The GOP wants to make this election a joke

While the Obama campaign has tried to focus on real issues that affect us all — the economy, healthcare, the war — the McCain campaign wants to obscure the issues. They want to take this election as low as possible. They want to make this election not about issues or even anything real, but about caricatures: An aggrandised and overblown John McCain, the all-American golden boy war hero maverick who is ready for reform, even though he’s walked line-and-step with the current unpopular president for the last eight years; and an twisted, cartoonish Obama who is black and scary and naive and inexperienced (and maybe a Muslim?!?).

Both views are completely baloney.

John McCain is a war hero. God, I can’t imagine the things he went through in Vietnam and I can’t thank him enough for his service. But he’s NOT perfect. He’s NOT a reformer or a maverick. I believe that John McCain was a good man with a good heart at some point but he has sold out to the Bush administration and the Washington lobbyists that now run his campaign. McCain is now a promise of more of the same, a continuation of failed Bush policies.

Barack Obama is a fresh and energising political figure but HE is not perfect. He is not a messiah, or a saviour. He will not fix anything, much less everything, overnight — and he hasn’t promised to. He DOES offer a genuine effort to rise above small, bitter, polarised politics to work together for real solutions to real problems. As far as his experience, something Obama said when he announced his candidacy is the only argument I needed to hear: “I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”

Don’t fall for the stereotypes. If you vote for Senator McCain, that’s fine; but do so because you believe he’s the right man for the job, not because you’re afraid to shake things up, or because you’re afraid of the caricature Obama. John McCain’s positions are George Bush’s positions. If you enjoy high gas prices, the state of our economy, and endless war, then vote for John McCain, because he’ll continue Bush’s failed energy policy, his failed economic policy, and his failed foreign relations policy. If you are like me, and you’re not doing well, and you’re disgusting with the way things have become, then don’t vote for more of the same, take a chance, and support Senator Obama.