Below are Moby's thoughts on tomorrow's presidential contest, written less than 24 hours before Election Day 2008. These views do not reflect the views of CGG or Do Something.

Tomorrow is election day (although 27,000,000 people have already voted early, so I guess tomorrow is actually the end of 'election week'). By this point you know where I stand. I heartily support the Obama/Biden ticket, and I strongly believe that Barack 'Steve' Obama and Joe 'Amtrak' Biden will do a great job as President and Vice President of the United States.

We've now had eight years of republican rule (please remember: John McCain voted with president bush over 90% of the time), and the United States is in terrible shape. Our standing internationally is in the toilet (our enthusiastic allies at this point being Guam and Albania). Under bush and McCain and the republicans we've seen our economy fall apart. We've spent a trillion dollars in Iraq in a war that never should've started and that has mainly served to increase Iran’s standing in the middle east. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing oil companies, even as gas and oil prices have been at all time highs and the oil companies have made record profits. We have opposed and cut funding for good science (stem cell research, climate change research, bio-tech, alternative energy development, etc). We have illegally detained and tortured many innocent people. We have given welfare to corporations while cutting funding to schools, the police, and fire departments. The wealthiest 1% in America have seen their incomes soar in the last eight years, while the middle class have actually seen their net worth decline.

Perhaps the last eight years of republican rule are best summed up with the quote: “We Republicans have done a miserable job of managing the affairs of government.”
-former Republican Party chairman Tom Slade.

Barack Obama is a pragmatist, and he and Joe Biden will govern as democratic centrists. John McCain was once a pragmatist, but he has become enslaved to the extreme right of the republican party. In the past John McCain opposed President Bush's tax cuts for wealthy Americans. In the past John McCain opposed increased off-shore drilling. In the past John McCain even called the leaders of the religious right 'agents of intolerance'. To quote the Economist, 'what happened to the real John McCain?'

John McCain has reversed himself and contradicted himself on almost every position he used to hold. He has run a dishonest and vicious campaign. He has campaigned on fear and divisiveness, while doing everything in his power to avoid talking about the issues that actually matter to people. And, most disturbingly, he picked a vice-presidential running mate who is probably the least qualified person to ever run for vice president (when recently asked by AN EIGHT YEAR OLD what the vice president actually did Sarah Palin got the answer wrong...).

Barack Obama has the same or more federal experience as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton did when they were first elected. I urge you to vote, and I urge you to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. We need change. We need steady, responsible leadership. We need leaders who will be respected by our allies overseas. We need leaders who understand the workings of the economy and how to fix it. We need leaders who are in touch with the needs of the middle class. We need leaders who will reform education and health-care. We need leaders who represent people and not
oil companies.

I strongly believe that after eight years of the arrogance and ineptitude of Bush, Cheney, and McCain that we desperately need Barack Obama to be president of the United States.

Thanks,
Moby