The other day I was walking through the mall, doing some shopping for my upcoming trip to Spain, and I noticed a very interesting display in the front of an FYE store. There were three life-size cutouts of people. One was of Miley Ray Cyrus (no big surprise there), but on either side of her was a presidential candidate: on the left, Obama, on the right, McCain. At first I was somewhat shocked, seeing two politicians on the front display of an entertainment store, but that shock soon turned into excitement at the fact that in this country, in which so much of our media is filled with brainless entertainment, people are actually paying attention to politics and are taking an active role in shaping their future. Heck, so many people are excited about the presidential race that news networks are now publicizing their coverage of it as though it were a sporting event! (and everyone knows how much we love our sporting events)

Today as I thought about this newfound interest in the presidential race, I started to become a slight bit more cynical. I watched Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention and was excited by many of the things she said; however, some of the things she said really frustrated me. It's not that she said anything wrong -- I think her speech was top notch, but it reminded me of just how misguided some people are with respect to politics. It reminded me that some people don't really focus on the platforms of their favorite opponent but rather make their selection with very little thought. I speak, in particular, about the fact that Clinton needed to rally her past supporters to join the Obama camp. Based on their political platforms, it should be an easy choice for past Clinton supporters to choose to support Obama but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Clinton and Obama both ran with very similar platforms. It's my belief that this is a major reason for why the democratic primaries dragged on for so long. However, now that the primaries are over, many of the Clinton supporters are unsure of where to turn. It seems to me that many of her followers supported her based solely on the fact that she was a woman, and now that there is no woman in the race, they don't know where to turn. I personally think that this is a tragedy because there were plenty of reasons to vote for here besides the fact that she is a woman, but many of her supporters didn't see them. These supporters didn't focus on her platform but rather idolized her based on this one fact. I fear that the same is true of other candidates in the race. I'm sure that Obama will get many votes just because he is black, and likewise McCain will get many votes just because he is a veteran, or just because he was a POW. I can only hope that before its too late voters will take the time to truly understand the issues at hand, to look at each candidate and his plans, and finally vote for the one which they believe will have the best impact on the country and the issues that are most important to them.