As Obama’s cabinet begins to take shape, I can’t help but be disappointed by his early decisions.  After all his talk about change, it would appear that, at least judging by his personnel decisions, we’ve been hoodwinked.  Keeping Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense?  Definitely not change.  Having Clinton insider John Podesta head up his transition team?  Nope.   Having former Clinton senior advisor, Rahm Emanual, as his Chief of Staff?  While I understand why he’d want him, it doesn’t feel like change to me.  Having David Axelrod stay on as a special advisor?  Nope.  Didn’t we learn why having your campaign manager/chief political strategist on as an advisor to the President is such a bad idea with Bush?  You know, with Karl Rove, he of the perpetual election cycle where every decision is calibrated to the polls?  Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General under Clinton, as Attorney General?  Nope.   Former Treasury Secretary under Clinton, Lawrence Summers, as head of the National Economic Council?  Nah.  And, most mind-boggling, the rumored appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State?  Are you kidding me? 

Could it be that, despite his claims to the contrary, Obama is just a plain old politician, wrecked by the very same intellectual integrity challenges that plague all those politicos who preceeded him?

In a somewhat related matter, why aren’t cabinet appointees actually required to have a resume that matches their post?  Despite the woes of Charlie Weis and the Irish, I’m guessing I would be denied the chance to succeed him as head ND football coach on the basis of at least one very good reason – I have no relevant experience.  Meanwhile, Bill Richardson, whose experience in the realms of energy and international relations is certainly impressive, is slotted to become the next Chairman of the SEC despite the fact that he has absolutely zero experience in the realm of corporate finance.  Huh?  Lifetime lawyer and current governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, to head the Department of Homeland Security?  Career politician, Tom Daschle, whose experience in the field of healthcare is confined to serving as a lobbyist for big pharma over the past few years, as Secretary of Health and Human Services?  I just don’t get it.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Sarah Palin inexplicably held a television interview in front of a turkey slaughtering station yesterday.  Exceeding the location’s weirdness was the fact that turkeys were actually having their heads chopped off in the background while she spoke!  And how weird is the guy doing the deed?  Look at that creepy stare he gives while the turkey he’s handling goes through its final convulsions.  Ugh! 

So while Bush prepares for his annual turkey pardon, Palin is waxing nonsensical – Starbucks coffee in hand – while live turkeys are slaughtered in the background.  What the?

Hitch?  Your thoughts?

Dig it.  And Democrats rejoice!

Thanks to a conversation between France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, we now have some insight into the sort of legacy Bush will be leaving the world.  While attempting to dissuade Putin from laying waste to Georgia, Sarkozy tried to guilt the Russian leader into inaction by throwing a little WWBD at him (What Would Bush Do?).

Here is part of their exchange:

“I am going to hang [Georgian leader] Saakashvili by the balls,” Putin replied.

Sarkozy responded: “Hang him?”

“Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein,” Putin said.

Sarkozy replied, using the familiar “tu”: “Yes but do you want to end up like (President) Bush?”

Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah, you have scored a point there.”

Two things here (beyond the obvious implied in my intro).  First, I kinda like this Sarkozy character.  Now I know we’re supposed to dislike most things French, particularly when it comes to politics, but I dig this guy.  Not only does he have a super hot wife (Carla Bruni), but he appears to be a scrappy little dude who likes to mix things up.  Second, do world leaders really talk to each other this way?  For some reason I pictured exchanges of this type to be characterized by dialogue that was more….I don’ know….refined?

Much of the pre-election hype surrounded the potential impact of racist white voters refusing to vote for a black president.  However, in securing his victory to become the next President of the United States, Barack Obama carried 95% of the black vote.  This begs the question – how many black voters only voted for Obama because he was black (or, alternatively, did not vote for McCain because he was white)?  The numbers would suggest a whole heckuva lot.  I’m just saying…. 

If Christopher Hitchens were sitting next to me as I wrote this, he would remind everyone that Obama’s mother was white.

Lost in the euphoria of Obama’s victory on Tuesday were many other interesting developments across the political spectrum that didn’t receive quite as much attention.  Below are three examples that I found interesting.

Aaron Schock, Republican member of the Illinois House of Representatives, defeated Democrat Colleen Callahan to become the youngest member of Congress at the tender age of 27.  From Peoria, the Bradely University graduate has been active in politics since he was 19.  I checked his website and could find no description of his positions on the issues, but he did have a few videos that confirmed my initial suspicion that he may be a pud.  I’m looking into whether there is any truth to the rumor that he used the following image as his campaign logo:

In other news, Proposition 8 (an amendment to the California constitution that would ban same-sex marriage) was unfortunately passed.  This, of course, received a fair amount of press.  What didn’t receive as much press was the defeat of Proposition R in San Francisco, which would’ve renamed a local sewage plant after George W. Bush (ha!).  Staying in the city by the bay, we also saw the defeat of Proposition K, which would’ve decriminalized prostitution.  Aw shucks!  City voters also defeated a measure that would’ve required the city to receive all of its energy needs from renewable resources by 2040.  Maybe SF ain’t so liberal after all?   

Finally, I was heartened to see that Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole lost her re-election bid in North Carolina to Kay Hagan.  The highlight of their heated race was the running of an ad where Dole accused Hagan of being “godless” (see ad below).  How despicable of Dole to run such an ad.  And how sad that Hagan felt compelled to respond by recording a video of her own where she lamely asserted that she does, in fact, believe in god – as if that matters at all!  I eagerly await the day when our political discourse is no longer dumbed down to this shameful of a degree. 

