Obama's Infomercial

I just watched Obam's 1/2 hour infomercial. It was very well done in a Hallmark kind of way - probably about what I'd expect. He looked presidential and reassuring. Not at all like the wild-eyed communist the right portrays him to be.

I'm pretty confident that Obama will win next Tuesday, but I still have a knot in my stomach that won't go away until he's declared the winner. There are several things that just don't sit right that are causing my concern. One is that the right wing pundits are saying that the race is tightening and is "functionally" tied. You have to do some serious cherry-picking of the polls to come to that conclusion. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I think they could be laying the groundwork for a "surprise comeback" for McCain. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the 2004 campaign, especially why the exit polls (which had always been very accurate predictors of election results) didn't match the voting results. There are lots of reports out there about the Republican voter suppression efforts, dirty tricks, and malfunctioning voting machines. I don't believe that it is beyond the Right to actually steal this election. The other thing that bothers me is that the US is escalating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just in the last week, American commandos conducted a raid in Syria, and Predator attacks in Pakistan have intensified. It's almost as if W is trying to provoke an international crisis in an attempt to push up McCain's numbers.

If McCain wins, it will be because of vote manipulation and/or an artificially provoked international incident. The Republicans are playing a very dangerous game. If Obama doesn't win, there are going to be a lot of pissed off people in the US. And I think there will be enough of them that they won't take the defeat lying down like they did in 2000 and 2004.