Final Pre-Election Words

Three things have bothered me deeply about this election cycle.

First and foremost, I saw the moral destruction of the MSM. They tore into Gov. Palin and Joe the Plumber in ways they never scratched with Obama. The ratio of negative stories on McCain to Obama was seven or eight to one. I have never witnessed nor imagined that they would mortgage their integrity for an election. How incredibly sad. They equated the totality of their careers in an unveiled attempt to win a single election.

That risk calculus takes an awfully large palette of arrogance. It suggests to me a distain for the intellect of the voter. The MSM believes that they can do anything because, right or wrong, the public will forget and love them again. When I look at the tanking profits of the papers and the falling ratings of the network news, I think their arrogance may be misplaced.

The second thing that bothered me was the Democrat Caucuses. I have written with plenty of Hillary supporters that saw fraud first-hand. They saw an election process that was systemically ripped to shreds in order to win. Sure, we’ve had fraud in elections forever. But those people were always the dirty ones that eventually get washed out of Main Street. This attempt to manipulate the results seemed orchestrated. That suggests to me that the system is broken.

The third thing I saw was the buying of an election. Obama designed a campaign finance system that allowed illegal money to come in through prepaid credit cards. That is insulting. We have rules in a civilized society, and he purposefully sought (and did) circumvent them.

I also saw ACORN in its full glory with millions of dollars to back it. They said that they have the “best review process in the nation, very rigorous.” Yet thousands of applications were turned in that were easily discredited. Again, a systematic effort to defeat an honest election.

The troubling things that I have seen this cycle all resonate into a single theme: Elections are no longer about informing the public, and letting them decide. It is about manipulating the process from information to who votes (and how often) to how those votes are counted.

I am not naïve. I know these things all existed in some measure before 2008. But they seem to have come together into a malignant stew. Very sad.

I don’t care about the loudmouth liberals barking their mantra. That’s their nature – junkyard dogs barking at the wind. What I can about are what I see as systemic problems with our election process.
Is there a saving grace this cycle? Perhaps. There are some many layers of unknowns that could change how people vote, and some are in direct respond to the abuses above.

First, the putrid MSM has dragged the pollsters into their fray. So many polls are funded by them that it was inevitable. This has led to voters to transfer their feelings about the MSM to disbelieving what they read in polls. New terms like “weighting” and “single day” are common. We’ve learned that taking a poll on one day of the week will be good for dems and another day good for pubs. We’ve learned that 80% of the phones are refused.

So what good are the polls except for broad-brush data? Every time I read a “nationwide survey has Obama up by ___” I think – “so what! We have an electoral system. Duh?”

Second, the PUMAs are in full force. I have written with many recently, and read a lot of their posts. They are organized and angry. And they all support McCain. And, back to polls for a moment, they love to lie to pollsters.

Third, the Bradley Effect lingers. He was up by nine or ten points in his latest polls, and won by just about a point. The “experts” figured that six of those points were because he is black. Obama’s internals prepared for ten points.

Fourth, Palin cannot be ignored. A lot of folks relate to her. She looks like the woman who helps cheerfully at the PTA only to lean over when no one else can hear to say, “Whew, this sucks, eh?” I know people that look like her. I know people that talk like her. And I trust them.

Fifth, Obama seems hell-bent lately on showing his arrogance. So do the congressional dems. Confidence is one thing – dancing on the grave of the undead is another. And Americans get pissy about stuff like that. They like underdogs. They reward an underdog for staying in the fight.

Sixth, people do not like to pay taxes. It sank Dukakis, and may be worth a point or two with Obama.

All of this leads to two situations: The polls are overstated in Obama’s favor; and a lot of people are saying to themselves, “I know I should vote for McCain, I know I want to, but I am being told by so many corners that I should vote for Obama” – so they are undecided.

Undecideds break for experience and the underdog, and McCain is both of those.

I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. The election will unfold and I will wake up the next day. But I feel deep in my bones that Obama is not up to the task. If he wins, I will change some things in my life. I expect a deep, horrendous recession as his government-revenue policies take their toll on the economy.

Tomorrow should be fun.