One of the first articles that I read about Barack Obama after he was elected president four years ago insisted that we do the right thing and reelect him in 2012. There were other articles praising him as one of the best presidents if not the best president that we have ever had. And all of this was before his inauguration.
The media’s love affair was the last piece of the puzzle for me. Combine that with an economy that was practically guaranteed to improve and the ability to ride the hatred of Bush, and Obama won this election four years ago.
I can add something to this election that wasn’t established four years ago, Sandy. Much like 9/11 boosted Bush’s popularity in office just because he was in office when it happened, I expected hurricane/superstorm/frankenstorm Sandy to give Obama one last boost. Everything that Obama and Romney had no control over was tilted heavily in Obama’s favor.
Looking at all the factors in Obama’s favor, the close popular vote could be viewed as evidence of what I have been saying. Obama has done an absolutely horrible job over the last four years. The economy didn’t improve as much as expected despite $6 trillion of debt added. The decision to keep the republicans out of the discussion (then blaming the republicans for not reaching out to the democrats) has increased the political divide in this country (I’ve never seen a bigger political divide). While the affordable health care act appears to have serious flaws that have people like me concerned, even the supporters should be able to see how unethically the democrats acted to pass the bill. The republicans might be just as problematic, but I’d prefer backtracking to a rickety bridge crossing the canyon than heading “forward” over the edge of a cliff.
To make matters worse, Obama clearly spent a significant portion of his four years campaigning for re-election. Now that he has been re-elected, he has no reason to hold back. The next four years will likely be worse than the last four.
The good news is that the democrats would have taken a loss far worse. Thanks to Obama, the aftermath of this election won’t be as bad as it could have been. I expected an Obama victory to result in heavy traffic on Canadian websites (relocation considerations). I would have expected a Romney victory to result in riots.
I should also point out that this election had reaffirmed my hatred of politics for reasons beyond the outcomes. We kept hearing about political strategies. Which states should the candidates be campaigning in? That would be the so-called battleground states. Obama only came to Washington to collect money that he could use to buy votes in the battleground states. We also heard a lot about demographics. How did the women vote? How about Hispanics? This is part of the reason that neither candidate is trustworthy. It’s more about sales than providing an honest explanation regarding beliefs and intentions.
Another issue was that the media was attempting to portray things in a way to maximize their rating (as usual) rather than being fair and doing what’s right. I understand that they can guess with a degree of accuracy who is going to win a state before counting the votes, but exit polls (something that I personally regard as unethical) should never displace the actual votes. I find it inexcusable that my state was awarded to Obama by the media before any legitimate votes were reported. It might take longer and keep people from gluing themselves to the screen, but it should be the voters who determine the electoral votes, not the media.
I was hoping that the hatred aimed at both parties right now would convince some people to stop blindly supporting the duopoly. Unfortunately, most media outlets refuse to acknowledge that there are more than two candidates. I had to go to Wikipedia to find information. They referenced Google. While it was an improvement over 2008 (and I ‘m pretty sure that there are still votes being counted), the top third party candidate appears to have managed less than 1% of the vote and the third parties combining for under 2%. Washington was a little better with Gary Johnson exceeding 1%. Still, that’s not enough for candidates outside of the duopoly to even be acknowledged.
As far as local issues are concerned, it look like we have legalized marijuana on a state level. Marijuana use will still be illegal due to federal law. This is one issue that I was really concerned about. We have lost so many rights over the years, and I did not want to be compensated for these losses with another drug that we have the right to abuse. More importantly, I absolutely hated the idea that we could legalize marijuana before we legalized education. Apparently, Washingtonians values drug abuse more than we value education.
I should also bring up our gubernatorial race. I don’t recall ever having an election where one candidate looked so much better than the other. If Dino Rossi can beat Gregoire (then sue to overturn the results via recount), then McKenna should be able to pull this off with a little room (but not a whole lot) to spare against a democrat who doesn’t sound like he knows the job. Early results don’t look good since we have been blindly following that D again. This is at least a close race, so McKenna still has a chance to pull it off. Unfortunately, the odds are leaning towards Inslee.
Can voters really be that stupid? Well, yeah. I’ve been saying it for years. But I do have some good news. Only 1,535 days left (for Excel users: =42755-TODAY() ) until we finally get rid of Obama!
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