After nearly two months of speculation, it’s official — Al Franken has stolen the election from Norm Coleman in Minnesota.

The amazing thing isn’t that an election can be stolen so blatantly in this day and age, it’s that it can be done after everyone was told it is going to happen. Everyone in their right mind knew that Franken and his state official cronies from the Democratic party were planning on stealing the “recount”, but no one did a damn thing.

Where was Keith Olbermann on this one? You know damn well if the ‘R’ and ‘D’ were reversed on all of the main players in Minnesota, MSNBC and their friends would be all over Minneapolis like it was Wasilla, AK. But this didn’t involve a since defeated VP nominee, it was just an important Senate seat.

And when I say stolen, I don’t mean, “darn, the Democrat won after all,” I mean STOLEN.

For example, from the Wall Street Journal:

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as “duplicate” and segregate the original ballots. But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes.

There are also inequalities in many other aspects of the recount. In two separate counties, recount vote totals differed from election night totals. In the case where less votes appeared in the recount, they went with the election night totals, which was a +46 for Franken. In the case where 133 additional ballots appeared in the recount, the board opted to include all of them, rather than the election night total like they did in the previous case, which resulted in a +37 for Franken.

The Wall Street Journal continued:

The question is how the board can certify a fair and accurate election result given these multiple recount problems. Yet that is precisely what the five members seem prepared to do when they meet today. Some members seem to have concluded that because one of the candidates will challenge the result in any event, why not get on with it and leave it to the courts? Mr. Coleman will certainly have grounds to contest the result in court, but he’ll be at a disadvantage given that courts are understandably reluctant to overrule a certified outcome.

To anyone who has been following this since election day, there is no doubt that not only did Franken do everything in his power to steal this election, but he had help from many friends in high places. This is one of the most obvious attempts at political theft in this generation.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking: what about George W. Bush in 2000? Good question. Well, the difference is that under any recount rules and models, Bush still won that election. At no point did Gore win. Not on election day, not in any recount. When multiple newspapers, including the Miami Herald and New York Times did their own recounts, Bush still won. In fact, his lead kept getting bigger.

In Minnesota, Coleman was declared the winner, and only by using slight-of-hand and political chicanery did Franken “win” the election.

I don’t care what your political affiliation is, you should be outraged. The day that a citizen of the United States sits back and supports this kind of election theft is the day that we have lost our place as the world’s greatest democratic nation. We live in a republic, and in doing so we should be above blatant election theft.

If you’ve ever (falsely) accused George W. Bush of stealing the 2000 election, or subsequently (even more falsely) the 2004 election, you have no right to sit back and watch this happen. What Al Franken and friends are doing in Minnesota is so much worse and obvious that no right-minded American should sit back and allow this to happen.

I’m sorry Minnesota, you are about to be wrongly represented, and your state will be much worse because of it. But I suppose that any state that puts Mark Ritchie in office only has itself to blame for its self-destruction.

Proposition 8 in California was perhaps the most talked about ballot measure in all of the 2008 election. The prop overturned the legality of gay marriage in California, making it once again illegal for same-sex couples to be wed.

I am not an activist, and this topic is not my highest priority (sorry gays), but I do believe firmly in equality for all, and gay marriage is something I strongly support. If civil unions and the like offered complete legal equality to hetero-married couples, then I’d be fine with the “one man-one woman” definition. But it doesn’t. Legally speaking, gay couples are not afforded the same rights as their more “traditional” counterparts. From a legal and equality standpoint, gay marriage should be allowed.

Now this topic has become a religious debate. The religious factions in this country want marriage to be between one man and one woman, and they want homosexuality to be “cured” rather than accepted and made equal. Gay people whose life’s are affected every day by these decisions are being told that they are not equal by people with a moral objection, many of whom have probably never met a gay person, minus all of the closeted ones they see in their church every Sunday (perhaps even the one preaching to them!).

So what do we do when the churches in this country start getting too involved in influencing legislation?  The answer is black and white, but nothing seems to be getting done about it.

