Harvard's Election 2008 Blog

The Dummy's Guide to Vice Presidential Nominations

A lot of you seem surprised at the recent nominations for vice president.  I have heard my friend(s) rant away for what seemed like hours about the other possibilities, their qualifications,  how they would sway the "Southern Midwestern, alternative brand to John Deere Tractor owning polygamists whose sons don't play fooseball but do enjoy watching Spongebob on television" vote and so on.  So for all of you who are confused, I am going to explain the nominations.

 The Candidates: 

Obama:

• Young, glamorous, salt-of-the-earth American image. 
• Family prevalent in media.  Attractive (at least, more so than McCain).
• Fairly uncorrupted by politics, idealistic.
• Inexperienced (politically, not sexually).

 McCain:

• Lots of political experience.
• Some form of familiarity with American foreign affairs (war hero).
• Close relationship with former President (Bush).
• Quite old.

Who they nominated:

Biden:

• Lots of political experience.
• Some form of familiarity with American foreign affairs (Foreign Relations Committee)
• Close relationship with former President (Clinton)
• Quite old.

Palin:

• Young, glamorous, salt-of-the-earth American image. 
• Family prevalent in media.  Attractive (at least, more so than McCain).
• Fairly uncorrupted by politics, idealistic.
• Inexperienced (politically, not sexually).

I mean, really?  Are you kidding me?  They would have nominated each other had they been allowed to.  The only real difference here is that Palin is female, which is obviously a ploy to attract Hillary Clinton's supporters.  Perhaps they can just run a joint ticket?

Oh, and I amannoyed at Palin.  I keep thinking videos with her name in the description are going to involve renowned funny man Michael Palin of Monty Python fame.  He would have been a better choice anyway.

(Michael) Palin

• Funny.
•  Fairly uncorrupted by politics, idealistic.
• Very funny.
• Attractive (at least, more so than McCain).
• Interesting.
• Some form of familiarity with American foreign affairs (Not from this country, does travel documentaries).
• Hysterical.
• Has remained happily married for 42 years!  Obama is 47.  Sarah Palin is 44.
• Performed the lumberjack song, which was very funny.
• Has an asteroid named after him.  The asteroid may even be older than McCain.

I could go on, but I won't.  I don't think I have to.  I think we can all agree, Michael Palin is the right choice for this country.

 Ah well, as usual, those best suited to lead are not best suited to be elected.  Like the Ruler of the Universe (see the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...it's somewhere in there).

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Michelle Obama stands for everything good about the USA...though this does cause me to wonder who would stand for the bad things.

I heard about Michelle Obama's DNC speech today. My co-worker was talking about it. This would be unremarkable, but I am in a physics lab in England. So apparently the election is causing quite some wide-sweeping stir. He was unimpressed. Which made me sad - I have always, completely irrationally, felt that Obama would be a better candidate for the United States' international image, something I care about being from London. Now, before you McCain pundits bludgeon me to death with your piercing arguments, let me give the two simple (and completely foundationless) arguments I have for this. First, he seems to care about international relations beyond who we are bombing more. Second, my international friends like him more.

But that is not what I want to get into - like I said, I don't follow politics, and don't feel justified to take a strong position. It was just interesting to me that my co-worker had sought out Michelle's speech, and had an opinion on it. His opinion was that she had spent vast stretches, as long as several minutes, saying nothing. I was interested. So I did something unprecendeted; I read the speech. Because I would feel like a total hypocrite trying to comment on it without having read it (I don't feel that way about political science because I do read about political science - neither pretentiously or intelligently, as most of the stuff goes over my head, but I try).

She even used the phrase "hot summer day." Meatloaf would be proud. And Strom Thurmond would bow to his superior.

Michelle said some valuable things in her speech. And some nice things. But also a lot of words. Which was ironic, given she was preaching about how sometimes you need more than words. Anyway, I do not want to harp on her. I just have one thing to say on that - political speeches should not demonstrate how impressive a candidate is, or how good their intentions are, or how their amazing past record indicates they will do a good job. As the financial analysts love to say, "past performance is not indicative of future success." They should tell us what you are going to do, and where the country is going. Not what the President wants to do - I think it would be hard to argue that anyone running for President wants the War in Iraq (please note: we also still have troops in Afghanistan) to end irresponsibly ("Nah, let's just like...get our troops out of there and nuke them or something") - but how he plans to do it. And call me a cynic, but I do not believe in Yogic flying and I certainly don't believe that "bringing us together and reminding us how much we share" is going to make World Peace just break out. The sentiment is a little reminiscent of children's television. Or Miss America Pagents.

I know I am effectively reiterating what I said before. But at least I only took five sentences to do it.

Thus, I will use this space to write my election speech, having been inspired by her example. If you disagree with the positions I take, I will be impressed, because I thought I was very careful not to put any in there:

"I love America. And am not a racist. I love all Americans. At least, those who believe in American values. Like freedom, and justice, and succeeding, and doing what's right, and standing up for what you believe in, and partial monopoly in the form of oligopoly, and apple pie, and love, and happiness. Because America is the greatest country in the world. I would never be anything other than an American.

I have faced adversity in my life. That is how you know I understand you. Because I am a good honest person. Like you. And I would not lie about that. If I was a liar, I would come up here and tell you I am a liar. That's how honest I am. And I understand you. And what it is like to be you. I am you. I have struggled just like you. I have faced adversity just like you. That is how you know I can understand you. I would not lie about that.

