On the election

I am voting for Barack Obama, when the time comes. My reason: I have concluded that he is the most intelligent person running for the High Office. My evidence: He is in the prime of his life. He is articulate. He received a degree from Harvard. He understands fiscal issues. He believes that he can effect a portion of change, but also acknowledges that he is not the only possible one who could do so. He negatively portrays his opponent only about 1/3 of the time, in his political commercials, according to an NPR report yesterday, which means 2/3 of his commercials are portraying what his qualifications are for the office, and what possible changes he would try and implement if he were elected. He is not a self-proclaimed maverick. He makes decisions on an individual basis, sometimes going with the prevailing thought, and sometimes not doing so. He is a pragmatic idealist.
John McCain is probably a nice man. I don't know him personally, nor do I know Barack Obama personally, whom I'm sure is also probably a nice man. Senator McCain is a lot of what Senator Obama is not, but there are seeming similarities between the two men, at least to me. For one, they both recognize that some restorative course of action is due for the failing financial system of which up until recently, America was at the helm of. Secondly, they both acknowledge the fact that America is not behaving responsibly with regards to fossil fuel consumption. Thirdly, both men want America's place within the collective world's esteem to be restored to it's pre-911 position. There are other general similarities, but three is enough to illustrate my point.
At the heart of the matter, the two candidates want the same basic things.
So how does one person get elected to the Presidency in America? Do they highlight the similarities between themselves and their opponent? yeah...Right! Opponents by definition, try to persuade as many voters to see the dissimilarities between they and their opponent. Especially if the candidate views him/herself as being the underdog of the contest. Obama spends about 33% of his ads attacking McCain. McCain spends almost 100% of his ads attacking Obama. This is the first sign of the disparity in intelligence level of the two men. McCain could behave as the bigger man, but he has chosen not to. If Barack Obama were the nefarious person McCain ads want to show him as, then in this media-driven world, by now, someone unaffiliated eith the McCain campaign, would have uncovered and exploited his (Obama's) deviousness. McCain has no need to bring anything negative about Obama to the attention of the voting population, that's what CNN, MsNBC, and The New York Times are for. Obama recognizes this, which is why he has spent relatively little time highlighting his opponents deficiencies, instead postulating his own assets.

Reason one how Obama is smarter than McCain: Obama doesn't waste time on people who don't matter, because he realizes he is the only one he can control.

I decided to vote for Barack Obama the first momentI heard him speak, during the early days of the democratic Primary, and I have never faltered in my support. This is because, he spoke well. He does not stumble over his words, he does not say "Um" or "Uh" a great deal, and he is deliberate in his pronunciation. What do any of those points matter, when it comes to choosing a president-elect? The president is a figure head, albeit one with some degree of official sway, but a figure head nonetheless. As such, the president is thought of as an image, in the minds of the world's population. If we elected a person with poor speaking skills, such as George W. Bush, the esteem of the country is automatically lessened, and lest we forget, both McCain and Obama want to reraise the level of the world's esteem for us, so please don't fall into the trap of thinking that America can "go it alone" without the rest of the world. If we lived in a different world system, perhaps that would be possible, but we exist in a world of our own making. Our credit-based system which has assimilated a large portion of the world, requires that we Americans either restore our credibility, or allow it to evaporate entirely, and rebuild from scratch either a carbon copy system of credit/loan/investment or a new system based on something else (production/saving). Obama is a much more polished public speaker than McCain is. He is more comfortable speaking in general. McCain strikes as someone who wants to seem like he wants to be there talking to you, but really he desperately wants to go somewhere else. Obsession is a sign of disorder, mostly, and McCain is entirely obsessed with using the phrase " My Friends" when he speaks publicly. Clarity of articulation results from years of practiced thought, introspection, and conclusion-drawing. McCain simply doesn't sound like a thinker, he sounds like a guy who's gonna shoot from the hip, go with his gut, someone who might listen to what those around him are saying, but might for no comprehendable reason go exactly against their recommendations. Bush lasted 8 years doing so, but he has dragged our country into the doldrums as a result.

Reason Number two how Obama is more intelligent than McCain: He is vastly more articulate.

