Bad News for GOP

As the election season heats up, politics this week has been getting even more interesting. Firstly, I found an article on Swampland showing the most recent poll of Minnesotans which has Al Franken ahead of Norm Coleman by 9 percent. Officially, the Star Tribune poll has Franken at 43% Coleman at 34% and Dean Barkley at 18%. This is a meaningful poll because for the first time, one of the candidates is leading the other outside the margin of error of the poll. I personally find this poll very interesting because I never thought that Franken would have a chance at winning in Minnesota, but I’m not sure how I feel about the race in general. I have felt that many of Coleman’s attacks on Franken have been unfair and many times false. However, I have my misgivings about Franken representing our state, though I have to say as of now I am favoring him.

I also read Joe Klein’s most recent “Anger vs. Steadiness in the Crisis”, which is all about the different temperaments of McCain and Obama. In Klein’s opinion, part of Obama’s recent surge in the polls has been due to his much calmer approach to everything from the bailout to the debates. In some ways Obama has been forced into this position. It is almost impossible for an angry, black man to be elected President. Accuse me of playing the race card if you want, but with John McCain’s recklessness and risk taking, he would not be in his current position. Klein ends the article with an analogy I have heard in many political articles recently. It seems John McCain’s only hope is to try for yet another Hail Mary pass, similar to his choice of Palin as his VP and to suspend his campaign to work on resolving the economic crisis.