Campaign Crazies Update

A quick post about two of the most ridiculous presidential campaign characters I can remember.

Sarah Palin’s 150K wardrobe? She did the shopping herself. Sua sponte. And did so without telling the donor what was happening. Fiscal responsibility, huh? Nothing easier than spending other people’s money.

Even better, the supposed champion of pork cutting, open government, and reform, won’t tell us whether or not she voted for convicted felon and pork champion Ted Stevens in the Alaska senate race.

As for the other walking punchline . . .

Now that his fifteen minutes are up, what do you think the answer will be to the first “where are they now?” story about Joe the Plumber? My bet is either in Alaska helping Todd Palin and his Alaska Independence Party buddies secede, or else in federal prison for tax evasion after representing himself at trial and failing to convince the judge that the graduated income tax is a socialist plot to destroy America and therefore unconstitutional.

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I Won’t Be Celebrating Today

Yes, I’m glad Obama won. But he’s still a politician, and though I’m sure he’ll be light years better than his predecessor or the alternatives, he won’t fix all, or most, or even many, of the country’s problems.

The real reason I won’t be celebrating, though, is that while we elected a guy who talks about abstract concepts of hope and change, many people voted in ways that will cause immediate and concrete harm to real people. I’m talking about the ignorant jerks in California, Arizona and Florida who rejected marriage equality and the morons in Arkansas who banned adoption by gay couples. Real people will suffer because of those votes.

And for no reason. There is absolutely no rational basis for denying marital benefits to gay couples. There is no rational basis for refusing to let gay people adopt children. It is ignorance and prejudice. Period. No one who actually know any gay people could support those ridiculous laws.

All of that on a night when we elected our first black president. Unfortunately, as all the California exit polls show, black people are not very good at extending to others the same rights they fought for themselves. As if equality is a limited resource they need to horde to themselves, something others could steal from them, rather than a blessing for all that only increases the more people share it.

Well, piss on them. And the same to anyone else who voted yes on these unjustly discriminatory laws.

Maybe things will change. The polls also show that younger folks strongly support equality. Maybe Obama – who mentioned accepting gays in his speech last night – can help move things in the right direction. At least gay bashing won’t be part of the federal agenda. Still, right now, I’m angry and disappointed. Yes, we elected a black president, but just as in the days of segregation, many Americans are still eager to condemn their fellow humans for the shallowest and most irrational of reasons.