Campaign experience

This years election was an exciting and interesting to follow. The thing I found the most interesting was the affect of the media on the campaign. Proir to this election I never realized the cost of a presidental campaign. A large part of the presidental camgaign funding goes tv advertisment.
TV advertising is able to reach a large number of people, or a target group of people. I also found it interesting how the adds change during the campaign process. At the beginging they are value laiden and issue orienanted. As it gets closer to election time the adds change to a more negative theme showing weaknesses of the candidates. I also noticed that people in general do not like the negative adds.
Overall I have enjoyed following this election. It has been interesting and I have learned a lot that I previously did not know.

Final Thoughts About the Election

Even though the election has ended, the negativity surrounding Governor Sarah Palin and President-Elect Barack Obama continues to fill the air. I would consider myself on the very conservative side of the political spectrum, but I feel that others who also identify themselves as so have showed many cases of immaturity and ignorance. Even if the candidate that you supported did not win the election, he will still be the president of our country and I think people should be more respectful.

As for Sarah Palin, there are stories and rumors still surfacing about her lack of intelligence and/or inability to lead, but it seems irrelevant now that the electorate is sure that she will not be Vice President. She has been given a lot of harsh criticism, even by members of the McCain camp and I do not believe she is deserving of this treatment. It cannot be fully attributed to her that McCain did not win the election and after all, he is the one that chose her.

My main concern with an Obama presidency is that people's expectations might be too high. I understand that people are unhappy with the Bush presidency and are seeking any kind of change that will change the direction of our country. However, when talking to others they seem to present a VERY BROAD list of expectations for Obama that cover a plethora of very different topics and pertain to DRASTIC changes. On one hand, Obama can use any visible changes, even very small ones, to convince the electorate that change is being made so he might be able to appease the people. On the other hand, I feel that some people do not understand how long and arduous a journey it will be for all the changes that they desire. When asking people what they expect from Obama they rattle of a list of topics from education and the Iraq War to the economy and healthcare. He does have a unified government to work with, but that does not guarantee success, especially as quickly as people would like. I really hope that he does not discount the opinions/feelings of Republicans and move very far to the left when his presidency begins. He has promised to work both sides of the aisle and I hope this is how it turns out. This election was filled with more firsts than any in years past and has been truly historical.

Palin, Still in the News

Even though election day is over and Obama has won, we are still continuing to here about the downfalls of Senator Sarah Palin. She is continually being criticized and blamed for the McCain campaign loss to the Obama Campaign.

Recently in the news, Palin was falsely interviewed by a Canadian comedian immitating that she was the President of France. She was also criticized by not knowing the Africa was even a continent or the fact that she didn't know who was a part of the North American Free Tade Agreement.

This is sad for who was a prospective Vice Presidential Candidate. I am sure many people who supported the McCain campaign weren't too sure how she would actually be if the McCain campaign were to have won the election.

After the Election

The election is over. Barack Obama is the winner and the President of the United States. The next step is for the Americans. Can we pull together as America and support him? I was amazed at some of the comments that I have heard in the past few days on campus. We say that we are past being racist and we do not mind having a black person in power, but if that is true then why am I hearing all the racist comments about Obama. He won honestly. "Looks like the Confederates versus the Union." This was said about the way the U.S. looked after the election was done. "We'll see, I can't wait for him to make his first mistake so I can say told ya so." "The Americans have chosen, but they have chosen wrong." What amazes me is that some of these very people voted for Obama. As Ashlee said, we need to pull together as a nation and support Obama. I hope and pray that for our country we can give Obama the chance to make change and make a difference. He deserves that much from all of the Americans.

Time to Jump

It's time to jump on the bandwagon! Whether you were an Obama supporter, an Independent or a McCain/Palin supporter it is official; Senator Barack Obama is the President Elect. We must all set aside our differences and come together to better our nation. Not only must we do this we must be proactive against the hate comments that are being said by our friends and family. If we do not take a stand our country is going to become divided. As we are going through these hard times, we cannot afford to fight over petty things. So I encourage everyone to stop the negativity and encourage others to support our nation through supporting our next president.

Indiana and Obama

2008 will be remembered historically for many reasons. It is the first year that we would have either had our first African American president, or our first female vice president as well as the first time Indiana has voted for a democrat president since 1964. I believe this is not so much as Indiana has gone blue, but more so because of McCains belief that he already owned Indiana. The visiting statistics were so far in Obama’s favor, that I think it ridiculous that McCain didn’t show up more often. When you know you have a state locked up, at least give it the respect to show up once in awhile. Had the differential in visits not been so great, I feel McCain would have had a better showing, especially in Indianapolis, which he lost by 100K votes. I think this just shows that times are changing. We now have our first African American descent president (I say descent, because he is half African and half Caucasian) and the first election which contained an African American and a female. Personally, I believe that it is a great thing to show some mixture in the candidates. Rather than just having white males, we now have African Americans and females gracing the political candidacy, representing a great change in America. Obama ran a cleaner campaign, is the better speaker and worked to bring forth many more voters with his grass roots campaign. I only hope that he follows through on his promises and leads America in to a direction of dominance not seen in a few years.

Handsome and Even Tanned

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described Barack Obama as "young, handsome and even tanned." Some people were shocked and taken aback by this statement, but it was only meant as a joke. He said this at a news conference after meeting with the Russian president. Apparently, he said Obama has everything needed in order to reach deals.

If it's meant as a joke, then I see no problem with a comment like that. People should lighten up and have a sense of humor. If it was meant to be negative or anything, then I could see people getting upset. The article also said that Berlusconi has said questionable things before like comparing a German lawmaker to a Nazi camp guard and saying that there were too many women in the new Spanish government. I guess it all depends on how serious you take things, and how easily you can be offended. What do you think about it?