My friend Tim e-mailed today. He expresses both frustration and optimism.
The Viet Cong and the Media have tested McCain; he has been
given no slack. Obama has been embraced by the weather underground and the
media and has been give all the slack he needs. McCain and Palin’s feet have
been held to the fire, while the media pours water on any fires that come close
to Obama, and then claim he can walk on water.
Americans are being called racist for not voting for a black man. Voters who
are not racist know they can vote for anyone based on their politics. By the
way, what would we have been if we didn’t vote for a woman, either Hilary or
Sarah? Oh yeah, we would have been what the media is… chauvinist pigs.
Why will McCain win? Conservatives, liberals, and middle of the road American’s
do not trust the media—and we know who they have chosen. They have an alliance
with no checks and balances. Who wants to watch lovers embrace for four years?
On the other hand, voters can trust a tested seventy year old war hero and
maverick to make independent and wise choices.
As with Lincoln in ’64 and
Roosevelt in ’44, in hard times voters will choose a leader who has been
tested.
Tim is right on every point. Though it is the left that screams
"racist" at every possible opportunity, it is those on the left that
are preoccupied with the race of their candidates. The right is concerned with
whether someone will govern with conservative principles.
The media has ignored or actively covered up anything that could even
remotely be considered negative about Barack Obama; they have magnified out of
all proportion anything that was in the least negative about John McCain. They
have trumpeted Obama's strengths, and hidden McCain's in their archives—never
to be seen again. "Fairness" is their mantra, but it must have some
meaning I'm not familiar with. Whichever way the election goes, there will be a
reckoning with the media. They have so completely abdicated their mandate as
the fourth estate that it cannot stand. Regardless of which side of the aisle
you prefer, if you cannot trust your sources of information you will replace
them. Already the biggest papers in the land have begun to collapse
financially. Their readers have had enough and are moving on.
Will McCain win? I'd like to place my trust in the American people. They
generally have enough wisdom to keep us off of truly dangerous paths. But this
morning in church my pastor, instead of a sermon, gave a screaming, crying rant
about the "religious right," and she exhorted everyone to vote. It
was irrational, and rationality and wisdom go hand in hand. Rationality and
wisdom are, to be sure, not the same thing. Wisdom, it seems to me, is part
intellect, and part heart. Without both you lack wisdom. And a lack of
rationality seems to to be the hallmark of the typical Obama supporter this
year. It is almost a cliché that his supporters can't name anything he's done,
much less something important or good. Yet they are going to vote for him.
Where does that leave us?
The polls are all over the place. In recent history, polls have seldom
favored Republicans—even when they have won—and conservatives can take some
small measure of comfort in that. It seems that the election will be a close
thing. Every vote will count and, if we are lucky, we will have just enough to
eek out a victory. But win or lose, the battle will have just begun, and in
many ways conservatives will find themselves fighting the same battle either
way—a battle for conservative values. It's just a matter of degree. Obama
is a radical leftist, and though for those on the right the choice is an
obvious one, John McCain is very far from being a strong conservative.
Either way, conservatives must fill the role of the loyal opposition.
Today I'm launching my sailboat. It's one of my favorite days of the year. The ice went out on Wednesday, the docks went in on Friday, and the boat goes in today. That's her on the right. 
