Kristin Lanshe's blog

When was the last time we had an election where people all over the country literally ran out into the streets to celebrate?

When was the last time we had an election where masses of college students screamed and celebrated and partied harder than if their favorite sports team has won?

 Even if none of us really know what change means, we can feel it happening through the energy of everyone around us.

Of course, Hollywood backs Obama. They've been doing campaigns, concerts, speeches, and other Youtube fodder for months. Now that the conventions, VP pickings, and debates are over, endorsements are basically all the media can fall back on.But--and I'll bet this is something that hasn't even crossed your mind--who do the comedians want to become President? Sure, comedians are average citizens who want what's best for their country. Many have publicly endorsed Obama. But I wonder if, deep down, some of them might want the president to be for whichever guy they think will give them the most comedic material. Jon Stewart from The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report come to my mind first. Has anyone seen Jon Stewart's material recently? His jokes are almost entirely based around McCain-Palin. And in the eight years of President Bush's reign, there's at least a jab a week at his less-than-presidential actions. And let's not forget the fact that SNL's ratings have skyrocketed with this week's appearance of Sarah Palin. Do Republicans make for better jokes? Will the comedians be able to make fun of Barack Obama? Will they want to?

Democratic Representative John Lewis from Georgia is “deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign”…and yet when John McCain says Barack Obama is a decent person, the Republican candidate gets boos and shouts of “traitor” among other things.

I don’t know what to make of this. At this point in the election, and at this point in our economic crisis, the candidates and the media need to be focusing on the positive. We already know everything there is to know about what’s going wrong with each campaign.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/12/mccain.lewis/index.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_angry_crowds

Amidst a terrifying financial crisis that many of us don't fully understand, there are still elections to look forward to. Elections that more or less have nothing to do with the financial crisis, as realistically the candidates are as clueless as the rest of us. As I compulsively check my Yahoo mail every hour, I only see news related to the economy. This is to be expected, of course, but I still want to hear about the candidates. I pass over ten or fifteen articles focused on the economy and then suddenly I see "Obama" and "McCain" mentioned in the title. Yes, the article is still about the crisis...but now it has a little more zing to it.

But they've got nothing to do with getting us out of it at the moment. All they can do is use the crisis as a talking point...which failed miserably during Friday's debate. We have to remember that we can't rely on our candidates to do everything for us. As of right now, they're only two Senators. But we can't help it when we see their names attached to a story. We love the words "Obama", "McCain", "Palin" and to a lesser extent "Biden". The words are all that matter.