Quickly I'll touch on how the choices we make reveal a great deal about us. Sarah Palin is clearly unqualified for the office for which she has been asked to run. And make no mistake, she was asked to run for the VP office. It was not her intention, six months ago, to eventually BE the republican choice for vice president, she was chosen by the McCain campaign. She has done nothing to illustrate her qualifications for the office of VP, moreso than any of us might have been able to do, which is why she is so fond of the phrase "Joe Six-Pack" in her speeches. She knows that she is a Joe Six-Pack and if she has any chance of getting elected she'll have to convince Joe Six-Pack that Joe-Six-Pack wants another one of him/herself running Joe-Six-Pack's home country. She also knows deep down that Joe Six-Pack does not want Another Joe-Six-Pack in charge of everything,and she has to convince him otherwise, even thought she probably wouldn't havevoted for a joe six-pack for VP in the past, but who knows. Deep down she knows, most americans want someone to do their thinking for them, presumably someone can do so well. Palin has spent the last 5 weeks or so, trying desperately to suppress the revulsion most people have to the idea of their stupid-ass neighbor being the Vice President. I say suppress because that's exactly what she is doing by showing up to rallies in states her own party has abandoned. She is Amwaying her way to the white house, Go Diamond!!! Revving up a crowd with worn out cliches about how Mavericky she and McCain are, is no substitute for real-life intelligence and experience. As a voter, I am supremely uncomfortable with a candidate needing to point out "all" the executive experience their running mate has. I don't want my electoral choice to ever even be in the same conversation with executive experience. There should be no question, no conversation to be had, in such a regard. Executive experience when in regards to someone running for National High office should be a subject unneccessary to bring up, it should be a given that someone running for the office they are running for, should have unquestionable experience. I have lied on applications for jobs, I have worded things in such ways as to play myself up to being more than I really am, but a grocery store clerk is one thing, the vice presidency is so much more. McCain's choice of Palin as his running mate reeks of transparency, at least I hope it does. The way I see it, he chose her for one of only a couple of reasons. Initially I thought he chose her for her charisma, which is something he has little of. She certainly makes up for his lack of it. Second though, he could have actually thought she was the absolute best option out there for his Vice President. Either choice illustrates his intelligence rung. On the one hand, he is stupid for believing that the best course of action is to pick a person who will help him get elected as president, because, insincerity always wreaks it's true destruction on whomever wallows in it. Bush patronized the entire country into believing he was right about everything, and he is currently regarded by approval ratings as one of the worst presidents this country has ever elected, not once but twice. His father succumbed to siren song of insincerity as well, also being regarded as one of the poorest choices for president toward the end of his one and only term in office. McCain may really believe the country will approve of him so much that they will fall for his parlour trick of Palin the charisma magician, and elect the two of them to office. He may really believe the country will continue to approve of him as its elected leader and her as second in command well into his term of office, regardless of whether she stays out of the way or is as hands on as she seems to be implying she will be, and regardless of whether her ineptitude will manifest itself in nationally destructive ways. If he does actually believe these two things, then this country will have as one of it's choices for president, the fourth stooge.
On the other hand, he could believe she really is the most qualified of the potential pool of vice presidential prospects. If this is the case, then I am frightened that so many people in this country actually want to vot e for McCain because of Palin being on the ticket. His intelligence level is clearly betrayed by his choice of running mate.
Obama has chosen someone whose qualifications for the office of Vice President has never even been brought up. That is as it should be. Now, if anyone wants to question Biden's abilities, that's fine, he will be able to answer them, and the questioner will be doing so as a response to the unending line of questioning that Palin has been undergoing since her appointment. But, Biden has a clear pedigree, whilst Palin simply does not. It is this lack of superficial experience that ensures (and rightfully so) that Palin will be unscrupulously examined for the next month. I'm sure Biden will not.. How is this fair? Palin has not spent her life notching her belt of experience year after year, she is trying to manufacture surface-confidence in a very short time.

Reason number three how Obama is more intelligent than McCain: He wisely chose his running mate.

McCain and Palin are incessant about their maverickness. They are both going to shake up washington. Thelast time we elected a president who was an outsider, we elcted George W. Bush in 2000. He "won" over the washington insider Al Gore. He was the Maverick. He shot from the hip, he quickly became a wartime president, and he loved that. He portrayed himself as the Cowboy, downhome, texas good old boy, that was on your side, and was going to come to washington and change the clinton legacy to be more moral and responsible. Now we have the end of another morally questionable two-term presidency whose washington insiderness has been celebrated by everyone even remotely associated with this administration. And we have a candidate who is espousing his outsiderness, his tendency towards bucking the system, going against the flow, Blah, blah, blah. And we have his running mate who is most decidedly outside of washington, and is also touting her independently political wares. Being a maverick backfired on the country in 2000 and 2004, what possible reason could anyone have for thinking it will not do the same this time around. Going against the flow for the sake of going against the flow is not smart. Anyone who thinks it is is simply short-sighted. Senators, representatives, judges, lawyers, cabinet members are all in the places ther are because we as a voting population trusted them to be our elected officials. For us to wantonly abandon our own opinions about these people (as those who think a maverick president is a good thing would do), is to ridicule ourselves to the rest of the world. It is saying "We are the most fair and democratic society in the world. Look to us to model yourselves after. But don't mind our fickleness, when it comes to electing a president, we don't really trust those we elected to be of true help. We would rather have someone who thumbs his nose at our collective choices, and goes his own way."
reason number four how Barack Obama is mor intelligent than McCain: He is not a Maverick.

This blog post has gone on long enough. I hope my point is clear enough: Intelligence is required by the office of the presidency. Let us all strive to elect the person who has the most of it, and then let us all trust that the person we elect will utilize it to the benefit of our failing country.