There seems to be some positive energy for Obama coming out of the convention. This is a good thing of course, but when I look at the election, I mostly just feel a general state of unease.
If you keep track of elections, the thing you realize is how the 'floor' of the debate has changed. Mitt Romney is a simply abysmal candidate. He's made mistakes, and he is a man who made an insane amount of money on Wall Street in a time period where that's really unfortunate.
Meanwhile, Akin made the terrible mistake of actually expressing what he really thinks about women after an unprecedented landslide of legislation designed to prevent Women from getting access to their legally protected abortions. Obama's run a fairly disciplined campaign for the most part, the other side looks like keystone cops by comparison.
And as terrible of a candidate as he is, the polls are still pretty close.
Bill Maher once said we were suffering from 'fuckup fatigue,' and I think that's kind of true. After all, torture used to be something that it was just accepted we didn't do. But Republicans ran that one out there, and now whether or not it's acceptable is part of the national dialogue. After it's okay to do that, what is really outrageous?
We can shoot people with robotic drones in countries we aren't at war with. And that's with the supposedly less warlike candidate in office. It's such a non-issue we don't even talk about it. He cracks jokes about sicking drones on boys who try to see his girls.
Now Akin opens his mouth, and Republicans around the country aren't talking about whether abortion should be legal; they've frequently shifted the discussion to talking about whether women who have been raped should be allowed to abort.
They keep going to these ridiculous extremes, and occasionally it costs them an election here and there. But what they talk about is so ridiculous, so extreme, that the most insane things in the future sound relatively tame. There are simply few boundaries left.
Obama is a very professional candidate with some charm, running under good circumstances. Despite the fact that nobody thinks Romney is a particularly good candidate, he's still currently raising more money than Obama, though it's difficult to track in these post Citizens United days.
What do you suppose it will be like in four years, when the next Democratic candidate may not have the charm that Obama does, and the billionaires find someone they actually like?
I don't like where this is going.