Get political - part c

This year marks my first opportunity to ever vote in a presidential election. International enthusiasm for the event was also running quite high. After growing up in a family where politics were rarely discussed, it felt quite out of place for me to be at a college where politics were of great concern. I had formed quite a poor assumption that since my family wasn't very politically active, Mennonites as a whole were not. I now know that while there certainly are Mennonites who consciously choose not to be involved in the political process, there are plenty of Mennonites who believe that it is their duty to be involved in electing the officials of our country.

I watched portions of the first debate, moderated by Jim Lehrer, with friends. I must say, my friends' witty comments criticizing McCain were much more interesting than the actual content that either candidate covered. While it certainly wasn't perfect and was even annoying at times, I appreciated Lehrer's attempts to have Obama and McCain actually discuss the issues together rather than talk at the audience or TV cameras. At the time of this debate, I wasn't quite sure on what the financial crisis consisted of exactly, so I didn't really understand either one of their fixes. Since then I have learned about the financial crisis and subsequent bailout.

During the second debate, which was the vice presidential debate, my feelings about Sarah Palin were confirmed. While she was good at sounding smooth, I did not feel as it she had a lot of her own ideas to contribute to the conversation. To a certain extent, this is what the vice presidential debate felt like as a whole, each vice presidential candidate regurgitating their candidates' views and opinions. While each vice presidential candidate obviously comes from a quite biased position, I appreciated that both candidates were constantly comparing their party's position to the opposing viewpoint.

The third debate I was able to watch very little of, but the few segments I did see did not portray John McCain very positively. One article that I read following the debate questioned McCain's penchant for the town hall format because of his struggles with following this format during the third debate. This debate was also in the midst of the negativity that the McCain campaign pushed particularly as November drew closer. I did not appreciate the attacks from either side because I felt that they just created further separation along party lines and continued to mask the real issues at hand.

The debates were interesting to watch with friends here because of the partisan feelings of the majority feelings of my friends. I would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall at other debate viewing parties to see what criticisms may have been suggested about Obama. Our country is at an interesting crossroads and I sincerely hope that despite the divides that this election has caused that we can come together behind President-Elect Obama in order to pursue the path that will be best for the country.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/debates/ge/index.html