A Heartbeat Away from Tuesday
'This coming Tuesday as we vote for a new American president and vice president there will be many voters who haven’t read the fine print about John McCain.'
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / October 29, 2008
It seems that some sub-prime mortgage holders who are losing their homes and some American voters unfortunately have a great deal in common. Both groups have been eager to figuratively sign the dotted line for something they may not have carefully thought through. Both have been manipulated and persuaded to do something that ultimately could cause them and the whole country great difficulty.
We all know the sub-prime story by now. Big name mortgage bankers and high rolling financial giants roared along in recent years with very little oversight. Mathematicians created convoluted, complex mortgage “products” few people could understand, and slick agents sold them like cotton candy to unwitting fiscal diabetics. Folks lined up to buy quarter-million dollar homes for nothing down and low monthly payments. Few bothered to read the fine print. Lots of folks who already had huge credit card debt were already primed for the sub-prime sweets. And then one morning everyone woke up from the dream and started screaming, asking how this could have happened.
This coming Tuesday as we vote for a new American president and vice president there will be many voters who haven’t read the fine print about John McCain and his frighteningly unqualified vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin. Barak Obama’s supporters have gathered by the hundreds of thousands across America to hear his positive message and detailed plans for our future and have made an informed and enthusiastic decision to vote for him.
In addition to loyal hard core conservatives, many other Americans are going to vote for the the McCain ticket and just hope for the best. Period. The big mortgage wheeler dealers fudged the truth and promised great things, all with no oversight and no one calling their hand as they peddled their flawed mortgages.
McCain’s “Straight Talk” has not been straight at all. In his campaign’s waning days his vague promises and negative attacks change from campaign stop to campaign stop. Repeated media debunking of his wild claims and negative attacks have not stopped him from shamelessly aspursing them week after week as if they were true. Lots of folks actually believe the endless fantastic, false information spread about Obama. Or they certainly want to believe it, just like folks with no money wanted to believe they could own a huge expensive house with no money down.
One last time, for the good of America, we should seriously consider the points below before casting our votes Tuesday: Seventy-two-year-old Senator McCain has successfully held back from the public a complete look at his medical records that could reveal the current state of his third remission for deadly melanoma cancer. We need to know for sure if he if fit and healthy. Is he hiding something?
This is not buy-one-get-one-free, folks. Political foreclosure on America with Sarah Palin in charge is too grim to even imagine. But a vote for the McCain ticket includes that possibility. Better stop and read not only the fine print but the already glaring large print before voting Republican.
Senator McCain’s record shows that in spite of what he says, he will, in the end, bow to the old guard Republican “base” and will continue Bush’s ruinous fiscal policies.
Sarah Palin, McCain’s chosen Vice Presidential candidate, has cynically refused to produce any of her medical records. This intellectually void, power hungry and dismally uninformed lightweight would become president of the United States should Senator McCain become incapacitated or die.
[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]
The Rag Blog
