On elections and voting

When I was in third grade, I ran for (and won) my first and only election to public office. Each class in New Monmouth Elementary needed a "Food Service Representative" (someone to tell the lunch ladies what kinds of food we wanted to eat), and I faced some very stiff competition -- this one other kid, a boy who was extremely quiet and seemed kind of stupid, who made the extremely poor decision to run against me.

Because my third grade teacher believed in democracy, my opponent and I stood in front of the class one morning and "debated" before the rest of the class voted. Even at age 9, my debate strategy was flawless. Whenever one of my classmates raised their hands to ask me a question, it was about whether they could have something. Whether they could have pizza for lunch every day. Whether they could have cookies, and juice boxes, and cake, and Atomic Fireballs. Whether they could have Santa come and bring presents before Christmas.

My response to every question I was asked was "Sure." In the minds of the public, I gave them everything they wanted. Unsurprisingly, I was immediately elected in a landslide. And then, on the day when every Food Service Representative had to meet with the lunch ladies and talk about the issues, I called in sick from school and the collective voice of my third-grade class was never heard.

This brings me to the topic of this post, tomorrow's Presidential election. I hear both candidates saying a bunch of crap, which they'll never be able to back up in reality (particularly with the inevitable deficit we're going to face, since we just bailed out Wall Street). And the fact of the matter is, politicians are politicians. They're going to lie. They're going to say whatever they think you want to hear, and it doesn't matter who is elected because the system is fundamentally flawed. Whoever is elected is going to have to clean up the massive deuce that is "Bush's Amurrica", and that's a shit hole that is going to take more than eight years to climb out of.

Yet, because of this, I* (*NOTE: I am Freducate, and all the opinions contained in this blog post are my own. I do not speak for anyone else who writes here, who may disagree with me in both style and/or substance) officially endorse Barack Obama for President. Here's why.

If I'm going to get screwed in the ass by a Presidential administration over the next four years (and whoever is elected is going to screw us, because this is what politicians do), I want it to be by an administration who knows how to screw gently. Kindly, and potentially with a reassuring hand on my shoulder. You see, what appalled me most about the Dubya administration was not the egregious bending of liberty and individual freedoms, the illegal wire-tapping, or the waterboarding. I am relatively certain that every Presidential administration has broken the law and lied to the public on dozens of occasions -- most of them were smart enough not to get caught. Instead, I was most appalled by the transparency, flippancy, and arrogance with which the current administration handled these controversies.

What I like the most about Obama is that he's smart. Really smart. Brilliant. Smarter than me, even. People as smart as him usually look at data all day, but Obama is smooth. He knows how to talk, and he knows how to communicate. He could sell me a car for two thousand over invoice, and I'd buy it in a heartbeat because I'll think I've just made a new friend. The Grand Poo-bah of the Ukraine ("Ukraine is not weak!") would melt like warm butter in Obama's hands.

In a general election where both candidates seem to be promising the world to people (and I still don't understand how Obama's going to make things work financially, without raising taxes across the board, with the economy in a recession), Obama is going to win tomorrow, probably in a landslide. This is likely for two reasons. First, Obama ran a better campaign, motivated by a huge volunteer movement and loads of private financing money. In this sense, rooting for Obama is like rooting for the house in blackjack - that's how enormous his advantage is. Second, at a fundamental level, he connects with people better than his opponent. People want to believe Obama, because he sounds like he has his shit together. In a world where practically nobody has their shit together, sounding like you know what you're talking about is priceless. (*NOTE: Believe me on this one.)

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We may act like adults, and pretend to be civil and refined, but in many ways we've never left third grade. Our behavior is defined, to a high degree, by the behaviors of the people around us. When somebody stands in front of you and tells you what you want to hear, your baseline reaction is to agree with them -- this is persuasion defined, and it drives the economy by causing sales, gets people to hook up with one another, etc. It's scary, but it's true. It's justified to vote, and it's justified to be excited to vote. But don't be surprised if you regret the vote that you make (just like many of the otherwise kind-hearted, blue-blooded Americans who pulled the trigger for Bush in 2000, or worse, 2004).