Less than a month until election day...

Like many Americans, I am excitedly counting down the days until November 4 - Election Day. I've been less than thrilled with the present administration, so nothing excites me more than the promise of change with the election of a new president.

Especially if that president is Barack Obama.



Confession: I'm more than a little bit liberal. I am a registered Independent voter, but that is really only because I hate the Republican/Democrat dichotomy that comes to light during presidential elections. It's amazing to me that an atlas will call states by their names (Arizona, California, Colorado) but during elections, they go by different names entirely (red, blue, swing). Nonetheless, I've voted Democrat every time (even in 2nd grade when I voted for Bill Clinton, an action I still stand by) even though I've lived in a "red" state my whole life and I come from a very conservative family. I get a lot of grief from a lot of people. But I'm used to it. My point is that I'm extremely passionate about politics, but I won't give in to one of the two major parties - and I consider my vote fair game in the beginning of an election. I don't vote in the primaries (at least I have not yet done so), so I kind of leave those votes up to the die-hard party members... I think in the future if I REALLY liked a candidate who wasn't Independent, I'd change my affiliation before the primaries, but I have yet to feel that way.

In all honesty, I used to like McCain a lot. He was a relatively liberal Republican (I refuse to refer to him as a "Maverick" - SO done hearing that word) and he is the senator of my home state. I went to high school with his daughter and they used to live down the street from me, so I definitely related to him as a proud Phoenician and Arizonan. As far as I was concerned, he would be a cool president.

And then 2008 came along and - HA - my mind has been changed completely. Not only is he no longer relatively liberal, but he's a SUPER-conservative über-Republican just doing what he can to appeal to the masses. Worse: he's far more conservative than he used to be, but he still is trying SO HARD to appeal to the independent swing voters by claiming he's a maverick who votes across party lines - and his biggest mistake as far as I'm concerned: choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate.

No matter how much I dislike John McCain as a presidential candidate, I like Barack Obama 100 times more. My affinity for the Obama/Biden ticket has very little to do with my distaste for the McCain/Palin ticket; they stand for everything I could wish for. They actually give me hope that someday I will LOVE this country I live in, rather than dreamily planning my expat escape route to Holland, Switzerland, France, or Italy every day. However, I find it extremely hard to ignore some of the downright annoying, grating things said and done by McCain and Palin - and I plan on keeping track of some of my favorites in this very blog.

Enjoy.