The Cosmopolitan Blog

At this point, i am still trying to remember to breath. CNN has just called Obama the next president of the United States. McCain is giving his concession speech. My phone is ringing off the hook. I have no words. I am so proud of the American people for making their voices heard. Peace. Love. To all of you.

I know Obama’s grandmother is looking down and smiling. Forget that! She’s having a ball!

Watching history in the making. This is surreal. All is right with the world. Expect greatness to come. Good night world!

Some perspective on the current race to the White House: this is a game. it’s called politics. There are winners, and there are losers. But no, the winner will not be the candidate who becomes POTUS and the looser the one who doesn’t. That’s where we’ve all got it wrong if we think that’s what happens. The winners and the losers have already been decided.

Obama and McCain and play a game. We suffer the consequences.

Are the candidates evil because they play this game? No, they have to play the game. Politics and government leadership, in any country, works this way. Let’s not over simplify this matter by thinking that all you need to do is have honor and be a good guy, and people will realize that and vote for you. It’s simple maths and economics:

If you don’t have money, you can’t fund a campaign. If you can’t fund a campaign, you won’t get noticed. if you don’t get noticed, no one votes for you. If no one votes for you, you don’t become president. So how do you get money? You go around and promise stuff to people.

They then give you their money. But you need to promise so many people so much stuff that some stuff conflicts with the other stuff you promised. And sometimes you promise stuff with more emphasis to bigger companies because they give you more money, so that you can continue appearing places in order to promise more stuff to more people. Are you GETTING how this works now???

My point? My point is this: everytime we make the argument that one candidate is better than the other, than one candidate is being more truthful than the other, that one candidate wants to fight for the average-Joe more than the other, it’s bull. They all play the same game, and use different tactics to convince you that they don’t. McCain, Obama, same game. So why do I support Obama over McCain? Because Obama sold his lies to me more convincingly than McCain.

That’s why you and I, if we decided to start campaigning and did all we could to remain squeacky clean, if we promised to run a campaign where we would only ever promise something if we had PROOF that we could deliver, well then, you and I could NEVER get anywhere.

I just re-read this post. The fact that i’ve never come closer to sounding like Lou Dobbs scares the living crap out of me.

Part 2 of my effort at fairness, looking at the serious criticism of Obama’s campaign (and of Obama himself).

Issue 2: The ACORN Issue

Arguably, this is a more serious issue than the Ayers issue, I think that was acknowledged by all parties.

1. CLAIM: ACORN has created fake voter registrations by using fake names: for example names of people who are actually deceased, even the name Jimmy Johns, the name of a restaurant where no actual Jimmy Johns worked at, they even created fake registrations for the entire Dallas Cowboys football team. Since Obama is linked to this firm in some way, and since 1+1=3, Obama is rigging the election.
2. FACTS:
   • ACORN has been under investigation for over four years
   • ACORN has created over 5,000 fake voter registrations in at least 6 states and continued to do so until a few days ago when it became a national issue
   • Obama’s campaign used ACORN’s services (it was actually a subsidiary, but fine, let’s simplify) during the primary campaign to register voters at a fee of $800,000.
   • ACORN endorsed Obama for president
3. CONCLUSIONS:
   • Obama used the services of a firm under investigation: YES
   • Should he have? NO
   • Would it have affected the outcome of the primaries NO the number of registrations was a few thousand, Obama won by much more
   • Does it make a difference that ACORN endorsed him? NOT REMOTELY, do you know how many companies endorse each candidate, 1/2 the time without the candidates even knowing it?
   • Will this affect this election? NO, since a. they’ve been caught, b. all registrations (fake or non) coming from them have been pulled, c. this was not actual votes, it was registrations for new voters to be able to vote

COSMOCHICK’S RANT:

While I think this is a more serious issue than Ayers, because Obama’s campaign is to blame for having hired a firm under investigation, the consequences of his actions are, well, non-consequential. Again, this is a political tactic. McCain is trying to put doubts in voters minds by lining up a bunch of things that will make you question his judgment. What McCain doesn’t tell you is that he’s done just as bad, that it’s all part of the game of politics, and that even HE (McCain) doesn’t think this are big deal issues, he’s just grabbing at straws.

