Winners and Losers

Winner of the Week: President-elect Barack Obama
Barack ran a classy campaign. He took the high road constantly as compared to his opponent who tried to connect him to terrorists and other bad people. The claims didn't stick. As Obama himself said, "when you don't have anything to say, you attack the other guy." Obama's well-run campaign helped him win Tuesday night's election in a landslide.

Winner of the Week: John McCain
Yeah, I know you can't believe I'm putting this here. However, despite the crappy campaign that McCain ran which included one of the most disasterous v-p picks of all-time, McCain delivered an outstanding concession speech. He expressed his sympathy for Obama's grandma during the speech.

And no, Governor Palin, you are not supposed to talk at all during this time. That concession speech is McCain's moment.

Loser of the Week: Rush Limbaugh
During Rush's show today, Rush pointed out how people like Iran's President, Louis Farrakhan, and Reverend Wright have all expressed their support for Obama since Tuesday. Rush said, "Barack has collected a nice group of supporters." And then he listed them. Rush then played several clips of Reverend Wright's infamous sermons. Rush is further proof of who/what party has been so divisive to this country.

Loser of the Week: Reverend Wright
Shut up and go away. Barack won. No need to appear on any shows. Just go away.

Thrown under the bus

The fallout from the McCain-Palin loss is building up. In the last few days, McCain insiders have been leaking to the media problems that were festering inside the campaign.

Among the problems cited by McCain aides:
Governor Palin didn't know that Africa is a continent and not a country.
Governor Palin didn't know the countries that are involved in NAFTA, you know, the NORTH AMERICA Free Trade Agreement. Her state borders one of the three countries.

"If there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about NAFTA, and about the continent vs. the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context," Palin said. "That's cruel, It's mean-spirited. It's immature. It's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away with it, taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news. It's not fair, and it's not right."

These confidential sources were cited in a FOX NEWS Report, of all places.

How not knowing about Africa or NAFTA can be taken out of context is beyond me. I think we, the general public, know that when something is "taken out of context", that's usually b.s. Considering that Palin couldn't answer questions about the responsibilities of the vice president or what newspaper and magazines she reads, these "out of context" comments don't seem like much of a stretch.

And then there was the practical joke phone call from the Canadian radio personalities. Palin's camp claims they knew about this for at least three days and that McCain's camp should have known about it being on Palin's calendar. Nice communication there.

McCain insiders claim that McCain and Palin didn't talk over the last several days of the campaign. Hey, GOP supporters, that was what you wanted to have in the White House????? If this is how well they ran a campaign, it scares me to think how well they would have run the country.

This afternoon, Rush Limbaugh was still heaping praise on Sarah Palin, saying she's the future of the party. PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE, Republican party, if you think she's great, keep putting her out there. Us Democrats will be fine with that.

A semi-recap.

Now that the election is over, I want to recap some random thoughts from the election.

Here are some things I am glad we (shouldn't) will not be hearing any more:
"You betcha."
"Say it ain't so, Joe."
"Hockey Mom."
"Joe Six Pack"
"First Dude"
"Socialist"
"Palling around with terrorists."
"Bill Ayers"
"Reverend Wright"
"Maverick"
"Gamechanger"
"Skilled politician"
"Joe the Plumber"

The funniest thing said by John McCain, at least in my opinion, was during his interview with NBC's Brian Williams when Williams asked him about his thoughts on being down ten-percent in the polls. McCain said, "We've got them right where we want them."

Feel free to suggest or add any phrases I left out.

Getting back to the "socialist" label...Rush Limbaugh was all over Rush today, claiming Barack is socialist and playing the race card again, saying that Barack made a deal to the voters by saying that if you vote for him (because he's black), he will do you a favor (tax cut). That kind of talk isn't needed today but has come to represent the views of so many who voted for McCain.

Change is coming!

It was a little scary at the beginning but Barack Obama pulled through and is the President-elect of the United States of America.

In the early going, John McCain caputed quite a few electoral votes which blew me away. I don't think his campaign did anything to separate himself from George Bush. I still can't remember any occasion where he addressed the middle class.

McCain was too busy hammering Obama on "spreading the wealth" and labeling Obama as a "socialist." Wait a minute. How did Congress attempt to solve the financial crisis? Oh, that's right...it was done by spreading the wealth and bailing out failed financial institutions.

Anyway, back to the main point; the election. Did you notice a pattern in the states where McCain won? There were mostly southern and western. Bible belt. While Barack Obama's victory is historic for our country, there are still some bad feelings in some parts of our country.

One thing's for sure and that is that Barack Obama has a lot of work to do in cleaning up the mess left from the last eight years.

Hopefully, this is the last of Joe the Plumber.

Getting fat on Election Day

Today is the day to get out and vote. I see many business are offering special promotions to draw customers.

Dunkin Donuts, Ben and Jerrys, and Starbucks are offering freebies on Election Day. This is according to WKYC Channel 3 in Cleveland, Ohio.

What other special Election Day things are going on?

Toot is in Heaven

As you probably know by now, Barack Obama's grandma died from cancer today. Obama credits Madelyn Payne Dunham for shaping him into the man he is.

"She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me."

Dunham was 86 years old.

I'm happy that Obama got to see his grandma before she passed away. It's just too bad that she didn't get to see the election results. God bless her and the Obama family.

I voted today!

I went to go vote today. The polling place wasn't supposed to open until 1 p.m. I got there at 11 a.m. Two hours early. At 11 a.m., here's (photo below) where my place in line was. I estimated I was about 50th. I could only count the people I could see that went near the front door.

Thankfully, once inside, it went very fast. I filled out an absentee form. Waited in another line. Asked for and got the paper ballot, voted, stuffed it in an envelope, sealed it, turned it in and left.
Once I got outside, I took a couple pictures of the line that was now down the block. The polling place is the brown roofed building.