Now that, my friends, was an old-fashioned ass whuppin’.  Thanks to a total smackdown at the polls, Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States.  There is no question that our country is desperate for a new, fresh start.  Our chance at a mulligan can now be seized.  Eight years of ineptitude will fast become a distant memory once we turn the page when Obama assumes office in January. 

Obama is the right man for this historical moment.  And I couldn’t be prouder of my fellow countrymen. 

Now, let us celebrate.  Just as they are in New York City….

and Philadelphia…

and Greece…

and Kenya…

and Indonesia…

and Israel…  

and Australia…

and Japan…

(h/t Huffington Post for the photos)

Let the healing begin.

Before I explain my reasons for endorsing Barack Obama for president, let me first offer a highly relevant caveat: I have no horse in this race (Lizzi is smirking at my 100th utterance of the phrase).  As someone unconvinced by either candidate, I will not be voting during the 2008 election cycle.  Now I know that some people are offended by this.  They consider such a move intellectually lazy and, perhaps, downright unpatriotic.  To that I say the following:  In America, voting is a right, not an obligation.  I have the right to burn the American flag in protest, but I choose not to exercise that right.  I have the right to bear arms, but I choose not to exercise that right either.  And I have the right to vote, but I would rather withhold that vote than be forced to – yet again – choose the lesser of two evils.

You see, I’m tired of the duopoly that exists in American politics.  Despite the amateur attempts of those in the Green, Constitution, Independent or Libertarian parties, we really only have two choices from which to choose – Democrat or Republican.  Well, what happens when neither party captures those principles with which you identify most?  What if, as is my case, you believe in a woman’s right to choose but you also believe in the virtues of small government?  What if you believe in the right to bear arms but you also believe that homosexual couples should be allowed to marry?  Unfortunately, our political system sets both pairs of options presented above as mutually exclusive.  And that, my friends, is simply not good enough for me.

Besides, the reality is that Obama will easily win Illinois, so the fact that I will not be voting is irrelevant in the truest sense of the word.  Thanks to that wonderful political babysitter we have called the Electoral College, Obama gets his Illinois share of votes no matter if he wins the state by one vote or one million.  My guess is the result is much closer to the latter than the former.  And to those of you who say I forfeit my right to opine on the state of America and its politics following the election given my choice to abstain during the election, I say bullshit.  I pay more than my fair share in taxes (more on that later), which well affords me the right to bloviate whenever I damn well please.

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With a range of +2 to +11, every major poll in the U.S. has Barack Obama winning this week’s presidential election (as measured by percentage of votes cast, which, as Al Gore would remind us, is not always the determinant of who wins).  Polls, however, are notoriously inaccurate and unreliable.  As an example, the ubiquitous John Zogby predicted back in 2004 that John Kerry would beat Bush by a decisive electoral margin of 311-213.  Plus, we’ve got the “hidden racism” issue to contend with during this election.  Specifically, it is said that the polls are likely being skewed by people who feel compelled to say that they would vote for Obama when asked by a pollster but who deep down harbor concerns about his skin color, reluctant as they are to admit it openly.

Meanwhile, over at the world’s largest online betting community, Betfair.com had Bush as a 91% favorite to win before the election in 2004.  It also accurately predicted the outcome for each of the 50 states.  As the stakes are different for pollsters and online bookies, it begs the question of which serves as the better prognosticator.  When it comes down to it, online betting sites are paid to handicap properly, and the margin for error goes from being a statistical concept (for pollsters) to being a purely economic one (for online bookies).  As a recent blogger on the Huffington Post put it:

Polls can be inaccurate. People may say what is politically correct, the questions may be leading, the pollsters may be biased. A pollster can still bill for an inaccurate poll. Bookmakers must make an accurate line or they lose — period.

Thusly, I prefer to consult online betting sites to properly set my expectations.  Indeed, as of today, Betfair.com had Obama’s odds of winning pegged at roughly 90%.  Another site, World Sports Exchange, had an Obama moneyline paying -240 (which means one needs to wager $24 (plus the vig) to win $10).  Put another way, Obama was a 70% favorite to win.  On Intrade.com, a McCain contract is currently trading for 11.2, which translates to an 11.2% probability of paying out (winning contract settles at $100).  That is, Obama has an 88.8% chance of winning.

So it looks like Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.  I’ll write more about why this is a good thing for our country in a later post.  In the meantime, we’ll need to work on learning the Obama Hustle:

Quick plug – Intrade.com is a very fun site where one can gamble on a diverse array of events, helping us to set expectations for myriad scenarios.  For example, the site currently tells us that there is an 87.5% chance the U.S. economy goes into recession next year, Al Franken is 52.9% likley to win in his Minnesota bid for a Senate seat, The Dark Knight has a 35% chance of winning Best Picture, Chicago has a 48% chance to win the 2016 Summer Olympics (Rio de Janeiro is second at 36%), there is an 18% chance that Osama bin Laden is killed or captured before June 2009, there’s a 36% chance that the U.S. and/or Israel conduct an airstrike on Iran before December 2009, and there’s a 6% chance that the average global temperature during 2008 will go down as one of the five warmest years on record.  Fun stuff!