Requisite politics post

At the time of this writing, I don't know who's going to win this election. Obama seems pretty likely to win, and that makes me happy, because if I ever had to say the words "President Palin", I'd probably have to kill myself first. McCain seems not so bad, and as politicians go he's definitely one of the better ones, but Palin just worries me.

But, that's not what I'm planning to talk about today. My impetus for writing this post is this. Somehow, I've ended up on the spam lists of both major parties, so I've been reading both sides of what the party faithful are hearing. (I'm kind of like a double agent, I guess?) And let me tell you, there's a huge difference between Democratic and Republican political spam; it's like night and day.

Democratic political spam is pretty straightforward - begging for money and volunteers. The overall mood is pretty upbeat, though, which makes sense, given the whole "yes we can" motif the Obama camp has going. There are definitely some smear emails, but not as many as you'd expect. I'd estimate that less than a third of the emails I get are even about the other guy.

Republican political spam, on the other hand, is just scary. This isn't just me being a narrowminded liberal blogger, either. It seems like the Republican party has decided that the best way to get out the vote is to make the party faithful absolutely terrified of the prospect of an Obama presidency. The emails are full of phrases like "crushing tax hike" or "defeat in the middle east" or "unstoppable liberal majority" or "the Apocalypse". That last one wasn't actually in any emails, but honestly, it wouldn't have shocked me to see it, such has been the overall tone.

If there's one thing I am sincerely hoping for out of this election, it's that Obama's (predicted) victory sends a message to the GOP: We're not as scared as you think you are, and we can't be chased around that easily by bogeymen.