SwoboBLOG First Look: The 2008 Election

It's been a long slog already. Only a couple of months to go. The finalists have been selected. Being a conservative libertarian (not an oxymoron) you can imagine that John McCain was not my first pick. But faced with the choice between John and Barack, there really isn't a choice. J-Mac will likely do less damage to our country than Barry Zed.

I am not a hero-worshipping, celebrity adoring person. I don't go out of my way to see celebs, I do not ask for autographs (except for two occasions when I got them, really, for my son-in-law who is into sports memorabilia - one was Hank Freakin' Aaron), if I do happen to encounter a celeb in the course of my daily life, I may or may not engage them in normal conversation. (Of course I brag about it afterwards.)

But I am not swept up by soaring rhetoric or eloquent speechifying. As a registered cynic, I am insistent that a candidate for office show me actions and not try to bullshit me with words. I have a pretty good radar for authenticity and want my leaders to be authentically authentic.

I am also a believer in low tax, minimal regulation small government that encourages - make that insists on - self reliance. I want a government that will protect us from our enemies. And the first step in protecting us is knowing or at least acknowledging who the enemy is.

J-Mac will probably do a better job at this than B-Zed.

The fun part of this election is the injection of Sarah Palin. Could J-Mac have found a stronger candidate? The knee jerk answer is "probably." But offhand I don't know who it would been. I mean, you never know for sure about a person until they're in a difficult position. You see how the person responds and make a judgement from there. When you don't have the benefit of that kind of evidence, which you don't for either Saracuda or B-Zed, you have to make the call based on values and attitudes.

When you pit B-Zed against J-Mac, the answer is a no-brainer from my perspective. When you pit Saracuda against BiJoe, you are able to see what Biden would probably do in a wide range of situations, although as a legislator, he has never had to make executive decisions. From what I know about these two's attitudes, I gotta go with the chick.

I used the same approach in hiring people. And when all other things were equal, I'd go with attitude. I would hire a person with good humor, rational humility, and a can-do attitude. I understand this is kind of a leap when picking a national leader, but that's what we're left with. When faced with less experience (or the wrong experience) I always opted for attitude.

I may be wrong, but I think Saracuda, if she can put up with the ceaseless, increasingly hostile attacks over the next 10 days, and barring some gotcha (like her verifiable appearance in a porn film made while she was pregnant with Trig), she will continue to win people over to her side and she and J-Mac will win handily. (Sorry to contradict you Bill.)