Sarah Palin has inspired me

Well, if you read my last Haiku, you know how I'm going going to be voting on Tuesday. I realize that there will be a lot of you out there who will be pleased to hear that I'm voting for Obama. There are a few of you who will be disappointed. Still, I've been on the fence for a while now, and something has finally pushed me over the edge to vote for Obama.

Sarah Palin - she's the reason. For the love of all that's good in this world, we can not have this woman a heartbeat away from being the President. The thing is, all of the criticism from the left about why McCain picked her is correct - it was a cynical ploy to win over the Hillary supporters. Of course, every woman with a brain who originally wanted Hillary realized that Palin was a poor substitute. Of course, there are some women out there without brains who are now voting for McCain/Palin, but what can you do? (And for the record, I voted for Obama in the primary because I can't stand Hillary Clinton. However, I think that even if she won the Democratic nomination, I'd still be choosing her as the lesser of two evils. I may think that she's a pandering centrist in liberal clothing, but at least she's not the one thing that Sarah Palin is - an idiot.)

I was concerned when I heard her response to the question about teaching creationism in science classes. I got more concerned when I heard that she believes that dinosaurs lived at the same time as human beings. These feelings grew when she was unable to name a Supreme Court decision other than Roe versus Wade. My fear began to grow to mild terror when she said that we don't need to know the cause of global warming in order to fix it. It went from mild to severe terror when she said that the job of the Vice President was to "be in charge of the Senate". It ramped up a few notches when she was dismissive of fruit fly studies (which can lead to not only preventing infestations but to genetic research that can have practical medical benefits for humanity). Finally, her quote regarding the First Amendment, where she doesn't even seem to understand what it is, has pushed me over the edge.

We can not let this woman be this close to the highest office in the land. All of that alone should be enough, but on top of it you have her politics of division (comments about "real America") and her tactics of fear ("palling around with terrorists") to make her the prime example of everything that a President should not be - divisive and stupid.

She also says "maverick" too much.

Anyway, does Obama represent everything that I want in a President? No, of course not. Is he going to fix all of our problems? Nope. Does he frighten me? Nope. Do I like at least some of the things he says? Yeah. In fact, I like quite a lot of what he says. I like the fact that he's willing to talk to us like we're adults, along with his willingness to give thoughtful, nuanced answers. In other words, I can live with him as our President.

If McCain/Palin wins, I think I just might cry. I'm not even kidding.