I finally listened patiently and attentively to the democrat and republican ABC New Hampshire debates (thanks to the posters at youtube). I also listened to the presidential debate from Univ. of Mississippi on 26 Sept.

From the republican camp, I noticed one talking rationally: Ron Paul (previously libertarian), then some intelligent but misguided folks: Huckabee and Romney; the rest, I believe, have nothing special to offer for a presidential candidature.

From the democrat camp, I noticed that each of all the four of them: Edwards, Obama, Richardson and Clinton, has something special to offer for a presidential candidature.

I won’t argue which qualities make them special because I think any viewer can notice that.
So, in my book, the real TV offer was 4 Democrats to 3 Republicans.

The Republicans chatted about the immigrants, terrorists and healthcare mostly. The democrats focused on healthcare, economy, energy. So I side with the democrats, because these matters are the real terrorists to US.

Finally I watched Obama and McCain poking at each other, and found Obama convincing. However both of them seem to be fundamentally misguided in terms of their attitude towards the wars US is involved currently in (Iraq, Afghanistan). Both of them participated in the rogue state lottery: McCain extracted Iran, Obama extracted Venezuela, maybe because McCain was pushing him to name a rogue state, but still (it looks like no US presidential candidate can get to presidency without promising a war or pointing a finger to the next axis of evil). So both of them are finally disqualified, from my point of view. As an EU citizen, to me it’s not acceptable for any president (or candidate) of any country to talk like this about another country, without hard, convincing data.

Anyway, these so called debates are only a TV circus, no president is required to take important decisions while standing and talking. They only provide a feeling on how much these candidates fit to the TV circus. I imagine a real president sits and reads reports, chats with some experts and makes decisions based on that. It is probably important for the candidates to prove they’re familiar with the country’s problems, but taking seriously the solutions they propose before being fully informed is a mistake.

Then I checked Ralph Nader, this guy is no bulshitter in a suit, he lists the issues he wants to tackle as a president on his website. For anybody I know these issues are the most important, so I’m totally for him; this is the only time I regret I’m not a US citizen because I would have cast my vote on him with not a bit of doubt. He is a real change in a positive direction for US and the rest of the world alike.

The morals: one should always check what’s off the menu.

If you don’t like my conclusion, go doublecheck those sites and ponder.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 7:18 am and is filed under humanist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.