However, if you feel that your trust in Obama has gone because a guy who bombed the Pentagon organized a meeting to launch Obama’s campaign, and because he used the services of a firm under investigation, then you have the right to feel that way. That means McCain’s argument was persuasive. And i can’t fault you for this.

What I will say though, is don’t imagine ANYTHING here is black or white (and I’m not talking about the candidates’ skin colors). If you think there’s doubt to be cast on Obama’s campaign practices, then you should know there are is just as much to be cast on McCain? Why? Am i saying this because I’m bitter? No. I’m as calm as i can be when i tell you: it’s the name of the game, politics. You do what you can do to get ahead. You say what you can say.You promise what you need to promise. And if you think McCain is any better, because he seems nice, because he seems approachable, because he could be your next door neighbor, because you can relate to him, because he doesn’t flash a Harvard education around… then think again. He might very well be all of these things, but he’s not become a presidential nominee by being a nice guy, trust me.

And you know what? In 2000 and 2004, we elected and re-elected a guy that seemed nice and approachable. Look where that got us. *sigh* I feel a new post topic coming on whether a POTUS should be just like us… Stay tuned.

There was a time when the world’s favorite cliché of Americans was those funny Jay Leno-style interviews where he’d walk around the streets interviewing average americans, and 1/2 of them wouldn’t know the answers to basic questions such as “Where is Canada”, “Give me the name of a country beginning with ‘u’”… Then, well, the myth was broken when others starting posting YouTube videos showing that there were stupid people everywhere, not just in the US.

But now, the new cliché is a scarier side of the supposed ignorance in Middle America. It’s that somewhere, in the middle of the country, those who stay away from mainstream TV, those white, middle aged men and women listen and believe every rumor and negative rhetoric that comes their way. I’m talking about the negative rumors on Barak Obama. Those who won’t vote for him because he’s black. Those who believe that because his middle name is Hussein, it automatically means that he’s Muslim, and therefore that he’s in bed with terrorists (cuz we know that every Muslim is by default, a terrorist).

The problem is this: they hear soundbites of negative rhetoric, and then, in their heads, they magnify it. They can’t see, for example, that Barak’s association with Fannie May is no more disproportionate than McCain’s. The are not people who base themselves on facts. Really, they don’t. I’m not saying that if they did, McCain would suddenly appear evil. No, no, i’m sure they would still support McCain, and they should, if that’s what they believe in. But read, research, find out the truth. Don’t believe a website, just because it claims to know more about Barak Obama than even the government.

I’ll stop. A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth, well, a lot more. So judge for yourself. This is how we see you, America.

Well, i never considered myself an anarchist, but here you have it. I’m boycotting something. I’m boycotting CNN. Their tag line is “the most trusted name in news”. Seriously? How can we trust you, if you refuse to acknowledge that there are other countries out there. Dear CNN, did you know that the world does not, actually, revolve around the USA? That there are a few billion of us who don’t actually give a damn if we miss yet another Obama/Clinton debate? That taking a break from reporting on the primaries to spend 7 days talking about the New York governor’s affair is not actually good news reporting?

I used to fervently believe that Obama was the best democratic choice. Politics used to fascinate me. And now, CNN has single-handedly managed to turn me off politics. Maybe it’s cuz i’m generation X and i have the attention span of a goldfish, but seriously, a contest that lasts over 6 months, really, i promise you, looses steam very, very quickly.

Here is my plea to CNN, in the name of cosmopolitanism. We live on Earth. Earth is comprised of many countries. Each country, believe it or not, has newsworthy events. In order to up the awareness and IQ of your people, reporting on what is happening in other countries might actually be a good thing. Oh, and then, if you even spend just 10 minutes per hour reporting on what else is happening around the world, well then, maybe you could make a bold claim like being “the most trusted name in news”… And no, good looking anchors like Anderson Cooper not longer dissipate my anger.

But what makes me so mad (you know, like even MADDER than i was in the paragraph above!), and, unfortunately, i can’t really blame it on CNN, is the fact that i feel like we’re the only ones to see that the longer the democrats fight it out, the more power they’re giving to the republicans. I made a prediction on this blog a few months back, and i continue to maintain it. At the time, there were other democratic candidates, and i had said, if either Hillary or Obama get the nomination, then i guarantee the next POTUS will be a republican. I still believe that. Only time will tell, but in this case, pleeeease can time just hurry the hell up?