I received one of those poll phone calls the other night. Usually, I just say "no thanks" and that is that. But I decided to go along with it out of curiosity.
After the first few minutes, I was pretty sure it was a poll being run for the Obama campaign, but I tried to be as forthright and accurate as possible. The problem was that many of the questions were really multiple issue statements that one couldn't answer with a single choice. I tried to make that clear to the person asking the questions and she seemed to be trying to capture the essence of my comments... although I'm not sure she understood colloquialisms such as being "between a rock and a hard place" when trying to choose either Obama or McCain.
At the end, I tried to make it perfectly clear. I simply said that the McCain - Obama choice was like trying to pick either Jimmy Carter or Barry Goldwater... really tough choices. That probably meant nothing to the person asking the questions. So, I tried again by saying that when it came to economics or the environment, my choice of candidates was "none of the above." McCain has, in my opinion, a realistic understanding of foreign affairs [despite the reference to 100 years in Iraq by the pollster] while Obama has the understanding of a basket weaver... apologies to basket weavers everywhere.
I can only take solace in these two thoughts:
- An Obama presidency and a Democrat Congress will be the single greatest disaster to hit the U.S. political arena since Jimmy Carter and spell the end of Nancy & Co.
- A McCain presidency would be for 4 years, after which we could go back to the drawing boards.
..