I already posted President-elect Obama’s speech in Chicago, but I also want to point out Senator McCain’s concession speech. For the first time in a long time, the man respected by many across the political spectrum reappeared to be gracious and eloquent. I’ve heard that in stressful times (such as a presidential campaign), people become more themselves. I hope this isn’t true for McCain and that the man who gave this speech is the real thing.

They’re still counting votes, but it’s official – Barack Obama will lead our country for the next four years.

Normally, the only time I beat the professionals is when I’m watching football and call the play before the play-by-play guy does. But when reading “Following the Script: Obama, McCain and ‘The West Wing’“, I am happily reminded that my obsessive watching of the television show in question was reflected some time ago on this site.

Of course, I’m saying this as I (for the umpteenth time) watch the third season of The West Wing.

With just over a week until Election Day, prominent Republicans seems to be concentrating less on campaigning and more on concocting new lines of loyalty within the GOP.

I don’t get it.  If this election is showing anything, it’s showing that people want to decide between two issues-based visions for our future rather than who can most effectively bury the other person in mud and slime.  An Obama vs. “McCain 2000″ could have been the best campaign in decades.  So why are Republican party members intolerantly closing ranks around Sarah Palin?  She seems to be a blast from the neocon past, not a fresh breath of air.  I may not like Romney, but he’s accomplished (Bain, 2002 Olympics, governor of Massachusetts) and isn’t the apparently reflexive ideologue she is.

On top of this, isn’t party splintering what doomed the Democrats for years?  And weren’t the Republicans basically gloating over this in the mid-nineties?  So why are they condemning themselves to the history repeat?