Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

Thank you.

I'm not sure if the differemt tones of the two campaigns were communicated by news overseas, but the contrast was stark.

Barack Obama's ads were split between positive explanations of his own plans, and negative explanations of McCain's plans. But even the negative ads focused on policies.

McCain's ads were all negative. And they focused on Barack's character: "Obama pals around with terrorists!" "No one knows who he is!" "He wants to steal your money, and change the very fabric of our government!" They reminded me of the worst of nasty Internet trolling -- the heavy use of buzz words chosen solely to get people upset.

Around here, on Tuesday, it was raining heavily all day, and people who went to vote early before work had to stand in line for several hours. I was beginning to have real hope that Obama would win Virginia's electoral votes when I was hearing reports on local radio that everybody standing in line were in a good mood, chatting up their neighbors, and bringing their children along...

I almost titled my post, that night: "The Pro-Fun Trolls Won the election!"

The Republicans really have to have a long self-examination and talk about who they are, and who they want to be in the future. I certainly hope that, as a whole, they'll start moving away from aligning themselves with the Fundamentalist Baptists, which began with Reagan, in the 1980's. Then, maybe, we won't have so many people trying to make state laws out of Biblical laws.

Then, maybe, I can start believing that bipartisan government is possible, and perhaps a good thing.