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Barack Obama Wins Presidency
Will someone teach spell check to learn President Barack Obama's name?
In all seriousness, it's refreshing to vote for someone who actually won! Let's break down how Obama won, but really, how McCain did his best to sandbag himself at just about every turn since he secured the nomination.
How Obama Won
Voter turnout - Republicans historically pray for rain. Bad weather means low turnout and low turnout us
ually means Republicans win. This year, election day saw favorable conditions. Obama brought a ton of new voters to the table - also starting to wonder how real all that Acorn stuff was - if it was valid, where are the lawsuits? Or was it just such a straight up spanking, the Republicans don't want to go all 2000 on us?
Obama on Iraq - Public support for Iraq has been down for a long time, and Obama has been against this war since day one, and spoke at one of the first anti war protests in Chicago.
Clinton Support - Americans sure do love their Clintons, and the Clintons did a nice job of campaigning for Obama. We think President Clinton could have won a third term. He probably would have made a video with Paris Hilton in that third term... sigh, we can dream....
Debates - they weren't especailly close, were they?
Funds - Obama had a ton of money, but then, so did McCain; but Obama had more.
Positive TV Spots - Obama ran the first political ads we can remember that didn't say anything especially negative or make charges against the opponent - they did its best to link McCain to George W. Bush and featured video that showed McCain saying that he voted with President G. W. Bush most of the time, so it was hard to call that much of an attack ad... And he had plenty of ads that didn't feature McCain in any way. Obama's ads were more to the tune of, "I'm great, vote for me!" as opposed to McCain's ads, "Obama is not great. Vote for me!"
How McCain Lost
George W. Bush - It's fair to say he's given the Republican Party something of a black eye. If the 2006 midterm election was a referendum on George W. Bush's presidency, what would you call this?
Negative Campaigning - The public just didn't respond to it this time. It sounded like business as usual, and Americans seem pretty tired of it. And it's pretty hard to run a negative campaign when you're running against a guy who's career in politics is pretty short and no one believes anything anyone in your party says.
Sara Palin - Or, should we say Sara W. Palin? Her inability to do interviews really made her look dumb, or should we say, a lot like George W. Bush. And Americans are totally sick of George W. Bush. See, when Biden commits a gaf, you think, "I bet he wishes he didn't just say that!" where as when Palin commitst a gaf, you think, "Good gravy, is she out of her damn mind?" And her selection made it impossible to run the 'Obama has no experience' campaign, because Palin has little experience, and she was never president of the Harvard Law Review. The YouTube of her Miss Alaska bid probably didn't help either. The Republicans tried to keep her under wraps, but that just made things worse and created a feeding frenzy, and reporters must feed the beast or pack their bags.
Constant Theme Changing - Who the hell was running McCain's campaign, a gambling addict with campaign management dice? "Let's roll the dice and see what we've got today... OK, today we're mavericks and Obama's old style Washington. Did we just call Obama old? If McCain wins, he'll be the oldest first term president EVER. Get me another drink! Roll em again... Tomorrow, McCain's a war hero, everyone else is a quitter... Roll em: McCain is Country First, Obama is a Democratic Loyalist... Roll em: McCain is a leader, Obama's just a celebrity, Roll em: Obama's a Tax and Spend Liberal and McCain is a fighter for America... (it's amazing how much you can fit on one side of a die) Should we bring up that we're the incumbent party and George W. Bush out spent Ronald Regan? Let's have another drink! Are we seriously gonna run reform? We're the incumbent party!"
No more old McCain - Once McCain decided to run for President again, he ran to the Right, and the man who ran for president in 2000 was gone forever. It's a shame, too; we liked him!
So there you have it - we'll sum up with this: the smartest guy won.
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