cat /dev/random

The whole thing with McCain/Palin is enough is enough. I don't really think McCain would have been a bad President maybe 8 years ago. In fact we'd probably be much better off if he had beat Bush in the 2000 primaries. Although Gore's personality defects would have probably looked tam to McCain's so there's a very good chance Gore would have won by a big enough margin to escape the voter fraud in FL. Either way, McCain made himself unacceptable to voters by doing a few simple things:

1) His style of politics is just so dirty and divisive. Enough is enough. We just can't do this anymore. Calling people terrorists, socialists, etc it's non-sense. It's the worst type of politics

2) Palin is completely unacceptable. I'm not comfortable with her as VP. In fact, I'm not even comfortable with her as Gov. of Alaska and I don't even live there. I'm probably OK with her being Mayor of some small town in Alaska. Seems like a good job for her.

3) Despite what McCain says, you'd be hard pressed to find 5 relevant issues he disagrees with Bush on. Even the issues where he sorta disagrees (global warming) he basically advocates the same exact policies. For example, if he thinks global warming is caused by man why is he advocating that we use even more oil? Immigration is another issue he supposedly disagrees with Bush on but in reality the Republican party drove Bush far right on it just like they're doing to McCain. Gov. Bush had a far more liberal view of immigration than President Bush. So even on that issue they're basically the same.

4) Stop trying to divide America. There's no "real America" White people who live in rural areas are no more real than a black guy living in the ghetto. If you can't accept that you need to move to a country where the law explicitly allows people to be treated as lesser human beings. Saying "oh she didn't really mean it" isn't acceptable. You say words, they have meanings. Everyone knows that "real America" is a codeword for white, christian, rural voters. If you want to say it, say it... Palin wants to say "Obama hates white people" but she had to use codewords designed to entice the base.

5) They truly crossed the line with some of the hate this year. It's one thing to attack your opponent on policy, personality, qualification, intelligence, etc but when you start calling people terrorists you have failed some basic test of American decency and are instantly unqualified to be President. The extreme left does it too but we've never went so far as to have our candidates for office or official campaigns do it. That type of extreme fringe attacking has to stay at the fringe. When the candidates start talking about it it gives it a level of legitimacy that it simply doesn't deserve. A left wing commenter on a blog saying Bush is a nazi is quite a bit different from Palin saying Obama pals around with terrorists. There's a time and a place for those types of attacks -- they're part of the political process unfortunately but they have to be kept out of the mainstream or we're only a few steps away from political violence erupting in this country. Any candidate who is willing to do that is simply not qualified to be President of this country. They'd be better suited to run for President of Iran where extremist fringe politics is the norm.

6) America doesn't like angry politicians. It's hard to find any modern examples of a Presidential candidate who has won on a platform of anger. I think the only reason Kerry lost in 2004 was the fact he never managed to come off as anything more than someone who was really angry at George W. Bush. I fully accept that McCain hates Obama. His campaign has at least been successful in getting that message out there. OK. So what? Just being angry at someone doesn't make you qualified to be President.

7) It's kinda hard to win an election when you're using these huge sweeping attacks on a guy who is ahead of you in the polls. You're basically attacking the majority of the electorate at that point. If you say Obama pals around with terrorists then naturally that means anyone inclined to vote for Obama is a terrorist lover who hates America. Once voters start to lean towards one candidate those attacks suddenly become personal attacks on the voters themselves.

8) The radical right has a death grip on the Republican party. They are driving people away in record numbers. Democratic registrations, country wide, are up, independent registrations are up. Republican registrations are either flat, or down. They have allowed the extremists to turn their party into something resembling a radical Islamic fundamentalist organization. Do a find/replace on allah/god and you pretty much have the same thing. As I've said before, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they actually do resort to violence. They've done it in the past with abortion doctor murders, the OKC bombing, etc. Out of all the mainstream political organizations in this country they are, by far, the most likely to commit a major act of domestic terrorism in the next 20 years.