The Dice Are Cast

The political conventions are over and the people who are shooting craps with our lives have been picked. Yee Haw. I'm just soooo excited. I'm really looking forward to non-stop negative ads for the next two months.

The question I would like to ask the candidates is this: What are you going to do for ME?

Several years ago one of the presidential candidates--I don't remember who--asked the question of whether or not we were better off than we were four years ago. My answer to that question is yes and no.

No. I am not better off finanacially than I was four years ago or even eight years ago. I'm paying more for food, more for gas, more for living expenses, more in taxes, and I'm getting sick of it. I also don't think that either one of the candidates is really going to do anything about it that will have any overwhelming impact on me and my family. We had a balanced budget and even a surplus under Bill Clinton and now we don't; but I don't think Barak Obama will be able to balance the budget. Bill Clinton's morals were reprehensible; I don't think John McCain or Obama will be having sex with interns. George Bush helped hold this country together after 9/11; I don't think McCain can bring that cohesion back despite all of his talk about reforming Washington and crossing the aisle.

Yes. I am better off with my family life than I was four years ago. I met and married a wonderful man who is the love of my life. We have a precious three-month-old baby boy. No politician or political party did that for me, even though I've been screwed by Washington on more than one occasion and didn't get kissed.

Both candidates are talking about how the other is out of touch with the middle class. What do these guys really know about the middle class? Both of them are millionaires whose most recent jobs are in the rarified air of the Senate, making a lot more in that job than most of us do down here in the trenches doing the real work that make our country go. If you listened to the acceptance speeches of both candidates you're probably wondering, like me, when they're going to start walking on water. Get real! These guys know nothing about what it's like to worry about how they're going to pay the rent and the electric bill. They don't have to wonder about whether or not their insurance is going to cover that scan you need to find that cancer. They don't have to buy store brands in an effort to make their food budget go farther. They don't have to make the choice of either buying gas for their cars or drugs to manage their chronic conditions. They know nothing about what it's like to live the way the rest of us do.

McCain is portraying himself as a maverick who will stir the pot and change things. How long has he been in the Senate and it's still business as usual? His heart may be in the right place but it's like an ant trying to fight a freight train; the ant's gonna lose. Obama is playing the race card. Why? He's half WHITE for crying out loud! To be perfectly mean, he's an Oreo; black on the outside, white on the inside. I really doubt that he's had to overcome a lot of the social and financial obstacles a lot of African-Americans have had to overcome.

So far the only one I like is Sarah Palin. She said the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick. I like that but one-liners don't outline platforms. I think she's probably the most real and genuine person campaigning but still she's a politician so I automatically distrust her. In my opinion Obama shot himself in the foot by taking Joe Biden as a running mate.

It's going to be interesting. I will probably watch the debates but I doubt I'll see or hear anything new. All of them will manage to tap dance around the questions and answer them without really answering them. All of them will promise real change but none of them will manage to effect it. And I will still be down here in the muck and mire of reality, trying like hell just to make it from one day to another. Let the games begin.