Country First? NObama? Is That the Best You've Got?

Today as I left the elementary school after dropping off my 5 year old daughter for school, I was waiting in line to exit the parking lot. All the cars coming down the street I was turning onto were stopping, letting one car out and then going, until it got to a silver Ford Edge with a woman driving. She stopped, blocking the exit to the parking lot, which also blocked people from turning into the parking lot, staring inattentively out her windshield while fluffing her already big, fake blond hair. It's not that she didn't know what the flow of traffic was or that people were waiting or that she was blocking traffic; it was simply that she didn't care. I thought to myself "what a self-absorbed bitch." What does this have to do with politics you ask? Well, I noticed as the woman finally pulled her car out of the way that she had a sticker on her car that said "NObama." It was hard at first to see the "N" as it was red and not easy to make out, while the background of the sticker was white and the rest of the lettering was black. And so of course I immediately thought how Republican it was to be selfish and self-absorbed. Which also led me to think: "NObama"? Is that the best they've got?

I later read an article about John McCain with his big "Country First" signs trying to detach himself from his years in Congress wherein he pushed deregulation. For years he's been an advocate of deregulating big moneymaking industries, helping to line the pockets of the "fat cats" he keeps spouting nonsensically about in television interviews and speeches. Now suddenly he's talking about the "greed" and "power" and rather than talk about the financial fundamentals of the economy that have gone down the toilet, he bypasses the questions by stating that the American worker is the fundamental piece of the economy and they are strong! Sure that sounds good on a soundbite, but it has no substance. It's all meant to sound good in short 2 second clips to entice people who don't pay close enough attention to the rest of the interview and/or speech to understand that there is no substance to it and no plan to help them. He is a GOP shark in populist clothing. "Country First" they say. That sounds good until you realize that the country they are talking about is different than the one you and I live in. It's the country of 13 cars and 8 houses. It's the country where McCain considers deregulation of the healthcare industry. It's the country where the financial industry was deregulated to the point of meltdown by years of GOP Congress. Sure, we all live in the United States of America, but the country isn't the same for McCain as it is for the mother who works two jobs to feed her children and still needs food stamps and still has no health insurance. It's not the same for McCain as it is for the people who have lost their jobs and their house.

Let's get real. The only thing John McCain and Sara Palin stand for is money. And the only thing they put first is greed. So, go ahead, make your NObama bumper stickers and your Country First signs. None of that will save you in November when voters realize the McCain/Palin platform is nothing but smoke and mirrors.