Prediction

By John Bertosa

When this campaign began in earnest at the beginning of the year, I started making mental notes about whether a candidate's actions on a certain day would be the deciding factor on whether they would go on to win or lose the election.

I had a decent-sized list going when I had to throw it all out. That's because the deciding factor ended up being when the stock market started to plummet and the Wall Street bailout was talked about. Because the day before that the polls showed only a 1 percentage point separating Obama and McCain with Obama not getting more than 47 percent of the vote. Also, the Generic Ballot poll for Congress showed Democrats with their smallest lead of the year.

What happenned during those five days in late September were two-fold. One it was the final straw for many voters who were disturbed with the way the country was going and they were turned off to Republicans no matter what.

But the second was how McCain handled it. I'm not saying his suspending campaigning and going to Washington was wrong. It absolutely was the right thing to do. But he didn't follow through. If he would have joined with conservatives in demanding a better plan he would have utterly taken away Obama's accusation that his just policies are just like Bush's. He also would have been the one being pro-active and he also would have endeared himself to working families who didn't like billions of dollars going to corporations.

But he caved into Bush and his Treasury Secretary who had just recently left Wall Street, and the Democratic Senate Majority Leader and the Democratic Speaker of the House.

Maybe, the election will reveal I was wrong about the turning point of the election. Maybe it will be when Obama accidentally revealed his economic goals to a plumber in Ohio. But I don't think so.

Overall, this has really been a boring race, with few lead changes and thus few changes in campaign tactics. However, I have learned some things through the media and my liberal friends.

-- Obama's idea of a running a post-partisan campaign is to break a promise about accepting federal campaing funding and the limitations that come with it, imply that one of his opponents is a pig, and throw reporters off his plane if their papers hadn't endorse him.

-- That liberal politicians shouldn't be held to the higher standard they've set for themselves but conservatives should be criticized.

-- We should never forget that after the Twin Towers were rammed in 2001 Bush kept reading a storybook to kids. And we should never remember that as the stock and credit markets began to plummet, Obama decided to shoot hoops.

-- Joe Biden taught me that unlike how Bush handled the beginning of this financial crisis, President Roosevelt got on TV when the Great Depression first hit and looked the public in the eye and told them the problems they were facing. (I used to think that Hoover was president when the Depression started in the late 1920s and TVs weren't mainstream until the 1960s). Oh, and Biden also taught me that J-O-B-S has three letters and Obama assured me he will campaign in all 57 states.

-- I was already taught by liberals that conservatives are stupid for saying "misunderestimate." or saying there's an "e" in "potato".

-- Now, I also already had learned over the last eight years that if you can find a reason to criticize the actions, or inaction, of a Republican leader then do it but remain silent if you can't find a reason. In this campaign, my liberal friends have taught me that if you can find a reason to praise a Democrat, then do it but if you can't find a reason then... well... criticize a Republican.