An Outsider's Perspective

As an expat living abroad I feel like I get a perspective on the forthcoming election in November that not many Americans do. There are a thousand ways to breakdown this election, but the most simplistic point of view is an X in one of two columns. If you want your vote to count it will go into the column of either Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin.

Despite the candidates best efforts most of the population and even the voting population will cast a ballot without ever going to see the candidate speak in person, and even fewer get to ask a question never mind a series of questions. So this election boils down to rhetoric and public speaking. This is where my perspective comes in because I don't hear all the spin doctors and don't get annoying photo calls offering to help. All I see is the candidates and listen to their words.

From having listened to both candidates over the past few months several thinks have become abundantly clear. Both sides offer the public what they think the general population wants to hear. Despite saying they are going to get specific both candidates will make one sentence comments about a range of topics and call this specific. I don't blame them for this, and I THANK them for it. I don't care how good of a public speaker Obama is, if he went into specifics details and footnotes of his health plan he would be more boring than McCain to listen too.

So the words they say are very similar, so to me it comes down to speech delivery style. This is one of the largest contrasts between the candidates, and how they try to influence the voters. First you have Obama who speaks like a Monet painting. His broad stroke sweeping comments don't make too much sense if you listen to them one at a time, and if one were to stand too close all that can be seen are the streaks of colors that have no connection. If one steps back and looks at the entire speech the picture comes into focus, is quite elegant but is fuzzy at best. This shows Obama to be thoughtful and to think through problems, let's just hope he doesn't take too long to make a decision.

McCain, in stark contrast speaks like a connect-the-dots drawing. He made a series of short bullet points on a page, then makes comments to try to give the listener the ability to fill in the rest of the drawing. These short comments are sometimes funny and clever which all plays well in the news and to the beer-drinkin'-backyard-BBQin' crowd that most Americans like to think they are. The comments are simple and the delivery is generic enough allow each person to fill in the line drawing how they prefer to view the situation. It may demonstrate the level of sophistication in McCain's thought process.

So there it is! My 22 cents worth up from 2 cents due to inflation. I tried to be impartial in writing this, and I hope my detached location can help the reader to make their own decision about what kind of a person they want their next president to be.

The Beavers in Beaver Staium

OK, so the beavs got off to a bad start this past Thursday. I'm thrilled to be taking a long weekend and going to Beaver Stadium in Happy Vally on the Penn State Campus. I am going with Dave (with whom I traveled South America) and some of his fellow Penn State Alums. It should be great to go see Joe Paterno in his senile 82 year old self and watch 107,000 fans sit silently as the Beavers gain some redemption.

Last I heard this is going to be the ESPN game of the week, so keep your eyes open for me. I'll be the only one in orange and black (and probably beer) that will be cheering and geering when the final gun goes off.