Decision Made

I just watched tonight's debate between Obama and McCain and found it affirming of my decision to vote for Bob Barr, which I did today, casting my absentee ballot at Noblesville this afternoon.

Obama's closing statement wrapped it up well for me. He spoke of the need to do something different, because the policies of the past few decades have resulted in an economy teetering on disaster.

Well! Different means increased spending on virtually everything? In what way is that different? It wasn't just  Obama promising more spending on everything being spoken of. McCain was promising more funding also, in every area possible. With what these guys are promising, I absolutely expect similar results.

Libertarian Bob Barr is the only one talking about cuts in spending. Barr is the only one talking about not rewarding bad decisions with borrowed or freshly printed dollars.

Make no mistake- If we are in a crisis, it was made by Republicans and Democrats. Hanging it strictly on today's President is intellectually dishonest. What have the Democrats done with their majorities in the Congress? They may as well be the brothers and sisters of George W Bush, because haven't been acting to cut spending, or to end borrowing or inflating the money supply either.

Obama's right. You aren't going to get any changes by sticking to the policies that got us here. Obama and McCain are mere retreads of all the losing policy that is bringing us to the brink of depression. Change is more than swapping one team for the other. It's breaking clean.

The only way to break clean is to vote for Bob Barr, and any Libertarian candidate you find on your ballots.

Obama's Inroads

I can tell that the Obama campaign is reaching people that the Democratic Party hasn't been reaching. I need look no further than my own neighbors, a firmly Republican stronghold. Look at the returns from my home precinct, Delaware #3, in 2004:

Bush = 65.7%
Kerry = 32.8%
Badnarik = 0.9%

Link to Presidential results for Delaware 3.

Daniels = 66.7%
Kernan = 32.5%
Gividen = 0.8%

Link to Gubernatorial results for Delaware 3.

Notice that the results were almost identical, as relating the presidential and gubernatorial results by each party's candidate. That's going to change.

Now, obviously no votes have been counted yet, but my visual clues are the yard signs. I like observing yard signs off the main drags, because the parties and campaigns fill the right-of-ways with the things. I prefer to look at the residences themselves, where the property owner paid the money to get the sign, and put it out there for the world to see.

I did a count of signs in my neighborhood today, because it seemed like I was seeing a lot more Obama signs than I saw of Kerry back in 2004. Here's the tally:

Obama sign only: 38
McCain sign only: 15
Thompson sign only: ZERO
Daniels sign only: 55
Obama & Thompson signs: ZERO
Daniels & McCain signs: 53
Obama & Daniels signs: 3
Barr signs: zero
Horning signs: zero
Weingarten: 1
Burton signs: 3

What to make of it? Certainly, the Jill Long Thompson campaign is completely moribund. Either nobody is supporting her, or her campaign hasn't gotten signs made or distributed yet. In any case, moribund.

But how about the Obama and Daniels signs together? In Fishers! I have to get some pictures of these.

I think this little survey shows that the Republican base is very satisfied with Mitch Daniels as governor, but I sense a lot of buyer's remorse on John McCain, or plain alienation by McCain. The man has no real ideology to speak of, just this 'maverick' thing, which seems to be on all non-military subjects little more than a panic button that screams, 'DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!'. That doesn't inspire anything but uneasiness, even for regular Republican voters.

If this is going on in a precinct that reliably goes 65% Republican (It also did in the 2006 Secretary of State race, Rokita 65.7%, Pearson 29.2%, Kole 5.1%), I can only imagine how precincts across America that have greater Democratic leanings are going to tilt greatly towards Obama on November 4.

The lack of anything but Obama signs shows that the Democratic organization is still very thin here. Now, that stands to change significantly. As the Obama campaign inspires people to work in his Fishers office and to put up his yard sign, surely it will yield future candidates.

As for the Libertarians, the Barr signs are available. I'll be getting one soon enough, as the Indianapolis area coordinator for the Barr campaign just got them in. I wish I had seen some anyhow.