votes to overcome any GOP legal challenges, or the Bradley effect. I'm sure there will be attempts to line up "urban voters" in lines so long that some will just go home. I'm sure some voting machines will malfunction and some votes will get "lost", but none of it should be enough to change the results. Also Obama and the Dems will have lawyers and people on the ground fighting for every voter they try to disallow and sounding the alarm on unscrupulous behavior.So barring a miracle Obama will be the next President of the USA. I am of two minds on this. Firstly I'm not made of stone. I watched that half hour commercial the other day and I have watched Obama speak on many other occasions as I'm sure all of us have now. The guy gives one hell of a speech and by the end I always find myself wanting to believe, wanting to hope that maybe this guy will do things differently . Maybe there can be meaningful change. Maybe America can go back to being a force of good in the world instead of a constant source for Noam Chomsky to write books about. A new diplomacy that takes into account (sometimes) what other countries think. A turn away from the Neo-Liberal school of trickle down economics. A better trade deal for workers in all NAFTA countries.
Alas my cynical side fears things will probably not change much. Obama will be working from a very weak economic position and may have trouble implementing much of his agenda. This has been mentioned by others. It has also been pointed out that Obama may just be trying to win blue collar Ohio and Pennsylvania votes when he talks about changing NAFTA. He may just be another Liberal like Clinton from the, "you only help poor people by growing the economy" school of economics.
He also, despite all his good intentions, may have no ability to effect change. There are many who believe, and I am sometimes one of them, that the USA is run by a small group of industrialists and the people in the Pentagon. Whomever the people choose to be President really doesn't matter and whatever party he is from doesn't really matter. He is just a figurehead. The late, great comedian Bill Hicks used to do a great bit about politics in America that explains what I'm talking about. It is a little dated now but still holds up remarkably well. I hope Bill Hicks and I are wrong and I hope Obama really can save the world. I also hope they don't shoot him down like everyone else who ever tried to make a difference.
