Well, it was a dead heat. 1,442,613 vs 1,436,745 (a difference of 5,868 or 0.4%). There was a Missouri Nader vote of 17,769 that arguably made the difference. But Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida pushed the mulatto Hawaiian over the top of the elderly Panamanian by a resounding 0.1% of the national popular vote. It is a much stronger “mandate” than “GW” had in 2000.
But the concession and victory speeches spoke volumes. While the last couple of presidential victory speeches essentially cackled “power is mine!”, our new president elect said, “Enough”. It is time to work together. All of us. Obama supporters cheered, and McCain boosters booed and visibly took the Lord’s name in vain.
It was an interesting evening to break from my television hiatus.
I know of many low-income Republicans. It appears to me that the main reason they supported McCain was that they believed the "virtual terrorism" perpetrated by the Fox news and the RNC. By virtual terrorism, I mena that they used fear to effect a political agenda, but fear was based totally on fiction.
A few week ago, a coworker of mine, a guy from a diferent department, asked me who I was for in the the Presidential election. I had just started heating my lunch in the breakroom microwave, so he had a captive audence. I don't know the guy's name, but he reminds me a bit of Archie Bunker, so I'll call him Archie. The conversation went like this:
Archie: Who are you for for president?
Me: Well, I'm sort of favoring Obama.
Archie: You're crazy then!
Me: Why do say that?
Archie:When he's sworn in on the Koran you'll find out why!
Me: Why would he be sworn in on the Koran? He's Christian.
Archie: Yeah! Just look at the church he goes to. That preache preaching agains America!
Me: Do you go to church?
Archie: Yeah.
Me: Do you always agree with the preacher at your church?
Archie: If I don't, I'll go to a different church!
Me: Well, that's your choice. A lot of people I know go to church for the fellowship of friends and family, not for the preacher.
Archie: Well Obama's an Arab and is anti-American.
Me: He's not an Arab. He father was from Africa and his mother was from the midwest USA.
Archie: Well he wasn't born in America.
Me: He was born in Hawaii, which was a state at the time, besides, he couldn't qualify for nomination without proof of American birth.
Archie: He is friends with known terrorists! What about Ayres and ACORN.
Me: Obama was on the board of a charity croup along with Ayres, who is now a respected college professor. Several respected Repubilcans are also on that board. As for ACORN, It;s an organization representing several Chicago businesses and charities that tries to help the poorest citizens of Chicago.
Archie:ACORN paided illegal aliens to vote and even registered the same man 70 times.
Me: ACORN paid a group of people to help register voters in the inner city. There were a few accounts of individuals filling out false information on the registration forms, but the registrations were rejected because they were easily spotted.
About this time the microwave buzzer went off, and I took my lunch out.
Me: I'm going to eat lunch now. Good talking with you. (A little bit of Tennessee-style ettiquette)
Archie: Well All I know is that if Obama is elected, we'll be in a war!
So basically it would seem that the lower income Republicans bought into the fear-mongering in the campaign. The RNC played on the racism, the bigotry, and the paranoia of people by encouraging sterotypes of Arabs and Muslims as suicidal terrorist hell-bent on destroying America. They nurtured the seeds of McCarthyism among the elderly, and hinted at a future of government intrusion into our home, taking money from the working class and giving it to those "lazy-good-for-nothing" poor people "who instead of earning a living, just keep having more and more babies so they can draw more welfare", and warning of of dire consequences of falling out of favor with God, and yada yada yada.