You see by copy and pasting, I can point out to you that:

Section 501(c)(3) of US Code Title 26, which governs tax-exempt organizations, reads (emphasis added):

(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.

It can’t be more clear than that. “no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation.” No attempting to influence legislation. Just what do you think telling your church members to donate money from out of state to fight this cause is? It’s attempting to influence legislation, plain and simple. The Mormons are not the only ones who have broken this rule, but they are the ones that I am talking about right now.

The fact is that the Mormons were a huge factor in why Prop 8 passed in California. The LDS church pumped in $20 million to help defeat it. LDS leadership had been planning Prop 8 for 11 years, and considered this to be a high priority for some time.

You can say all you want about the black and hispanic votes being the downfall of Prop 8, but it’s also true that they voted against it for religious reasons. This vote was about religion, not equal rights. Until the churches stay out of it and the people vote (as they should) only based on humanity and equal rights, this proposition, and all of its brothers in other states, will continue to pass. Gay marriage cannot exist until it is a civil rights and not a religious matter.

The irony that one of the most vocal supporters of banning this “non-traditional” form of marriage is the Mormon church. A church that has held a reputation for quite sometime as being the church that supported polygamy. It’s been 118 years since the LDS church abandoned polygamy, but the reputation is still there. You’d think that they would have some sympathy for a group of people that want to have a non-traditional marriage.

Urging members of your church to donate money to an out of state cause goes against what the tax exemption is there for. If this is not “attempting to influence legislation”, I don’t know what is. This is a clear breaking of the rules, as defined in the US tax code.

The IRS needs to take a serious look at who is taking their tax exemptions. Churches are flaunting their political views, challenging the IRS to revoke their tax exempt status, and the IRS is letting it happen.

I don’t care how many members these churches have, they need to play by the same rules. When people donate to them tax free, and they pay no taxes on their land, buildings, income or anything else, they essentially have a blank check to do what they want. When they use that blank check for legislative or political purposes, they are at an extreme advantage over the groups they are fighting against, who don’t have the church’s tax exemption in their favor. There are a lot of tax free groups that also fall into this category, but the churches are mocking the IRS with their new style.

The United States government and the IRS need to take a stand. You can either dabble in politics and pay your taxes, or you shut your mouth and stick to religion. The Mormon church clearly broke this rule, and they should lose all tax exemptions for 2008 for breaking this code.

To file a complaint or get involved, follow this link and follow their instructions.

Religion and politics butted heads several times in the 2008 election season, impacting the presidential vote, Senate races and of course ballot measures. So what was the final score of the religion in politics season?

Electing Representatives

Secularism Defeated Religion

Starting at the presidential level, the only religious issue was that many non-religious folks, and many non-Republicans feared the election of Sarah Palin to the Vice-Presidential position, based on her religious background. The defeat of the Republican ticket can be seen as a victory for secular Americans, though I stand by my position that neither of the tickets was a church/state danger.

At the Senatorial level, the marquee matchup of religion vs. non-religion didn’t even involve an actual atheist, but an accused atheist. Incumbent Elizabeth Dole was soundly defeated by challenger Kay Hagan in North Carolina, after a last-ditch effort by the Dole campaign to paint Hagan as “godless” backfired. The ad campaign was criticized around the nation, and atheist and liberal money poured in for Hagan, propelling her to a decisive win. This win was far more important than Obama’s, as this may signal to the religious right that atheism and “godlessness” is not a political issue that one can use as an accusation.

The only issue I have with this race was that Hagan fought back by defending her religious street-cred, rather than fight for the “godless” that were so insulted. Rather than stand up to the uncalled for attack, she simply reiterated her religious background and denied being an atheist. I would have much preferred her to call out Dole on her bad politics than to allow the name calling, but defend the dishonesty. Nevertheless, hopefully this race will be a lesson learned for Republicans, and hopefully the national outrage will open a dialogue that reveals that atheists can be qualified for public office, whether Hagan is one or not.

