Elections 2008 last couple of weeks

I’ve been planning to start using this blog more for a while now and one of the obvious things to write about is of course the elections. I haven’t properly read a Dutch newspaper for two weeks now and I don’t know what the regular newspapers say, but I followed everything on the internet, which properly gives you a more in-depth insight into things anyway (if you know where to look, although 95% of the stuff hopelessly biased). To me it seems we’re really living in fascinating times that may end up being quite historic. Probably the most interesting US elections ever, with first the first ever female and black presidential candidate against each other and now Obama versus the oldest candidate ever who picked up a woman from Alaska almost no one had ever heard of as vp candidate (arguably the weakest ticket for the republicans ever). And it’s not just the elections, but also the bail-out proposal that not only almost triples Bush already huge government deficit, but also nationalizes the biggest American investment banks, while US have been spreading the idea that everything should be privatized for over 30 years and even forced that upon foreign countries.  I know it’s a bit sadistic when you consider Wall Street and the global financial crisis, but I found it all hilarious, espescially Sarah Palin.  Espescially Sarah Palin. Jesus fucking christ. What was the Republican campaign thinking?

Alright.. It worked very well for them for two-three weeks. I also just read this article of Rolling Stone magazine, which might explain – what – the Republican campaign was thinking and is also rather hilarious, but seems to be written a couple of weeks ago. Because quite a few funny things happened back then; the Palin “troopergate” probe, 4chan internet-thugs ‘hacking’ (“What’s my zip-code?” as secret-question for your yahoo email account, awesome!) Palin’s yahoo mail, the Courtic interviews of CBS with Sarah Palin (Just watch on youtube, it’s rather embarrasing), McCain suggesting Bush to by-pass congress for the bail-out,  an actress parodying Palin’s interview without having to change the text, McCain claiming to have won the debate… before the debate, David Letterman attacking McCain two days in a row in his show, Palin indirectly calling Kissinger terribly naive after meeting him a day earlier, even prominent conservatives call Palin’s vp pick irresponsible, dangerous and are urging her to quit etc etc.

Seems the McCain campaign make mistake after mistake, their momentum is lost again and they’re going down in the polls. You can never be sure, but it’s looking quite good right now. If McCain does win however, I guess someone like Putin will be having a good laugh. A Putin negotiating over important stuff with Sarah Palin will be hilarious and sad at the same time, they should film it and turn it into reality-tv show, I’d watch.

Also interesting is this little insight in American ‘backdoor politics’ by the Washington Post, it’s about Democrats and Republicans meeting each other about the bail-out last week. It’s the day before the debate and it seems Obama kind of humiliated McCain there, which might explain why McCain didn’t look at Obama a single time during that debate and why McCain looked so uncomfortable shaking Obama’s hands after the senate passed the slightly edited new bailout proposal wednesday(here). Interesting.

There’s also this new rather long write-up about the life of John McCain by RollingStone magazine, which makes it seems he’s even more of a spoilt brat than George Bush. Might take a while to read it, but it’s good stuff.