In case you haven't noticed, the 2008 presidential election is quickly approaching. In this corner (picture me pointing to my right with a silver microphone hanging from the ceiling) is John McCain, the "original maverick" (does anybody really even know what that means?) who just made the vice presidential choice of his life! He is a 72 year old, prisoner of war / cancer survivor. And in this corner (now of course I am pointing to my left, microphone still in hand) is Barack Obama, the first African American presidential candidate and according to his campaign speech, the only real hope for change. He's a frail man at best but eager to get himself on the same level as his supporters.

So what is a person to do? Well I'll tell you. Basically now all you have to do is watch as these two knuckleheads duke it out in verbally horrific television ads. Frankly I feel as though these elections have gotten quite out of hand. Is it really even about being a person elected by the people, for the people anymore? Or is it more about just winning? Looking at McCain it seems to be about winning. In one swift and completely unforeseen motion McCain gathered women of all ages and without warning got them to join his team without hesitation (I say team because really the way elections work is the person with the most voting team members wins). It was pure strategy and an amazing one at that.

But that appears to be what elections are these days; strategic movements to stun your opponent and to get people to join your team. Is that what they should be? I don't really think so. Shouldn't elections be the candidates voicing whom they are, what they plan to do and how they plan to do it? Of course we'd have to assume here that we live in a fact-and-truth-telling society. We know that isn't accurate because it takes Candidate #2 to point out Candidate #1's misleadings and vice versa.

Perhaps there in lies the problem (pun intended). We've become a society so consumed with winning, how we get to the end is unimportant anymore. We have TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother where the better lier you are, the more likely you are to win. We teach kids with movies like Election that it is better to destroy your opponent than to promote yourself.

So over time we have come to this; campaigns that are run strategically more like a game than like the election for our nation's leader. Even more so we end up with lives that revolve more around winning than actually living. Don't get me wrong, I like to win just as much as the next guy, but frankly I'd rather live honestly and in the moment. It's not about winning, but about making this life better for yourself and others.

So how will you vote come this November? Are you voting to be a winner or are you voting because you actually care to make a difference?

The countdown is on to the election of a new president. Unless you've been sitting around picking your nose for two months straight you should know that the Republican nominee has been clinched by John McCain, however the Democratic nominee is still as up the air as the stratosphere as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama do battle in any state that has yet to have its Primary. This pretty much leave us with three (possibly four since I hear my buddy Ralph Nader has once again entered the race) possible candidates for the presidency of the United States. Here are my thoughts on each of those candidates.

John McCain - I've got to admire the guy. His face is shaped like an upside down light bulb but he could really care less. I'd be pulling some type of mandible liposuction or something like that on myself. Another good thing about McCain is that he already looks really old. This would save him that transition from middle-age to really old that all presidents seem to go thru during their term in office. Just look at Bill Clinton. His hair went from brown in gray in less than 4 years flat! Now he's as white as a ghost!

Hillary Clinton - Speaking of the Clintons, Hillary has a long road ahead of her. She failed to plan ahead during Super Tuesday and wound up out of money like a drunk Las Vegas gambler. She lost her commanding lead in the Primaries due to poor planning. If she's going to run the country like that she better be thinking about firing those sorry planning suckers and picking up some real thinkers. I will give her this, she can turn on the tear factory when she needs to. A good trait to have especially when the country turns on your a**. No one wants to see a male president cry.

Barack Obama - Let me clear the air first, the man is not a Muslim. Take it from me, I've read up on him. Unfortunately for Obama, 20 years of aging during a 4 year office term would cause him to look like a gray-haired skeleton. Or Ghandi. This could pose a problem when reading books about giant red dogs or foxes in socks to small children. Frankly I think that a skeleton president would scare the crap out of other countries so maybe they'd leave us the heck alone.

Ralph Nader - Oh Ralphie. What is there to say about you? You're as persistent as that flippin' raccoon that tries to tear thru the eight layers of trash bags my dad packs the trash in each week. I must admit, electing such a president couldn't really be a bad thing. Unless of course he is really insistent that other countries have WMDs. During his rule, the trees would make a comeback however. Possibly to the point that our president in 2012 would be a tree since trees and vegetation would outnumber humans a whopping 314,159 to 1. What am I saying? They probably already do. Does anyone take a census on trees anyway? Sounds like a job for droopie-eyed Nader.

Only two more days of this pre-election advertising left. In light of this news I decided that I myself would run for a local office. I’ve been working on my TV spot and came up with the following script.

(As read by James Earl Jones of course)
Do you know where your son or daughter is right now? [Other Candidate] doesn’t. He’s too concerned with raising gas prices and fighting the people fighting the war in Iraq. He doesn’t give a flying [BEEP] about your kids. James Barley does. [Other Candidate] also doesn’t give a rat’s [BEEP] about your television, or car, or house. He would rather be giving himself a pay raise so he could buy more televisions, and cars and houses. James Barley cares about that sort of crap. And when [Other Candidate] just stood by and watched as the world came to an end, James didn’t. He wasn’t standing at all. That’s an event that you need to sit down for. So why elect [Other Candidate]? He’s a Mother [BEEP], Son of a [BEEP], [BEEP] [BEEP], [BEEP] Head. And that’s just uncalled for. James is none of that, and he cares about you as is clearly evident by this commercial. So don’t you be a [BEEP] Head too. Vote for James Barley, biatch.

Paid for by people who don’t even know they are giving money for this commercial.

Of course there would be real pictures of me holding babies and forged pictures of Other Candidate smoking cigars, burning flags and kissing "Women of the Street" slowly progressing thru the background. Should blend right in with the rest of the ads out there and is just as informative. I think anyway.

So I met one of the candidates for PA State Senate today. And by meet I mean was introduced to, and shook hands. Not one of those stand-50-feet-away-and-the-guy-indirectly-waves-to-you kind of meet. It's my guess that The Workplace is supporting his candidacy as I was introduced to him during his personal tour of The Workplace. John Eichelberger is the man of conversation here. With only hearing negative ad campaigns on TV from the candidates that I tend to mostly tune out, the only thing I can gather from this fellow is that he would most likely be Republican, since The Workplace would be endorsing him. So in light of that whole thing I decided that I didn't know squat about the upcoming elections so I set out to find some more information on the candidates that would actually be informative, unlike the TV and radio ads.

Enter Project Smart Vote. This site appears to be geared toward a person of just my inquiry. Here you can give your 9 digit zip code and it will give you a list of all the candidates running in your area with tons of information about each one. I'm still not ruling out voting only for the Independents this election year, but maybe this site may help persuade me with a little more insight into who these people actually are and why they feel the need to verbally abuse one another and think that’s cool. It’s my guess that John Kerry is just now discovering you can’t just go around verbally assaulting people. Even if he was just trying to make a joke (Ha, yeah right).