama structure. He integrates different countries, different races, different classes and this is what is appealing
to the world.“we have to be on the Internet.”

How many times did I ask, "Why doesn't Hillary ever wear a skirt?" Too many! I'm not saying that I was a supporter or HRC during her campaign, but I was vocal about how she was trying so hard to avoid her gender that she was losing out on a real opportunity.

When we've been a divided country for this long, the natural tendency is to seek unity. Men are exclusive (the sword). Women are inclusive (the chalice). We want inclusion. We see the problems. We want to be part of the answer.

Too bad, HRC. BTW, did you pay off that campaign debt yet? If that's how you're going to run a campaign, I'd sure dislike how you woulda run the government anyhow.