In the end we ended up with a loud mouth, silver foot in his mouth, drunken, AWOL clown from Texas versus an incoherent, silver foot in his mouth, war hero clown from Massachusetts. No matter how you slice it, 2004 was the most sliced and diced piece of political drama I have ever seen. It fit perfectly into the description of racism and bigotry – and guess who won – the party most famous for the parsing of racism and bigotry.

The 1850’s crack is kind of funny because it sets the stage to pound an ancient politician, afraid to change, reluctant to take any chances, who should have retired in 2002. He is too old for the job plain and simple – and the age discussion has to be front and center with any platform. Ask anyone in their late 50’s early 60’s they will tell you (by and large ) that physically and intellectually someone in their mid 40’s can run rings around someone in their early 70’s.

Additionally, running a campaign on “war heroness” and “I am strong on national defense” is a stupid platform to run on. The United States spends 50% of the worlds total for military and defense spending – and the American people let it happen. Does anyone actually think the USA is on the verge of getting their ass kicked on the field of battle? Trust me when I say there aren’t 10 countries combined that could beat us – that’s how powerful we are. Old 1850’s John is going to take a run at fear politics – again!

The people need to wake up – they need to realize that despite all our great defense spending, despite the claim of winning the cold war, despite the “Brigadoon on terror” we have real functional and fundamental problems caused by John McCain’s crowd, Hillary Clintons crowd, George and Daddy Bush’s crowd.

I often wonder what people would think if a war hero like John McCain came out with a platform and said: “The cold war is over, and the Communists won. Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Russia, China, and other communist or former communist nations. In the meantime – the United States of America continues decline economically, intellectually, spiritually, and politically. I was willing to die for this country during the cold war because I felt we were fighting for something. Since the Regan Administration however, our national debt has gone from a few hundred $billion to over 9 $ Trillion. 11 million high quality jobs and climbing have moved out of the country, the educational system is sub-standard, healthcare works for a portion of the population and forgets about the rest, and we have to govern by fear because we are so devoid of new ideas and the courage to change”.

If he said something like that he would win. No one would think he was a tired old man – they would think he showed the same courage and vision which got him through his trials in Vietnam. No one would think he was just another full of shit old white guy.

So if they want to beat Obama – they need to face reality, they need to talk about reality, they need to realize that the American people are very much aware of what is really going on and desperately want change. Otherwise it’ll be a modern day version of what happened in the 1850’s leading to the country being torn in half a few years later.