With my breath held and a steadfast refusal to panic, I have been keeping an eye on the presidential election polls over the past week or so. Most show the race is still tight - Barack Obama and John McCain are separated by an average of two percentage points - but unlike the pre-convention polling, which had Obama in a constant lead, it is McCain who is leading Obama by that two-point margin.
Can Americans really be ready to vote for a man who has proven time and again, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he will surrender his integrity (that one trait that was supposed to be his ace in the hole) in order to get elected? Can Americans really be ready to vote for a man who, despite calling himself a "maverick," has become the lap-dog of the current failed president? Can Americans really be ready to vote for a man who belongs to the political party that has driven America over the proverbial cliff? Are they really willing to reward eight years of failed, Fascist-style government with four more years of incompetence and failure?
Mark my words my fellow Americans, that is exactly what you'll get with John McCain.
Yes, perhaps you'd much rather have a beer with him than with Sen. Obama. Yes, I understand you respect his service in Vietnam. And yes, I am sure many working American mothers can relate to Sarah Palin.
That doesn't mean their election would be good for the country. In fact, after eight years of the worst presidency in the history of our great nation, I would argue that the election of the McCain/Palin ticket - a third Republican term - would be absolutely devastating to the United States.
Under Republican rule, the nation has been led over these last eight years by a failed administration (and for six years by an enabling Congress), who were unable to step up to the plate each time the going got rough. The amateurs running our government stumbled from crisis to crisis, eroding American will and turning Lady Liberty into the laughing stock of the globe, all the while bankrupting the American treasury, leaving the debt for your kids and grandkids to clean up.
George W. Bush may be constitutionally unable to serve a third term, but believe me when I say that electing John McCain would be tantamount to another four years of failed leadership, declined American morale, and weakened American prestige on the international stage. For while Sen. McCain may have bucked the current administration on one occasion here or another occasion there, the Republican presidential candidate has essentially been Bush's lap dog - or "Bush's Bitch," as I've called him - these last four years.
Unfair? Degrading? Insulting?
Tough.
After being beaten to a pulp by the Karl Rove campaign machine during the 2000 primaries (they sent out campaign fliers that were stunningly insulting to McCain's adopted daughter), McCain turned around four years later and practically marched with Bush to the San Francisco City Hall for a marriage license. Campaigning to re-elect a president of his Republican Party who insulted his family, McCain showed Americans for the first time that he was willing to sell his soul in order to win the White House. He proved during that campaign that he has absolutely no integrity.
And now, with his choice of the abysmally qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate, and with his campaign of lies, deceit, and bottom-feeding, Sen. McCain has proven to Americans that he is incapable of making appropriate decisions and that he cannot be trusted with the presidency.
After eight years of those qualities from the current president, can America really afford four more? Tell me, my fellow Americans, that you can look at the current record of Republican leadership and say, "Well done! Keep up the good work."??
We're at the proverbial fork in the road. Do we continue down the current path of acute and chronic incompetence, weakness, and failure? Or do we change course and head down the path that leads us toward a day when America's promise will once again be realized?
The answer, my fellow Americans, is the quintessential no-brainer.
