Obama is the President-Elect! Overall I can’t say I’m too surprised. I was holding out hope that the polls weren’t accurate, but overall they pretty much were. I think McCain just had too much to overcome. The combination of Bush being extremely unpopular and the financial crisis sending the entire country into the doldrums didn’t help. I think this was much more about people being unhappy with government than it was about a mandate for Obama’s politics.

There are two things I want to bring up about Obama’s impending Presidency. First, while I think it’s great we have our first black President, I’m over it already. Is this going to be the new benchmark to establish when a minority group is no longer opressed? Poor hispanics and asians are going to have to wait for a President that can affirm their ability to do whatever they want. That being said, I don’t think the cries of discrimination are going to stop anytime soon. The black community faces many unique challenges like high crime rates and out of wedlock births, and an Obama presidency will do little to change those problems. How long will it take before the black community turns on Obama for not fixing their problems?

Speaking of Obama and fixing problems…it will be interesting to see how he governs. He set the bar awfully high when he promised to change the world. He does realize he’s only in charge of one country right? With so much power in congress I fully expect the Democrats to embrace a leftist agenda. Don’t expect them to tackle the problems with social security or earmarks, but instead look for topics like healthcare and social spending. Clinton’s eight years were relatively mild because he was kept in check by a Republican congress. The last time the Democrats were in this position was when Carter was in office.

I’ve seen talk already of the Republican party realizing they need to get back to the basics of limited government. They screwed the pooch royally over the last eight years of Bush and the six years of their majority in congress. If Obama does govern to the left, and prolongs the economic troubles we face, Republicans will be in a good position to come back to the people and preach about limited government.

One thing I pledge to do over the next four years is to respect the office of the Presidency. I’m sure I will have many disagreements with Obama’s vision for our country, so don’t be surprised to find me critical of his politics. However, I promise to keep it on an even keel, which hopefully isn’t a surprise to most that read this blog.

Look for another post soon with baby pictures and Little Big Planet!

I wanted to get this post up before any real voting is done or there is any hint of how today will go. I want you to have my personally biased assessment before the fun begins tonight!

Here’s how I see things. McCain certainly has an uphill battle. There are some key states that he really needs to win like Florida and Ohio, and recent polls show him clearly in contention there. If Obama wins PA and NH (which recent polls show likely) then McCain really has his work cut out for him. There are a number of states he needs to win, like NV, NM, and CO to name a couple, and the polls in all of those are either very close or have Obama slightly ahead.

Speaking of polls though, I think the polls have overstated Obama’s lead for a while now. When pollsters come up with their polling numbers, they determine what percentage of the electorate will be Democrat and Republican. Many pollsters are giving Democrats a 6% advantage this year…but that hasn’t happened in the last 8 years! Over the last few election cycles the number of Republicans and Democrats that showed up were either tied, or Democrats showed up 2-4% more frequently, but never 6%. The last Presidential election was a tie, and to assume that four years later will be a huge Democrat turnout might be wishful thinking. Another promsing nugget is that several times in the primaries Obama was expected to win handily, sometimes by as much as double-digits, but he lost to Hillary in some of those states. Over and over Obama hasn’t been able to close the deal, and with some polls showing almost 10% of people unsure of whom they will vote for, that means McCain can still have a lot of votes in play. Since most of my readers are on the West coast, make sure you ignore any exit polling you hear because it consistently overstates support for the Democrat, and make sure you get out and vote. Here in California we’ve got other important things on our minds like Prop 8!

But either way, it should be interesting tonight. I’ve got some sausages to grill and some beers to drink, but whoever wins tonight wins. Obviously I think an Obama win would be bad for the country, but I’ve never had a blog while someone of the opposing party was in the White House. That might be fun, but I’ll certainly trade that for McCain and his supreme court nominees.

Here is my “guide” as requested by a couple people. Thanks to GeekyWeekly for doing the work on the Judicial nominees. Those are always a pain. Have fun tonight everyone!

Federal and Statewide
President/Vice President – John McCain/Sarah Palin
House and Senate Seats – Republican

Judicial
Office #72 – Hilleri Grossman Merritt
Office #82 – Thomas Rubinson
Office #84 – Pat Connolly
Office #94 – Michael J. O’Gara
Office #154 – Michael Jesic

Propositions
Prop 1A – No
Prop 2 – No
Prop 3 – No
Prop 4 – Yes
Prop 5 – No
Prop 6 – No
Prop 7 – No
Prop 8 – Yes
Prop 9 – Yes
Prop 10 – No
Prop 11 – Yes
Prop 12 – Yes
Measure R – No

My brother shared this through google reader, and I finally watched my recording tonight. I highly recommend you watch this before the election. If on any level you believe the government can make our lives better, please watch this video so that your beliefs will be shattered.

Here is part 1. Click the person’s other videos to see the rest. It almost makes me sad that McCain is my best choice. I’d rather vote for Stossel.

In the last couple weeks the financial crisis has single-handedly given Obama a comfortable lead in the national polls, and made the electoral road map very tough for McCain. He will need to win almost all the battleground states and find some way to flip a state like New Mexico, Minnesota, or Virginia where Obama has established significant leads. Is the race over? No, and it’s hard to tell how accurate the polls are. I heard an interview with Zogby I think it was who said that 80% of their calls they get hung up on. That means to get a poll of 3,000 people to answer there were 12,000 that hung up.