In a House of Representatives race in California, Pete Stark, the only openly atheist member of Congress was re-elected with over three-quarters of the vote. This is good news for the future of atheists running for office, but there are still quite a few Congressional atheists that are still “in the closet.” Hopefully, they will learn from Stark and realize that if they do their jobs, people will not vote you out of office simply for being an atheist.

Ballot Measures

Religion Defeats Secularism

When it came to ballot issues, the voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of conservative viewpoints, going against what many of the representative elections went for. In an election season that was a success for Democrats, ballot measures were not equally supported.

In three states, bans were passed on gay marriage. Arizona, California and Florida all passed ballot measures making gay marriage illegal or amending their constitutions to define marriage as between one man and one woman.

In Arkansas, a measure was passed that made it illegal for cohabiting sexual partners (heterosexual or homosexual) to adopt. It also made it illegal for these couples to serve as foster parents.

There were some secular successes in this election in terms of ballot measures, if you can call them secular. Not everything that is liberal vs. conservative is a religion vs. secular issue, but some of have religious roots.

Measures in California, Colorado and South Dakota all failed on issues regarding abortion. California’s measure was about waiting periods and parental notification, Colorado’s on the definition of a human, and South Dakota’s was a straight up abortion ban. All three measures failed.

Progress for Non-Religious, Religious Still Speak Louder

I think the 2008 election season was a good step for atheists and secularists, with Pete Stark and Kay Hagan the highlights of the campaign season. The time has arrived for more atheists to throw their hats in the ring and run for office, and for those atheist that are already serving in Congress to be open atheists, and not hide their beliefs simply for the chance at re-election. If they “come out” now, it will be two years before any elections, and really, most voters will have forgotten by then anyway.

As for the ballot measures, I firmly believe that many of these issues don’t belong on a ballot. When it comes to equality and rights, these issues should not be decided by popular vote. But that’s a different argument for a different day.

In the end, the religion vs. secular election battle of 2008 was a draw. Both sides got something out of this election that they can be proud of, and the battle will continue in the next election.

Remember when Norm Coleman narrowly defeated Al Franken in the Minnesota Senatorial race on election day? Coleman eeked out a 700-ish vote victory out of over 2 million votes cast.

But a funny thing happened on the way to re-election. Coleman’s victory is well on its way to becoming a defeat, with no recount and no runoff. The race is changing winners at the hands of the Democrats in charge of Minnesota, who keep finding new ways to make the race closer.

From Fox News:

“Correcting these typos was claimed to add 435 votes to Franken and take 69 votes from Coleman. Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate. The Senate gains for Franken were 2.5 times the gain for Obama in the presidential race count, 2.9 times the total gain that Democrats got across all Minnesota congressional races, and 5 times the net loss that Democrats suffered for all state House races.

Virtually all of Franken’s new votes came from just three out of 4130 precincts, and almost half the gain (246 votes) occurred in one precinct — Two Harbors, a small town north of Duluth along Lake Superior — a heavily Democratic precinct where Obama received 64 percent of the vote. None of the other races had any changes in their vote totals in that precinct.”

If that last paragraph doesn’t raise some eyebrows, then you must be an old fashioned, Chicago-style liberal, where if you’re not stealing the election, you’re not trying hard enough. So Franken gained 264 votes in one precinct due to typos, but none of the vote tallies in any of the other races were changed at all. Hmm…

Or how about the 100 ballots that magically appeared on the day after the election, all with Franken and Obama’s name on them, and all dates Nov. 2, not Nov. 4. I may not be a statistician, but I’ll tell you this — there is no chance that if they were truly 100 “missing” ballots, that all of them were the same. Statistically impossible.

The vote totals for Franken keep going up, while those for Coleman keep disappearing. If this were a Republican trailing a Democrat, the losers at MoveOn.org and DailyKos would be amassing troops on the Minnesota border to enforce their brand of democracy. Since it’s the other way around, they are instead rooting for the impossible comeback to happen, and won’t ask questions in the process.

Just like Florida in 2000, the Democrats are willing to trust the counts and recounts, and…oh, wait.. they still think that Bush stole Florida in 2000. Nevermind.