My family is wonderful. Every one of us is wonderful. We have raised ourselves through the social strata. We have been good people always. We do the right thing. That is why this is a wonderful country.

Many will say my dreams are crazy. But they are not. We can make this country better. Even though it is the best. We can be better than the best. Because the American people are not afraid to give one thousand percent. We must face up to our fears. We must overcome all those who would stand against us. Because they hate what we stand for. Regardless of what it is. Otherwise, they would understand how all we want is for everyone to be happy. To build a better tomorrow. For our children, and our children's children. They deserve a better tomorrow. Come tomorrow, we can make tomorrow better. We just have to focus on tomorrow. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.

Someday, tomorrow will be today, and then today will be yesterday. But we may have to wait and work towards tomorrow for that to happen. Because tomorrow will not come on its own.

That is why I am qualified to be your President.

Thank you, and God bless you, God bless us, God bless America. The greatest country in the world."

Although, I am sure it would not be actually as fluid as it sounds when you read it, because I anticipate having to stop every other sentence for the raucous cheering.

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I don't get it - I hate arugula anyway.

I am writing because a friend told me I should. I do not know whether this means that he thought I was an intelligent person with strong political opinions and something to say that people would find worth hearing, or if he meant that the website would look more impressive if more people wrote, making my words just filler. If I find out it is the latter, you can be sure my future entries will constitute my position on the heated AL East pennant race. But for now, I will try to start serious.

I am not sure how to feel when I look at this website, and see a bunch of young, brilliant, and inspired minds tearing each other to pieces. Part of me is excited, knowing that our political climate is in good hands, with people like this viewing politics as the route to changing the world. Part of me is depressed, because it almost seems like they are taking the elections much more seriously and more maturely than the candidates.

Recently, I have been absolutely dumbfounded by the approach that is being taken to the race, for what is still widely considered the most influential office in the world. Barack Obama eats arugula. John McCain eats cous-cous. On his ranch. He has so many houses he cannot even count. But Obama behaves like Paris Hilton (even if the Obama sex tape was less interesting and received altogether fewer views).

This has rapidly become a game of who is the more pretentious snob, and to me it seems pointless. What do they hope to achieve? So that is a poor way of phrasing it - I know exactly what they hope to achieve. The purpose is to show who is more in touch with the needs of the common man, by showing whose life shares the most dimensions with the common man. The problem for me is that this approach seems fundamentally flawed. Neither of them has much in common with whatever they believe the common man to be. We do not have ranches or book deals, even if some of us may have cous-cous. I do not believe that either candidate will ever be more similar to me than to the other one.

The only reason this does not bother me is because of a subtle distinction I make. I do not want them to try to prove they are like their voters, because they cannot. But this does not mean it would be similarly impossible for them to prove they understand their voters. I believe that even if they are not me, they can still understand me. All they have to do to win my support and respect is to prove that to me, something neither of the candidates is doing right now because, in order to do that, they have to talk about the issues. They have to show that they understand my views and that, even if their seven houses make them safe from an economic crash, they feel a real responsibility to make sure their prerogative is to keep me safe as well.

I do not want a human president. We are talking about the person that controls the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. This individual is responsible for decisions so vast in their importance that I cannot even begin to comprehend them. Every day, they might do something that could change the future (a note to anyone reading: for me, please stop using the phrase "change history." You cannot "change history" unless you work for the government in the novel 1984).

I want a superhuman president. Someone capable of understanding my views, and empathizing with my position so that they can and feel obliged to do what is in my best interest, and what I would try to do were I in charge. But I want them to be able to do it. And also to be able to empathize with the millions of other voters who are not like me, and thus make a decision to the benefit of our nation. So please, Obama and McCain, do not show me you are like me. Show me you are better than me. Show me you can do what I could never do. And if you have to eat arugula to do it, please go ahead. Even Popeye had his spinach.

I would urge all these bright minds (the ones who have stuck with me so far) to go out and keep searching out the issues, but also to convince your friends that this prying into personal lives is not going to get us anywhere. The entire situation, in my mind, recalls Bill Clinton. You have encountered this opinion before: little William should not have been cavorting with presidential aides while in office. When I discussed this with a friend of mine, he said he believed the reason this upset people was because they felt that if Bill was untrustworthy and corrupt in his personal life, he should not be trusted as a suitable president. How could we trust him? But personal trust and political trust are different things; what offended me was not that he lied to his wife - that is his business, and if Machiavelli taught us nothing else (sadly, he taught us too much, but that is another matter) it was that what character our leader has in the political sphere is more important and frequently different to his private character - it was that he tried so hard to hide the truth from the public when we asked for it. Had he come clean, that would have been fine with me. And if you find this view offensive, remember that if asked to choose between a non-smoking, light drinker who is a decorated war hero, and a alcoholic, lazy, offensive politician who had been kicked out of office twice, choose the latter. Otherwise, you might be choosing Adolph Hitler. The latter is, of course, Winston Churchill.

Personally, politics has never interested me that much - political theory I find endlessly fascinating, but I find that the practical application becomes almost insufferably dull. So if you find this theoretical approach boring, I recommend you not read anything else I may choose to write (should I ever again).

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