So I’ve seen the Palin interviews. I’ve read through FactCheck.org. I watched the presidential and vice-presidential debates. What a wonder! I have never in my life been so informed about a presidential race as I am now and I live abroad. Thank you, Internet!

One thing I can conclude is that Governor Palin is really over her head. I certainly don’t want her to believe that she is going to end up in a make-believe sweltering, underworld, but I hate to break it to her: most women in California and throughout the United States, including my expat self, don’t want her support.

Palin may have broken through many barriers as governor of Alaska. Palin and her neighbors may be able to spy on Putin from their back porches. But those aren’t the answers we’re looking for. What women really need, what Americans need from the next president/vice-president is help. There is a whole country of people who need your help, Mrs. Palin:

• People who can’t afford their homes need your help,
• Seniors and babies who lack essential medical care need your help,
• Those involved in domestic gun violence (i.e., innocent folk, people with too much passion and no healthy emotional outlet, the mentally unstable, etc) they all need your help,
• Ordinary, decent people worried sick that they can’t take care of their partners or children because they live under a government that doesn’t represent them, need your help,
• Teenagers who were careless, women who were raped or a victim of incest, need your help
• USA-born children of il-/legal immigrant parents, need your help
• Veterans, need your help
• the list goes on..

Governor Palin, how can you help these people? How can you positively influence their lives without relying solely on the ‘trickle down’ theory? The simple answer is: You can’t. And you shouldn’t. No one should be asked to compromise their principles. And for you to leave your creature comforts in Alaska and become vice-president of the United States of America, you would have to compromise your morals and beliefs or worse, compromise the freedoms and beliefs of the American people. This simply should not be allowed to happen.

I know Palin is not only charming and effective, she’s also convincing: evoking the populist in every little man needing defence from the powerfully imposing government, corporate, or fire-breathing union. But please let me just say, her sweet and cutesy method of ‘we’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,’ may be infectious, but this does not by any stretch of the facts qualify her for comparison to a Hitler-personality (Hitler used militant fear to obtain obedience and a majority. To say that she is, is quite irresponsible.).

Still her tactics and those regurgitated in the McCain/Palin campaign are certainly not helpful to Americans. Knowing the diverse spectrum of problems Americans are confronted with today, Palin’s world view and her lack of vision of this spectrum, this is what scares the shit out of me. She has yet to show that she has any comprehension beyond the black and white of her upbringing.

And then there is McCain. He is a total loss to me. I don’t know where this great war hero’s mind is any more. For better or for worse, he is what we call, good people. I voted for him absentee in the 2000 primaries before I learned that he dropped himself from the ticket. I thought he was a better choice than Bush back then and still do. But the ideas McCain has and still repeats about the world and America expired in September of 2001.

It is not the time to recall the memoires of Lincoln, FDR, or Kennedy. We are living the brave new world and we need someone at the helm ready to successfully drive new and challenging ideas both home and abroad and that someone fully needs to understand the history from which we all came from, from all political, social, and economic fronts. We need a president and vice-president who aren’t going to say to Americans and the rest of the world, ‘Let me get back to ya’ on that.’ I don’t see that ever coming from Barack Obama or Joe Biden, they to me, are the most presidential and vice-presidental candidates I have seen in the 12 years I have been eligible to vote.

It takes every ounce of my being to see this election objectively before I begin any sort of subjective analysis. But with all the Tina Fey videos, jaw dropping interview clips, back and forth fact stretching it’s hard not to go straight to formulating a half-ass, witty opinion. Even if it does soothe the weary mind to poke at the flaws of any of the candidates, I just don’t know how that helps the country. I’m not talking about being politically correct, I’m talking about cutting the crap and let’s get down to fixing the aftermath of this 8-year cluster f$ck.

What angers me to the core is that Palin and McCain are intellectuals going among the regular joe-six packers and speaking to the people in an anti-intellectual tone. It’s maddening as a former redneck to hear. Palin doesn’t own a seaplane, McCain doesn’t own a jet plane because they are simple folk just trying to keep the “man” out of their lives. They work the man any way it suits them. This isn’t presidential. It’s petty.

I’ll admit I’m finished with this cultural war ping pong. The world is far to complex to live completely in the red or the blue. We won’t solve life’s hardest questions by grabbing each other by the throat. It is time to do the most good with our single vote given the times we live in. Today, should not be about holding out for some fantasy up-rise of a third-party candidate. The USA is grounded in the tradition that America has two well organized and unified parties to help make this country better for the people. And that’s what we should work on first before forming a better party system.

I’m voting absentee and I’m voting for Obama/Biden because they have the vision to help Americans and the energy to restore dignity in the people. I’m not sure if my vote will be counted since already someone tried to fax a bogus ballot in my name without my signature. It will only be a matter of time before someone forges it. That’s why I urge you to vote and hopefully we’ll all be working to give help to Americans who so desperately need it.