Seriously, if you want to witness an election being stolen, just keep watching the Minnesota Senate race.

More on this here, here, here, here, and here.

It’s ugly folks, and once again, just because I’m an atheist doesn’t mean I’m a Democrat. I’m no fan of Republicans either, but when it comes to elections Karl Rove is just a child compared to the liberal election frauders.

If you want to steal an election, you better be a Democrat. It works best if you’re from Chicago, but it can be pulled off by anyone with the right liberal backing.

Just watch Al Franken steal this election. No matter how many recounts they do, they will just keep finding more Franken votes, and if Coleman somehow “wins” the election, there will be lawsuits galore to overturn the election and years of crying about how the Republicans “stole” Minnesota.

Memo to Democrats: Failing to properly steal an election does not mean that the election was in fact stolen from you.

I’ll admit, I fell into the category of undecided for far too long in this election. In most years, I would agree with the idea that if you didn’t know who you were voting for a month before the election, then you likely weren’t informed enough to be casting a quality vote.

This election changed everything for me. Never have the two candidates of the two major parties been worse choices than John McCain and Barack Obama. There seemed to be hundreds of reasons to not vote for either of them, but very few reasons to vote for one of them.

In the end, it came down to issues. And in the end, McCain is the better choice for president, to me.

Economy

I know McCain didn’t exactly react gracefully when the bailout/meltdown/sub-prime fiasco hit the fan. But when it comes to turning a market around, the last thing we want to do is jack up taxes on the people that pay the most in this country. I’m not in the top tax bracket — not even close — but I understand that those are the people that drive the American economy. Giving me a tax break is nice, but it’s not going to impact the economy nearly as much as keeping the top 1% spending. I know it’s “cool” to rip on the top one percent, but let’s face it, they are the driving force of the economy. Obama is going to raise their taxes, and that’s bad for the country.

Foreign Policy

This is the one issue that I sided with McCain on all along. The war in Iraq needs to finish right. It doesn’t need to just finish, it needs to be done properly. Pulling out, regardless of conditions on the ground is the wrong move. Staying, despite political unpopularity, is the right move if the job isn’t done. I like McCain’s strategy and military history when it comes to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama may be better liked than McCain around the world, but it’s only because he has a ‘D’ next to his name. If the rest of the world is going to judge our next president only off of our last president, then that’s their problem, and should not make me vote for someone less qualified.

Free Speech

This was a big one for me. To me, Obama is the biggest threat to free speech in the history of the United States. You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. If ever a president were to bring back sedition laws, it’s Obama. From his support to the Fairness Doctrine revival, to his campaign truth squads, kicking newspapers off of his plane, denying access to television stations that asked unfavorable questions, his desire to have a Civilian National Security Force, and generally his inclination to suppress any speech that he doesn’t agree with. Obama would be a nightmare for American free speech, and that is a very important part of this election to me.

Religion

Being an atheist website, you may be surprised that I voted for a Republican. Well, as you may know, I did some in-depth research into the candidates and their religion, and in my opinion, there is no one in this election that is a legitimate threat to church/state separation.

Sarah Palin reportedly has religious views that I can not support. But I firmly believe that the role of vice-president in today’s America is a rather pointless job. Other than Dick Cheney, the position has been mostly filled by cheerleaders and funeral-attenders for quite some time. I have no doubt that this is about the only role that Palin will fill.

If Palin runs for president, I will choose to vote against her then. Right now, she is such a minor threat that it’s not worth voting against McCain for Obama just because of her.

Also, I have complete confidence that when the time comes, Republicans and Americans will keep Palin off of the ticket for president.

Health Care

I don’t think either one has a great plan, so I’m not all that concerned. Health care has been a top issue in every election of my lifetime, and nothing has changed. Why should I expect anything different now? But I’ll err on the side of less socialist, meaning farther from socialized health care, and lean towards McCain on this one.

There is a damn good reason why America has the best health care in the world, and one of the reasons is that we don’t have a system like Canada’s. It may cost more, but it’s better service.

