Ok, it’s “Super Tuesday”, so maybe I should start paying attention to the political campaigns.
It’s not like I’ve completely ignored the horse race to pick the presidential nominee for each party over the past year, but it’s very hard to focus on the crap that passes for political discourse in most of the media.
The talking heads tend to rattle on about the trivia of whatever gotcha someone has dug up today and rarely discuss the candidates’ actual positions and backgrounds on the issues.
Probably because doing so would require them to research and understand those issues – which takes real work and is far harder than just spouting speculation on the spur of the moment.
Anyway, Virginia is not part of today’s circus but does have a primary next Tuesday. I can’t remember ever voting in a presidential primary but I will in this one.
I will vote for Barack Obama.
In watching the video of various campaign events for all the candidates I see lots of signs calling for “change” of some kind, but Obama seems to be the only candidate left that can generate any kind of significant change.
I don’t want a president who wants to dial the country back to the 90’s. I don’t want someone who’s primary focus is on war and finding new countries to invade.
And I certainly don’t want anyone who thinks the government should be running my life, which seems to be most of the Republican field despite their traditional calls for smaller government that stays out of our lives.
My cynical side says that Obama is just another politician, although one with excellent skills in selling a message.
However, considering how the current administration has used fear and intimidation to screw up the country over the past seven years, I’m willing to buy into a message that offers some hope of moving forward instead of continually rehashing the past.
I can’t claim to understand a lot of politics or know everything that goes on. I feel like I understand education, but it’s a huge, complex topic.
I do understand something else: video games. I know that video games, whether they are recognized as such or not, are a means of expression comparable to movies. I know that the movie industry is self-governing in regards to content, and it works very very well. I know that the video game industry is self-governed in regards to content, and it works well (except that many people assume all video games are like Disney movies and appropriate for children, then blame the industry when they learn otherwise). Based on this and basically unanimous court decisions supporting these ideas, I know that laws limiting the content or sales of video games will be struck down in court. Politicians who support / vote for these laws are either intentionally supporting bad laws (to pander to a certain block of voters), legislating their opinion (which doesn’t jive with the Constitution, basically), or not bothering to research the situation before they legislate it. Since video games are what I know, I have to assume that a politician who takes such a stance in regard to video games will act just as negligent in other ways, and I can’t support them.
So…I suppose I could say I make my political decisions based on video games, and I feel very confident about it.
Already voted for Obama in Virginia, overseas former Va resident… good choice, I think.