But regardless of the polls, I’ve already accepted that Obama might be the next President, and sadly I think it has much less to do with the vision and philosophy that Obama has put out, and more to do with the Republicans lack of fiscal restraint. Don’t get me wrong, I think Obama and his Herbert Hoover style of raising taxes will be worse for the economy than anything John McCain does, but right now the general public wants something new. I’m surprised I haven’t heard anyone mention how different the race might be right now if it was Romney against Obama, but no one could have predicted the economy would be the sole issue this election.

With the public declaring they want something new, I don’t think there is much McCain can do to change their minds. What he needs to do is come out and say that he will decrease the size of government and lower taxes (which would be in stark contrast to Obama), and while he has sort of said that, there are two big problems he faces. The first is that on one hand he says that, and then he says he wants to bailout all the stupid people that bought houses they can’t afford. The second is that people have lost faith in Republicans as believers in smaller government.

I think George W. Bush’s greatest mistake was letting government spending run rampant because he has damaged the Republican brand immensely. I think the War on Terror will be judged positively if Iraq becomes a beacon of hope in the region (and there hasn’t been another 9/11, which Bush deserves credit for). The economic issues have been pushed to the side though, and that’s what has McCain in such a pickle. He can’t come out and say the best way to get out of a financial crisis is lower taxes and smaller government, because people think he’s full of crap. It’s in this that I think Republicans have hope for the future.

If Obama wins and Democrats control Congress and the White House, I think Republicans should take a long look at what they stand for. I’ve said before that I’m a conservative first and a Republican second, and in recent years the Republicans in office have strayed a great deal from conservative principals of smaller government. If the Republicans find themselves in the minority in the next four years they need to stop and think about how they got there. Being “democrat-lite” is not what people want.

I think Obama’s policies will self-destruct if he governs anything like he talks and has voted in the past. Herbert Hoover was a one term President, so it’s possible the Republican party can turn itself around in four years. My biggest fear is that the economy recovers like it did in the early 90′s under Clinton. The economy had started a major upswing right before he got into office, and instead of the first Bush getting the credit it was Clinton. I’m not sure that can happen with Obama because we’ve just started to have major problems, and the end isn’t even in sight. That being said, once we hit bottom, there is only one way to go, and that is up. I guarantee if things get better the media will make sure it was Obama’s doing.

If that happens, the road for the Republicans is more difficult, but only time will tell. Whether Republicans can keep the White House or not, they’ve been getting spanked in Congress for a while now, so they need to sit down and really think about what they’ve done, and what they need to change. Get back to the party of limited government and lower taxes, and maybe then the people would be willing to trust you in office.

First Presidential debate was tonight. Overall there was nothing too out of the ordinary, but it was made extremely clear what Obama’s strategy is.

1) Class Warfare

I’m tired of hearing Obama champion the middle class. He mentioned how teachers are struggling to pay the bills at night. What? My family has TWO teachers, and we’re doing just fine. I don’t want a President who tries to pit the “middle class” against the “rich.”

His tax cuts for 95% of Americans? How do you get a tax cut when when you don’t pay any income taxes to begin with? Oh wait, that’s called redistribution of wealth, aka socialism. But it’s cool to run on a platform of hating the rich and hoping there are enough jealous voters that will support you.

On 20/20 they showed a clip of Obama’s time as a community organizer. It was a bad part of town that went south after a steel plant or something closed. He got a bunch of women together though to go make some demands from their city leaders! The demand? That the government remove the asbestos from their government housing. Haha. Go government!

2) Besides trying to convince people that rich folk are evil, his only other tactic is to convince people that McCain is the same as Bush. He can’t go more than two sentences without trying to equate the two men. I understand doing it a couple times as good strategy, but after months and months it’s just become silly. We get it Obama, you don’t like Bush, you know a lot of other people don’t like Bush, but McCain is actually a different person.

Overall I think McCain came across as more knowledegable, and he should in this debate. This is McCain’s bread and butter. Sometimes I wish McCain would get a little more philosophical and talk about the role of government and that it’s not the government’s job to take care of people, but I’m not sure he could do that. Are there so many people now who expect the government to take care of them that making any suggestion to the contrary is political suicide?

John McCain made a super smart decision on his running mate. Her name is Sarah Palin. I think she has some major upside over a lot of the other old men that were in the running. I think the best thing this does is make Obama look old and stale for choosing Biden, and I guarantee some disaffected Hillary supporters will jump to McCain now. Awesome choice.

Get your John McCain paraphernalia here.

I promise to bury this post with pictures of the baby right away, but I couldn’t pass this one up. Obama refuses to do townhall style debates with McCain. The best part of this whole exchange, which Medved pointed out on Friday, is that the heckler makes wild accusations, but Obama doesn’t even correct him. Instead he basically goes along with the question and talks about himself. My favorite is what Obama says about Sean Bell. He put out a statement saying “it was a problem.” Haha. If you’re impatient, skip ahead to around 2:30.

And people think Bush is a bad speaker? The guy can’t put together a coherent sentence without a teleprompter.