What we need is a combination of free and paid health care, where you keep your existing coverage, but have access to top of the line clinics and cheap medical consultations. This needs to be combined with a crackdown of hospitals and insurance companies who are artificially driving up costs of services, and then passing along the prices to employers. Since the employers pay it either way, the guy with no insurance all of a sudden has a bill that is a couple of zeros higher than what it probably should be.

Until someone is willing to completely reform the medical industry, which neither of these men’s plans do, nothing of importance will change. But Obama’s plan is closer to socialized health care, and that I don’t support.

McCain It Is

There are many reasons to vote for Barack Obama. He seems like an honorable man, he speaks well, he’s well liked around the world and he honestly wants to change things up. But I have more reasons to vote for John McCain. I think he’ll do better when it comes to the economy, foreign policy and most importantly to me, preserve free speech.

Let’s face it — we’re all losers in this election. I’ll choose the guy who is more in line with what I want for this country, rather than the guy who is going to shake the boat just to shake it. I don’t think Obama’s ideas will turn into policy, so I think most of what he’s campaigning on is worthless.

What I do know is that the three major issues I mentioned — the economy, foreign policy and free speech — the United States is better off with John McCain.

If we’ve learned anything in this election, it’s that atheists may be the final group of people in the United States that it is okay to discriminate against. Muslims are apparently still in the running, but atheists are fair game to all, and supported by none.

Take for instance the Senatorial race in North Carolina, where incumbent Elizabeth Dole is facing a challenge from Democrat Kay Hagan. In the last week, Dole has put out a campaign video accusing Hagan of being “godless”, accepting “godless money”, and dubbed a fake voice-over of Hagan saying “there is no God.”

There are three major problems I have here:

One, that playing to her base, accusing someone of atheism is about as bad of an insult as Dole can throw. There are many, many people who would not vote for someone just because of their lack of belief in God. Hagan attended an event that was hosted by some people associated with an atheist organization. This, in North Carolina politics, is apparently as bad as not believing. “Palling around with atheists” is as bad as palling around with terrorists, it seems.

Two, Kay Hagan isn’t even an atheist, she just apparently knows some. Hagan is a former Sunday School teacher, and her church-going resume is distinguished. She’s being called an atheist as a lying insult by Dole. Can you really be guilty by association for knowing atheists?

And three, that spitting on atheism, as if it’s some infectious disease, is completely acceptable. Everyone is rushing to the defense of Hagan here, and calling Dole’s campaign dirty, but no one has stood up for atheists. You know, we actually get a vote. We’re not all convicted felons. Some of us are good people, and like it or not, you need our vote. There’s way more of us out here than you want to admit or acknowledge, Mrs. Dole.

In a related story, Barack Obama’s aides may or may not have severely insulted atheists at a recent event. According to the atheists.org No God Blog, this quote was linked to someone at an Obama event:

“Senator Obama has a policy director and an advisor for many different faiths. He has nothing on atheists or agnostics. There’s not this grand effort for the Democrats to reach out to a group of pagans to try to get them to vote for Senator Obama.”

I say someone because they are having some difficult pinning down just who the quote gets attributed to. There have been some phone conversations back and forth, so check back with the No God Blog for updates.

But more than likely, someone said it. Obama has a large amount of support from atheists, even if they are just people running from conservative Christians. I would think that they should be doing all they can to not upset atheists. In today’s world, you can’t openly associate with or support atheists (see above), but you don’t have to be so outright insulting. Maybe Obama should make some type of grand effort to get the Pagan vote.

We’ve seen in the past, religion is a major factor in elections. And we also know that over the years, the number of non-religious or atheist people has continued to grow.

The only logical conclusion you can draw from all of this is that atheism is still despised by all, and no one with any real power in this country gives a damn about those of us “godless” people with a vote. Hell, Lou Dobbs apparently didn’t even know we existed.

Every one of us was born an atheist. Just because you learned to believe in a God doesn’t make you any better than me. More importantly, it doesn’t make me any worse than you.

