If you really stop and think about it, a lot of what is said in this election makes very little sense. Of course, everyone is so caught up in the election, and so busy saying nonsensical things themselves, that they fail to notice how absurd some of what they are saying is.

So for the benefit of those who have not stopped and thought things through, I am going to point out some of the more nonsensical statements:

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1. McCain is too liberal, so I am going to let the Democrat win

 I know the logic here is that by letting McCain lose, the Republican party will move to the right, and the Republicans will not be blamed for all the damage left-wing policies cause. But, if you think about it, basically they are saying "rewarding liberalism will encourage conservatism" which makes absolutely no sense. If a liberal wins, doesn't that tend to drive all people LEFT, as they seek to emulate a winning position? Also, if liberalism is dangerous, isn't McCain better by being less liberal, or are they saying they want MORE damage inflicted on the US? Well, I have written about this so much, I will leave it at that.

2. Obama is a uniter

The really odd thing is that McCain probably could run successfully as a uniter, as he has frequently crossed party lines many times. However, Obama, a senator with the most liberal record in the senate, has seized the title of "uniter". So the most far left candidate is painted as a united, while his partisans paint a centrist Republican as "far right".

3. Obama is post-racial

The candidate who belongs to a black separatist church, who never tires of painting his white grandmother as racist and who has gone to great lengths to paint a black separatist minister as just "misunderstood" is somehow going to cause America to get over its racial problems.

4. McCain is a conservative

I wrote about this before, here and here, but it bears repeating. there are some who are not content to support McCain just because he is better than Obama or Hillary, they must convince others McCain is "really" a conservative. Unfortunately for them, he really isn't. He has a few conservative views, but he has largely adopted a centrist or even center-left policy on so many subjects that it is just absurd to call him a conservative. I support him as he is better than either alternative, and because he is right on the war, but I am under no illusions. We may be able to push him rightward, especially if he wants to win reelection, but he is not now, and has not recently been, a conservative.

5. Obama is a "different kind" of politician

Obama has done nothing but politics for quite some time. In fact, it is pretty much his sole profession. He joined a militant black church to build "street cred", he says he is uninterested in race, but uses his minions to bring up race so he can capitalize on being black, he has generally behaved as any other politician. Except for a seemingly incomprehensible tendency to make bad tactical moves, there is nothing about Obama which shows him to be anything but another politician. In fact, if you really think about it, Obama's incredible content-free campaign makes him sort of the Platonic ideal of a politician. He is running on slogans alone, without a shred of policy to back it up. He is not different from politicians, he is the ultimate politician. And that is not a compliment.

6. People will vote Democrat since they are tired of Bush

Sadly, even supposedly intelligent people have made this statement. And it makes no sense. First, Bush is not running. Second, no one who was close to the Bush administration was even in the primaries. Whether or not people are tired of Bush, he is going away, and no candidate, in either party, is even closely associated with Bush. It would make as much sense to say that annoyance with Carter is going to defeat Obama. McCain was, if anything, an annoyance to the Bush, it seems unlikely anyone will be able to run against him by arguing about the Bush administration.

7. The war will be a decisive factor

In my experience, the public in general really doesn't think about the war all that much. When it is on the news, they may have some comments, but, in general, the average member of the public thinks about other, everyday matters, much more. There are groups to whom the war matters, but they have already taken sides and are unlikely to shift regardless of whether the war goes well or badly. Democrat doves are Obama supporters, Democrat hawks support Hillary. Republican hawks support McCain and the few Republican doves support either Ron Paul or cross over to Obama. Those groups are not going to shift and the rest of the public is largely indifferent. It would take a huge mishap or a glorious success for the war to play any more than a tiny role in the election. (Of course most pundits fall in one of the four camps I mentioned previously, so perhaps that is why they overestimate the importance of the war.)

Nor is the war as clear cut an issue as some would argue. Hillary has been on both sides of the issue. McCain has been pro-war but has then made some statements critical of our handling of detainees which may gain support among those in the center. And, while Obama has been solidly against war in Iraq (well, sort of), he has also suggested invading our ally Pakistan, so he is not anti-war, just for a completely nonsensical new war. All of which means that even if voters have strong feelings about the war, predicting how they will vote based on those feelings is tricky, at best.

8. Obama is attracting support because he is for change

Except for saying "change" a lot, I see no evidence of this. I have read his campaign documents and listened to him speak, and he still appears to have no solid platform. How can a man with no platform be considered for anything? Only in this election would the man running on empty slogans be considered "sincere", "for change" and "different from other politicians".

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Well, I think that is it for the moment. As new idiocies appear I will be sure to add them to the list. I do regret not including Senator Clinton, but she has been keeping her mouth shut lately after the sniper tale. And she wisely avoided making any "culture of corruption" comments. So, maybe she will give me some material soon. Otehrwise I suppose it will just be a McCain and Obama list for the moment.