Election Day!

For the first time since I was able to vote, I won't be voting. It's kind of a sad day in a way, even though I can clearly justify it due to New York's heavily Democrat leanings that my 1 vote wouldn't have mattered that much. Still, it seems like a blemish on my "record."

Ultimately the conclusion I've arrived at in the final days is that, for me, either candidate is worthy of the position. I think we will be fine with John McCain, it's the less risky move. I think we'll ultimately be fine with Barack Obama, though being the riskier move. I would have voted for Obama because, well, that's how I perceive him: more risky, but what I perceive as more upside.

And what do I mean by riskier? Well, during my thought process with this whole thing, a few things stood out on Obama as big "ifs" that never quite went away. The lack of experience was the top issue. And having a discussion recently about Obama's associations over the years, I realized that the Republicans were making far too much out of it, but Democrats were downplaying it too much. Somewhere in the middle is the truth. And finally, the idea of having a government entirely controlled by one party is...rather scary. If I'm not mistaken, the first couple of years of the Clinton administration was marked by a one-party control for awhile until Republicans wrested most of the seats back in 1994. I believe I heard, "too much spending," was the main reason Republicans returned to favor then.

Unfortunately for the McCain camp, they didn't approach this last issue nearly enough. This could have been something they could have pushed hard and gotten a lot of the independents on their side. I think most independents would likely be against one party ruling the government for the next couple of years. But this concern only came out in the last few days, almost like an afterthought. Perhaps it wasn't until recently that Republicans discovered this possibility.

McCain also didn't come up with that, "If Obama wanted to run against Bush, he should have run 4 years ago," retort early enough. Obama and crew have battered John McCain on him being a Bush third term, and there wasn't much of a volley on that.

Of course, I'm talking like McCain doesn't have a chance, here. This will probably be a lot closer than the polls will have us think, and he might squeak it out. We'll see...hopefully it won't take weeks to sort it out. We'll basically know tonight or tomorrow I hope. I'm looking at you, Florida.