Ordinary Americans

I discovered Robert Stacy McCain's blog after he managed to hack off feminist bloggers with this post, among others. It's more of the usual groin-scratching stuff men have engaged in for a long time and, of course, if you don't find it humorous, you must be one of those humorless feminists. For me, it just reminded me of my stint as the only woman in the newspaper's Sports department in the pre-Vinson days when sending pornographic phone calls to your agate clerk was considered funny. But hey. I guess you just have to develop a certain ability to recognize that just because the guys crowd around the TV after deadline watching Skinamax then turning to look at you, it's not personal.

But I digress.

While I found McCain's comments regarding female bloggers to be immature and telling, I did find this post on ordinary Americans and voting to be interesting.

Recently, my husband told me about a lunch conversation he had with several of his friends. They are all conservative and all plan to vote for John McCain, yet all are convinced Barack Obama will win in November. His description of their discussion was one of frustration and defeatism.

I'm more optimistic than that. The fact that Obama hasn't cracked 50% in any poll is significant, implying that voters haven't bought into the Obama branding yet. With 96 days until the election, there's still plenty of time to inform people about who Obama is, what his positions are (at least, for the day), and what his policies will mean for average folks.

And the truth is that Obama's policies will be disasterous for us both domestically and overseas. As Dana has pointed out before, just allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will raise taxes on everyone (including the cart wrangler at Albertson's). His shallow, naive approach to foreign policy will reassure our enemies that we are more vulnerable than when George W. Bush was president. Obama will nominate judges who believe in the liberal "making shit up" theory of Constitutional interpretation, and with a Democrat Congress (perhaps even a veto-proof Senate) whatever stupid legislation Democrats want is what we'll get.

R.S. McCain brings up a point I've stated before and seen at other blogs: Americans don't elect northern liberal candidates. The only Democrats who have won the presidency in the last 40 years were both Southerners who ran as centrist/conservatives. This is largely the reason for Obama's many flip-flops. He has to move to the center if he has any chance at all to win. I have more faith that ordinary Americans aren't going to buy into Obama's inevitability.