Sadly, I would have a better chance of winning public office if I said I believed in Zeus, than if I were to say that I was an atheist. But that’s politics in the 21st century.

Since nobody will elect an atheist, I suppose we need someone already in office to support us. Perhaps someone in Congress will grow some balls and take a chance on supporting people who are discriminated against so openly.

I can dream, right?

I can’t take it anymore. Please make this election stop. Make it go away.

This campaign has been going for two years (really since Obama ran for Congress). I can’t take the commercials anymore. I can’t take the late night talk shows anymore. I can’t watch The Daily Show or Colbert anymore. It’s too much.

It’s almost like television has turned into a competition of who can say the stupidest thing, then have on the most annoying, partisan, asshole guest. It’s all the same. Everyday.

And the commercials. From Obama hijacking my television for a half hour, to the non-stop local politicians running their student-council president ads, it’s got me to the breaking point. Local politician ads are like local lawyer ads in their awfulness. (Except for the Heavy Hitter in Las Vegas — Vegas knows what I’m talking about)

If you’re reading this, then you, like me, are somewhat of a political junkie. A connoisseur of information, if you will. But I’ve had enough. I am educated and I stay up to date. I like to think that I know my fair share of facts. So to be spoken to as if I were a seven-year old, mentally challenged chimp is annoying.

I’m smart enough to know when someone is lying to me. I hate it even more when both sides are lying to me. Negative ad campaigns are going to be the death of me (and American politics).

I don’t want to see Obama in his rolled-up sleeves anymore.

I don’t want to be talked down to by Joe Biden anymore.

I don’t want to hear Sarah Palin lie to my face anymore.

I don’t want to hear “my friends” anymore.

I want SNL to do attempted comedy again, not attempted political humor.

I don’t want to hear the words Troopergate, maverick, change, or vetted ever again.

I don’t want to hear the name William Ayers again.

I don’t want to see Joe the Plumber anymore.

Make it stop. I don’t care who wins, just as long as this is over.

And whoever wins, please sign an executive order that no formal campaigning can begin more than 365 days before the general election.

Just make it stop.

Is it me, or has this campaign turned into Obama vs. Palin? I can’t recall hearing the phrase “Biden Campaign” yet, but have lost count of all of the times I’ve heard someone mentioning Sarah Palin’s campaign.

Look, I don’t like the idea of Vice-President Palin either. But I also don’t like the idea of President Obama. And maybe it’s me, but isn’t Palin getting a tad more coverage than any other VP nominee ever?

I can’t recall seeing a candidate treated like this in the past, much less one that’s not even running for president. I don’t like Sarah Palin. I don’t like her religious views, I don’t like her perky attitude, and I don’t like the fact that the conservative base is using her to generate money and rile up the right-wingers.

But in the end, we have to understand that she’s not running for president. She is the vice-presidential nominee of John McCain. Stop trying to make this Obama vs. Palin — it’s not.

Sarah Palin may run for president in four or eight years. I promise, you’ll have every opportunity to vote against her then. But right now, shouldn’t the focus be more on Obama vs. McCain? I can’t help but think that too many people are going to be voting for Obama when they are simply voting against Palin. If you want to vote against the McCain/Palin ticket based on McCain’s judgement in selecting her, go for it. But the focus of your vote in this election should be the president, not the vice-president.

I would never vote for Sarah Palin for president. But the reality is that other than Dick Cheney, VPs just don’t do a whole lot. And in today’s world of modern medicine, there is nearly no chance that a sitting president will die in office without something malicious happening. For that reason, Palin as VP is not nearly as important as Obama as president.

Vote for whomever you choose. All I’m saying is to think twice before you allow a vice-presidential nominee to be your deciding factor.

What if we wake up on Wednesday and read “McCain Wins” on the top of our newspapers?

I say this not out of concern for a John McCain presidency, since I think that both candidates are going to be failures as president, but out of concern for the reaction that we’ll see in this country.

First off, the Barack Obama supporters. If you read the DailyKos website or other liberal sites like it, you’ll know that Obama has his fair share of fanatical, “do anything for the cause”, “we must win” backers. These are not folks that will go quietly.

