I have never watched so much CNN in my life. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve actually watched re-runs of the same program, on CNN. My husbands kids me about it – calls it my favorite channel. I have never read up, or followed politics as much as I follow now, via Salon, The New York Times and The Washington Post. The times are such, it’s an exciting election, and amazingly, for the very first time in American history, we might actually elect an African-American President come Tuesday.

What is truly amazing about this election is the candidate himself – note that I do not say the candidates, although I did think that both were great men when this race began. Obama has out-distanced McCain by far. Through this long-drawn campaign, he has appeared to be the more temperate, wise candidate of the two. He has treated McCain with far more respect and deference than McCain has treated him. Obama’s stump speeches speak of his plan for the country, whereas McCain’s say little about his plans, and seem to consist primarily of smears against Obama.

While always nasty, recently the McCain campaign seems to be clutching at straws, picking at Obama’s words, and trying to find hidden meanings, which simply aren‘t there. Like the time when McCain dissects Obama’s saying that “his faith in America was vindicated”, he tries to paint that in a negative tone, saying that his (McCain’s) country has nothing to prove to him. Ah well, this is what McCain is now reduced to – linguistically deciphering code in Obama’s language – a sure sign that he can’t find any real issues to talk about.

Or the time, when the McCain team tried to make a big deal of Senator Biden’s words when he said that if Obama were elected, he would face an international crisis which would test his mettle. Now McCain-Palin and Co. try and say that “We don’t want a president who invites testing from the world at a time when our economy is in crisis . . .”. Invites testing ? Are these people living on the same planet as the rest of us voters ? The news for the McCain camp is that ANY President will be tested, sooner or later, and really, he won‘t need to go looking for invitations either; the problems will come to him. Whether it be Obama or McCain who ends up residing at the White House, the job isn’t exactly cushy.

First and foremost there are the pieces of the American economy to pick up, and put back together like a gigantic, jigsaw puzzle which no-one can fully comprehend (Seriously, just contemplating the state of my 401K is enough to send me into deep depression). Then the President would have to deal with the nasty people outside the US, like bin Ladin, and make efforts to get rid of him and his ilk. Do they think Al-Qaeda will disappear into the wood-work or that the middle-east crisis will resolve itself ?

And as far as the question of which candidate is more ready to be tested, to handle challenges – I’d bet on Obama any day. If McCain cannot even control his temper during a Presidential debate, how exactly is he going to approach the problems of the nation ? It boggles the mind that given a candidate like Obama, there are some who would actually want McCain, and horrifyingly, Palin.