After Veeps, I’m Left With a Coin Toss

September 1, 2008 in Reading Response
Tags: 2008, amateur, barack, best, biden, bipartisan, chicago, coin, decades, egotist, evenly, genuine, good, joe, john, matched, mccain, obama, plagiarist, presidential, Senate, sugarcoat, tickey, toss, uncommonly

American non-felons of legal voting age have two uncommonly good tickets to choose from come the Tuesday following this November’s first Monday.

I can distinguish our two nominees apart, for sure — I simply have trouble choosing between two equally if not eminently qualified individuals. Since May, I knew that it was going to come down to their vice presidential pick and, if it didn’t help, a coin toss.

Barack Obama talks real good, however vague he is about it; John McCain ain’t no slouch on thinking for himself, however laughably wooden is his public speaking. Both have proven qualities, and for both, their faults have been speculated about time and again.

Both claim bipartisan credentials and, for what it’s worth, each has a richly mixed background. The negative impact of Obama’s necessary dealings in Chicago politics is undermined by his “son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas” line, and that McCain is a war hero and Republican-in-name-only to boot negates the effect of his multiple houses, houses he can only afford, by the way, because of his second wife.

So what if each is an egotist with a bit of temper, tempered as it is for the camera? So what if each side accuses the press of being favorable toward the other? Both genuinely want — seem to want? — to fix all of America’s problems. Both of them would try, if both were allowed to, and both have a shot at succeeding. I’d wonder whose plan has a better shot, but the only Americans who know that live in the year 2012.

Now, we know the picks. Obama has Joe Biden, a loudmouth amateur plagiarist with decades of experience in the Senate, a man who admirably forgets to sugarcoat hard truths — in the tradition of McCain, only less so. McCain has Sarah Palin, an up-and-coming political newbie with record low unfavorability ratings and an impressive, if short, record — in the tradition of Barack Obama, only more so.

Find me a dime. I’ll call it in the air.