PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS: MY HOUSE IS SMALLER, UGLIER AND IN A WORSE NEIGHBORHOOD THAN YOURS. SO THAT MAKES ME MORE QUALIFIED TO ALLOW MY BIG TIME DONORS TO SLEEP IN THE LINCOLN BEDROOM

 

The system by which we pick our presidents borders on the absurd.  The state primaries  and caucuses as a method of selecting the major parties’ presidential nominees is insane. It’s nuts to give more importance to little states like Iowa and New Hampshire than to huge states like Florida and Michigan. The process just goes on too long, with endless debates that become meaningless. At the end, we don’t always get the best Democratic and Republican candidates. That’s what’s happened this year. There used to be a lot of criticism hurled at the party bosses in the “smoked filled rooms” who decided on the nominees. That system was full of flaws, but to me, it seems those guys were smoking better quality stuff than the voters who turn out for the presidential primaries. The end results were better.

On the other hand, the Electoral College is an anachronism. It goes against the principle of majority rule. How can we call it a true democracy if a candidate can lose the popular vote and yet win the White House? Why not just have presidential elections based on the popular vote? At any rate, the system needs reform, which I doubt will be enacted in the near future. We’ll just have to put up with it. And truth be told, it’s much better than living in a dictatorship. At least in this country we’ve got the First Amendment, which I define as the right to bitch and moan. Permit me to engage in that pleasure.

The debate about how many houses McCain owns and how Obama bought his Chicago mansion is silly. But since I happen to like silliness, here’s my two bits:

While millions of Americans are scared shitless of losing their homes, old man McCain can’t remember how many houses his rich wife owns. So much for finger pointing at Obama as the one who's out of touch with the concerns of typical working class America. At the same time, let’s point out that McCain’s home for over five years was a Vietnamese dungeon, without a pool, cable television and indoor plumbing. The old guy deserves better living conditions at this late stage of his life. Definitely, he’s entitled to seek to add the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue to the seven mansions of diverse dimensions that his wife bought with her inherited fortune.

As for Obama’s digs, the McCain people are wrong to criticize him for living in a multi-million dollar manse in an exclusive Chicago neighborhood. Obama and his wife are both Harvard Law School grads. Where the hell do Ivy League lawyers usually live, public housing? I do admit this stuff about how a convicted crook helped Barack and Michelle buy their Windy City digs merits some scrutiny. But I haven’t yet seen any solid evidence that Barack exchanged his political influence for help in buying a bigger home for the family. On the other hand,  I do wonder about Michelle’s statement about being proud of America for the first time in her life because so many white people backed Barack in the primaries. Hell, Michelle, you don’t appreciate the fact that you got to attend and graduate from Princeton and Harvard?  It doesn’t mean anything that Barack, brought up by a single mom, got to go to Occidental College, the University of Columbia and Harvard Law?  That’s not progress, when it wasn’t that long ago that white people in the South were up in arms because a black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi?  Give me a break.