This morning, while in traffic, mindlessly looking at my iPhone, I checked out the Drudge Report, and found this story, about a gentleman with a much scarier display. This fella thinks its funny to have McCain chasing Obama in a KKK outfit. Now, I won’t go as far as to say I’m offended, but that is certainly asking for some trouble on mischief night. The other thing is I think I’m too thick to understand what statement he is really trying to make. Decide for yourself

]]> http://aavrmag.com/2008/10/15/offensive-halloween-display/feed/ 0 http://aavrmag.com/2008/02/26/politics-circus-but-you-already-knew-that/ http://aavrmag.com/2008/02/26/politics-circus-but-you-already-knew-that/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:54:30 +0000 Keith http://aavrmag.com/?p=153 Before I delve into this article, I want to make it clear the editorial staff at AAVR, as a policy, avoid partisan political debate in our stories. We feel that overly partisan content can be flame-inducing, and this should be a forum for interesting points of view, and not political peeing-matches. This article takes a light look at some of the absurdity in this year’s political race.

I am mainly inspired to write this based on what I saw the other day on CNN. I was laying in bed, with a box of tissues next to me (I have a cold), and nearly soiled myself when I saw that Ralph Nader is going to run for President again. Yes, that’s right, Ralph Nader. In the 2000 election, he did pull in over 3 million votes, the largest ever for the Green Party, and the largest in 75 years for a progressive independent candidate. The majority of the popular vote went to Al Gore, while the electoral college elected G.W. Bush. Some claim the Nader’s votes came from Al Gore’s base, causing him to lose. Whether this is true or not is way beyond relevancy now.

In 2004 Nader ran again, as an Independent. Wait a second, he was running with the Green Party in 2000, what happened? Simply put, the Green Party gave Nader the boot. In 2004, he came no where near the million vote mark. So here we are in 2008, less than a year before all go to the polls and Nader peeks his head out again. He isn’t happy with any of the candidates, he says, so he is going to run. First of all, if everyone who wasn’t happy with their choices did that, we would have thousands of people running for office (if they had the money that is). Ok, Ralph, here it is straight from me to you. Give it up. You’ve tried it before and you failed. You were such a disgrace to the Green Party that they kicked you out. That is not easy to do. I mean, who else gets kicked out of the Green Party. It’s not like the party is overcrowded and needs to make room. So take the hint, don’t run for President. You don’t need to be President to make a difference in the world, go do some relief work, join the Peace Corps, build a house with Jimmy Carter, but please, don’t turn what is almost an actual Presidential race into a farce… again.

Now Nader is far from the only person in this race that doesn’t make any sense. Mike Huckabee just seems to be in this for fun now, although his campaign manager would probably disagree with me. After McCain cleaned house on Super Tuesday on the Republican side, Mitt Romney suspended his campaign (suspended, not ended which from I understand means he still holds all of his delegate votes), and Mike Huckabee did better than he thought he would. During his speech that night, he was in shock that he even won a state. A Presidential Candidate in shock about winning. If you’re running for President of the U.S., don’t act surprised when you win something. What happens if he makes it into the White House? "I can’t believe I’m here, this is amazing. Hello? Yes God? Push the red button? With pleasure."

If this didn’t make me laugh at him enough, his weekend appearance on SNL made me just scratch my head. Right there on a COMEDY show, they pointed out how he can not mathematically win the nomination. His response to this on CNN today? Well, he claims that he might not be able to win the nomination based on delegates, but he can prevent McCain from winning based on delegates, which will lead to the moment where they will have to vote at the actual convention. Now, if memory serves me right, the last time we had conventions where they chose the candidate that night, there were riots on the streets.

So Mr. Huckabee, go home, please. You’re causing McCain to waste money campaigning against you. This is money that he could be saving to battle the Democratic monster that is on fire right now. You claim you’re in this to help your party, well it seems to me that you aren’t helping at all.. So please, go home.

This leads me to Mr. McCain. Oh poor McCain. Did someone lose their grandfather? I have a lost old man over here. The plus side to McCain is that he does have the most experience out of all the candidates. If he does get the nomination for his party (which I’m pretty sure he will) I think he needs to pick a really good, and young, running mate. Sure, the older republican base might not have a problem voting for someone their own age, but younger people might. He has already had one illness, who says he won’t have more. With him as Commander-in-Chief, he needs to make sure and pick a good back up, just in case. Up until two weeks ago, his campaign was going well, and then the New York Times reveals a scandal of that you would usually associate with Bill Clinton. Apparently he had an affair with a woman. If you’ve seen pictures of this woman, there is no way the two of them were having any kind of affair unless it involved taking care of his rash. And then in this past week he is being accused of campaign finance something or other. I didn’t create these finance laws, I don’t anything about them, but McCain does. In fact, the law that he’s breaking is apparently one that he helped create! McCain, buddy, grandpa, just keeping walking forward. Don’t worry about Huckabee. Just worry about making it to the bathroom on time. And if anyone challenges you to see who can raise their hand faster, don’t worry about beating them, just make sure you have something good in your hand when you do raise. Maybe a sandwich, or a drink.

Now for Clinton and Obama. Yes, I think I can group these two together. For the first time in American history, the Democratic nominee will either be a Black Man (who is half white) or a woman (who is kind of mannish). Well, this is sad. Not sad that it is happening, but sad that it has taken this long for it to happen. It is the year 2008, and this is WAY over due. But I digress. Now, I didn’t catch all of their debate last week, but I did see the very end. First of all they were sitting really close to each other, and at the end they stated how good of friends they were. Isn’t that nice? They are good friends. They are such good friends that Hillary said this to Obama over the weekend. "Shame on you Obama, shame on you." Wait, that doesn’t sound friendly at all. It reminds me of high school really. When you are together, you just talk about how much you enjoy each other, and what great friends you are. Then as soon as you are hanging with your own friends you back-stab that person like no tomorrow. So Hillary, Obama, why can’t we really get along? Stick to your strengths and don’t bash the other like you have been doing. People aren’t blind, they can see when you give them a hug one day, and knife in the back the next. And if you back stab "your friends" how can people trust you enough to vote for you with out thinking "what if he/she back stabs me?"

My straight talk to the democrats: aside from everything that I have already said, Obama, stay positive, it is your strength. People like you because sometimes you sound like as though you have faith like a child. You really believe everything you say, and that is a refreshing thing to hear. And don’t be afraid to put your wife out their more; who cares if in some areas, people are still afraid of a Black Woman that is smarter than them. And Hillary, dude, I mean girl, keep your daughter at home. Bill is a good public speaker, he could shoot someone in front of the cops and convince them that he didn’t do it. But your daughter, she didn’t get the gene. I’ve seen clips of her speaking, and she seems unsure about herself. This isn’t what you need to win. Let her go back and work for hedge fund which you want to put out of business.

Those are my thoughts on the current crop of jokers that are the “Main Eventers” of this presidential race. What are yours? Sound off below, but lets keep it respectful.