First of all, exceptionally well reasoned and stated, Col. Khajawall. But it's sad that many voters on the right would reject it...and reject you because your surname appears "Ay-rub." I find it astonishing that there is absolutely no communal memory in so much of the rural, blue-collar GOP base, and so sense that the GOP promises have been nothing but disaster for these folks.

Despite the fact that the last president they wanted to "have a beer with" pulled many of their sons and daughters into an illegal, incompetently planned military conflict that has bankrupted the nation and left thousands of veterans shockingly without care, shipped their jobs overseas, left many of them with no healthcare, assaulted their civil rights and by many estimates made them LESS safe from the terrorists they fear so greatly, they still line up and cheer for more of the same. They are like a battered wife who, after returning from the ICU with her jaw reset, her broken arm in a cast and her black eyes just beginning to heal, forgives her husband because he shows up at the door with flowers and a six pack.

I'm a journalist, and I've interviewed people who were colored by startling cognitive dissonance: cult members, political figures, conspiracy theorists, Mafia informants, former Black Panthers. In all cases, I've found that the need to hold onto bias or to suppress the cognitive dissonance that comes with questioning that bias is far stronger than any impulse to see the truth about one's past actions or choices. That's the only explanation I can think of for people who choose to wipe their minds clean of the past 8 years and offer themselves up enthusiastically to a new battering husband in the form of McCain/Palin.

Amen. This debacle has been built on the back of borrowing and more borrowing, and we're only going to pull out of it when we quit glamorizing investment bankers and empty suits and start talking up the benefits of small business, savings and smart investment. In other words, it's going to take 10 years and doing the things that will re-invigorate the middle class:

a) Invest in education, especially science and technology.

b) Quit handing out tax cuts and subsidies to huge corporations so that small businesses, which provide 70% of the jobs in this country, can compete and thrive and new ones can start.

c) Work with NGOs and municipalities to revive dying regions in the Upper Midwest as centers of tech, creativity, green business and/or boutique manufacturing.

d) Stop propping up the real estate market and tighten credit requirements so that the people who buy homes can really afford them, which will discourage rampant speculation, keep prices appreciating at a realistic pace, and over the long term allow more people to own homes they can actually keep.

e) Crack down on predatory credit card companies that imprison middle class families in long term debt.

f) Enact universal healthcare so families can't be driven to bankruptcy by one medical emergency.

That's for starters, but it's enough. The trouble is, that takes vision and commitment, and we want quick fixes. Let's hope that the last 8 years of Bush and the economic tsunami that's only beginning to roll over us will teach us some of the values that our parents learned in WWII but we have forgotten: patience, prudence, simplicity, and hard work.

I hadn't seen that yet. McCain actually said the fundamentals of this economy are STRONG? You've got to be KIDDING me. Is he really that clueless about the economy? He may have just handed Obama the election with that one statement.

Even Joe and Jane Sixpack are going to notice when their 401(k) dives for the center of the earth thanks to that "fundamentally strong" economy that McLame is so proud of.

I think McLame may have handed Obama the election with that statement. How about an ad campaign where the list of economic woes that Andrew lists at the beginning of this piece scrolls on one side while footage of McLame saying things like "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," and "I've never been that good on the economic issues" runs on the other side. Then the ad finishes with something like. "What America is John McCain living in? Can we afford to have him as president of this America?"

Hope you enjoyed your Palin bounce, John. It's over.

This is yet another reason anyone who wants to see Obama in the White House needs to go to People for the American Way and sign up for Election Protection. You'll be sent to a swing state near you to work to make sure people aren't disenfranchised (i.e., minority voters handed flyers telling them that if they have unpaid parking tickets and show up at the polls they will be arrested). I did it in 2004 in AZ and though Bush won the election, it was still better than sitting around wanting to throw things through the TV.

http://www.mypollingplace.com/ep_mission.php