Unfettered Blather

Subtitle - And Why I’m Barely Talking About It.

In Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land the character Jubal Harshaw comments that politics are only second in importance to breathing. I don’t follow politics as a cheap way to argue in the Internet, as I see that as an exercise in futility, nor do I follow politics so I can use my blog as some kind of one-sided soapbox, or to add my voice to one of the various echo chambers. I follow politics because I believe they matter.

Yet I am kind of “meh” on this election. Part of it is burnout, which a tight and bitter primary can do to you if you bother to follow the silly things. I typically don’t. As a determined independent I don’t feel like I have much say in who the major political parties pick, but even if I did care the primaries typically hit Texas long after a frontrunner has cemented their place in the race. Also, I find it funny to mention using cement to determine a position in a race. Back on subject, this year I did follow the primaries and even bothered to vote in the Democratic primary because I really wanted an Obama versus McCain runoff.

So after Obama was, finally, confirmed it sort of put the whole election into neutral for me. Both candidates seemed to be determined to go through the usual paces. McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin did shake up the race and changed the dynamic of the campaign. Yet even that bold and clever move has only sparked some tertiary interest. Neither candidate has done much to change my mind. There is a lot of rhetoric about how bad each candidate is for the country, which I find interesting in the sense that we have very short memories. I remember not that long ago McCain was a media darling, but now that he’s running against their golden boy he’s the devil.

Aside from the media turnabout on McCain, the introduction of Palin, and Obama being half-black it really is not that interesting of an election. Is it perhaps because I just don’t have any major objections to either candidate. I know who I would prefer to win but I have no real reservations if my preferred pick loses this time. The USA is more resilient to presidential politics than people seem to realize, so this time I’m not that worried, though both candidates have political beliefs that I simply do not agree with.

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