I think we’re all kind of glad that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States. Well, almost everyone apart from maybe a few die-hard Republicans and a fistful of white supremacists, but I’ll get onto that later. But good on Obama.
I don’t live in the US of A. I live in Scotland, but like everyone else in the world privileged with a television and Internet, I followed the events in America with great interest.
The story has been pretty much epic as elections go - an African American wins - a complete first that even I don’t need to tell you. It’s a first for women, with Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. And it’s a first for me as a person being interested in Politics.
You would understand why this is. Our elections are pretty boring. It’s more about kissing babies and shaking hands at supermarkets, than gigantic Superbowl-sized crowds and heart-stopping speeches. Our politicians are boring, dull and about as charisma as a dead fish. We are, on the other hand - blessed with the epic Boris Johnson and Alex Salmond’s hilarious looking face. Which you can never take away from us, America. Besides, I’m not here to talk about us - so where was I?
Oh yeah, the election. I kind of dropped in as Hillary Clinton dropped out, although I vaguely followed it beforehand. I originally thought it was Obama against Clinton for the actual election until someone set me straight. Clinton’s crazy eyes and show-boating speeches ensured I was an Obama fan from early on. I only really heard of McCain when Hillary buggered off the scene.
For a pretty decent sounding guy, John McCain had it pretty tough; for reasons that were his own fault and not. Before I say this though, I’d just like to say I’m a pretty simple minded person when it comes to this kind of thing, so If someone comments about one of his policies or something to do with economics, I won’t fucking know. Okay? What I do know though, is that 98% of Americans know about as much as I do. Thus follows the main reasons that McCain lost his campaign. A] Preceding George Bush and B] Sarah Palin. You saw that coming. I’ll start off with dear old George.
George Bush has to be and most likely is the most unpopular president since Presidents began. To be a Republican candidate trying to win an election when the last Republican President did complete pants is a difficult job to do. If an employee of some company sold you faulty goods, you probably wouldn’t use that company again - in suspicion that if you did, you might get the same problems as last time. This is something Obama made a point about and a lot of people (Okay, great American citizens. Blah) thought, so this was quite a disadvantage to the old chap McCain. In a whole, they were kind of screwed before they even started. Which was Bush’s fault. Again. Fuck, when is it not Bush’s fault? Gawd.
Then there was Sarah Palin, which was McCain’s fault. Really. WELL HE CHOSE HER.
Well I thought Hillary Clinton was quite bad, with those Orange suits and crazy eyes. She was pretty nuts. Of course, when we thought it was safe to breathe again when she got the boot, along came gun-obsessed Sarah Palin - blasting her way into male voter’s fantasies.
Obama was quite obviously African American (unless you’re blind, which means it really isn’t as obvious) - a first for American Presidential Politics and what have you etc etc. The Republicans must have thought, “Oh shit! A black guy.”
To top this they needed someone new, fresh, and from a group with a troubled history of civil rights. Nope, it wasn’t the Jews. It was women, in the form of Sarah Palin. This is probably not how they worked it out, or maybe it was - but it was the choice in the end that was the most important, and I didn’t like it. This was because Sarah Palin scared the shit out of me.
Even that man looks slightly nervous.
I’m not a misogynist, but if McCain got a different vice president candidate I probably wouldn’t have been too fazed if he won the election. Instead he got some psycho from Alaska, which I didn’t even know was part of America. Other than the fact that she’s the only politician you would willingly have sex with (Anne Widdecombe, anyone?) there was plenty to dislike about her. Take for example the photo of her holding a machine gun. Obviously this meant she was gun obsessive. Quite sexy, but I don’t think I would feel very safe with someone who openly likes weaponry - which is quite ironic, since she kept trying to make Obama look like a terrorist. Barack - ‘Iraq’? Obama - ‘Osama’? Oh dear. Pretty spooky but I don’t see Obama casually wielding a shotgun in a calender shoot. Ahem.
And what scared most people was the idea that if McCain died, Sarah Palin would take his place. How depressing must that have been for McCain? Oi, McCain - you’re probably going to die in the next four years. You step out - Sarah Palin steps in - leather boots? Nuclear Warheads? Sexual mind control? You love America? Shit, If you die - we all die, we’ll be in this apocalyptic mess because of a situation you created and that can’t happen. In other words, “Sorry McCain, you haven’t got my vote, because if you die - we’re fucked”.
To say she kind of became a international figure of parody and satire is a bit of an understatement. She literally spawned hundreds of piss-takes and porn movies with Sarah Palin lookalikes and prank calls and porn movies. Basically, McCain was doomed. I don’t think anyone other than recently leeched-on, post-Hillary feminists really took her seriously. It just goes to show nice legs and excessive winking doesn’t win you elections. Which is a shame, because McCain shined in his bowing out speech as a truly decent sounding bloke.
But it doesn’t end here for Palin. My suspicions were true. She’ll be back for the 2012 elections - that’s if god opens a door for her. Which is good, because with the enormity of this universe I’d say god was a pretty fucking busy guy. If I was responsible for the entire universe and Sarah Palin asked me to open a metaphoric door for her, I’d tell her to fuck off.
While McCain fades away back to his day job and Palinplots world domination, Barack Obama prepares for change. He has a lot to live up to with this change stuff, yet his plans are so vague that change could be anything. “I am getting a haircut”, or “I will be able to afford to throw away spare change now I’m on a Presidential pay packet”. I don’t know. His ideas for change are probably better than my attempts at joking about it. I’m sure he’ll make a good president. Unlike George Bush he can actually make a speech without referring to his notes all the time. Oh, and he’s black you know.
I’m not joking when I say 90% of media coverage was to do with the fact that Obama is African American. In the paper today (at time of writing), at least ten pages were dedicated to this fact. It’s significant for civil rights, I know that - but there was about one page that discussed what he was actually going to do. It was as if to say, “Oh yeah, and he’ll be doing this as well”.
It started to really annoy me how the media was trying to highlight equality when really they made more of a point on how different he was. Why couldn’t they just focus on his plans instead of his colour? I know you can’t exactly ignore American history and pretend it didn’t happen, but it got to a ridiculous level. The majority of footage was of black people followed by, “This is a great day for African Americans…”. Hang on? I thought it was a great day for everyone who supported democracy and opposed George Bush? I’d hate to think and I’m sure Obama would hate to think he got voted by some people just because of his colour. Do not judge people by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character, I think Martin Luther King said. So why the excessive media focus? And, oh shit - I’m focusing on it now as well. As a result of this, I have not seen anything in the media about what he is actually going to do, bar a few scraps on the Iraq war and education. So I’m afraid If you came here in search of this knowledge, then I’m sorry that I have failed you.
His speech after he was elected was spine-tingling. I was watching history unfold before my eyes on that 32-inch silver box in my living room. He talked about change, change, more change - added extra cliches (A new dawn for America, etc), the family factor (we’re getting a new puppy, beautiful wife, lovely kids. etc), a silver Ash Ketchum tear for his grandmother and, oh, did I say change? All of this said surrounded by 3-inch thick bullet proof glass. Remember the white supremacists I mentioned in the first line? My gran is adamant that Obama will get shot by one of those. It’s not like she wants it to happen - far from it. But it appears security is taking no chances about the idea.
I know, I’m back on the “Oh shit, he’s black!” card, but it’s hard to avoid. I’m sure every President gets death threats now and again, but Barack Obama has already had 500 or so of these and he’s not even in the Oval office yet. But I’m sure he’ll manage.
Well, I’m sick of writing. So I’m going to leave you with a picture of the new President of the USA: Barack Obama.
Loading ...