The first thing that will happen if McCain wins is lawsuits galore, accusing voter fraud and any kind of wrong-doing that they can suggest. In their eyes, there is no way the Messiah can lose this election, so if he does, it must be because some shenanigans were going on.

More than likely, the focus will be Ohio and Florida once again, or whatever “too close to call” state actually goes for McCain. A McCain victory in 2008, no matter how slim or wide the margin, will be more controversial than Bush in 2000.

Next, the world reaction. This one will be the same as the liberals in America. McCain winning will be a statement to the world that the United States is racist, and only voted for the white guy. It doesn’t matter that there are a million reasons to not like Obama regardless of color, this will be the perception.

Right or wrong, the United States has a fragile reputation with the rest of the world. Sure, we pay out of our pockets to feed many nations, and our armed forces defend countless nations on our dime. The reality is that in spite of all this, people still want to hate America. They hate George W. Bush, and for that reason alone, there will be riots around the world and likely violence against Americans simply because the guy with an ‘R’ next to his name was the winner.

A McCain victory will be a tough pill to swallow around the world. In the end, they’ll get over it, but for a while, it will be ugly.

As for the McCain supporters, a victory in this election, seemingly against all odds, will vindicate their campaign style, the selection of Sarah Palin, and reaffirm their belief that pandering to the conservative base, no matter how extreme, is the way to win elections. This is not good for anyone, except the people who’s living depends on Republicans in the White House.

A McCain comeback in the final days of this campaign will set up an even uglier campaign in the next election, and send the state of political discourse in this country even further down the river.

Next, what would a McCain victory do to the pollsters? The Republicans pulling this thing off would make pretty much every presidential poll worthless. They were wrong in the primaries, and they were wrong in 2000. Polling is not an exact science, and a McCain victory in 2008 would render these pollsters worthless until they can prove that they know what they’re doing.

Politics aside, a McCain victory in this election will be ugly. Obama has already had the Oval Office measured for drapes, and Sarah Palin has already had her Palin ‘012 stickers made up.

This is the first election in which I actually fear widespread rioting in the wake of a candidate’s defeat. The supporters of Obama will not take no for an answer. It’s the reason his campaign has been so strong, but it will also be the reason that half of the country is on suicide watch if McCain were to win.

And finally, the media. MSNBC may have to take a day off and bring in grief counselors if the Chosen One doesn’t pull this out. Keith Olbermann will have to spend four more years acting like an idiot, calling McCain the worst president ever, regardless of whether or not he earns such a distinction. These people are ready to crown Obama king, and will be left completely speechless and broken hearted if they lose this race. I say they because the media wants Obama to win more than anything in the world. If they dare deny it, they lose credibility to me. Fox News will roll on, business as usual, reporting the news under the “Mission Accomplished” sign.

I don’t want McCain or Obama to win, but I’ve come to terms that one of them will. My best case scenario is McCain wins, followed by Sarah Palin getting caught up in something that leads her to resign. McCain and Fill-in-the-blank is a ticket I can support. Neither of the two that I get to choose from is.

I can promise you this: This race will be closer than the pollsters are saying. It’s not going to be a shutout, and it probably won’t be a landslide. When the polls are closing on the west coast, there will be no clear winner.

And let me also say this: If John McCain wins this election, it won’t be because America is racist. It will be because Obama is not the Savior that the media is making him out to be. He’s a politician, no less of a scumbag than the rest of his colleagues. There’s a huge population of middle America who despise this man’s politics, not the man. There very well may be a silent majority in this election, and it is all about politics, not race and charm.

For that reason, we may see something very interesting on Tuesday, and an even more interesting aftermath on Wednesday and beyond.

To many people, religion is a key ingredient in what makes a good president or government. In the United States, many mistakenly feel that this is a Christian nation, and should be governed as such. Since that’s not the case, and the Constitution is clear about a separation between church and state, each candidate for public office needs to be examined as to how they will let their religion influence or not influence their decision making, as well as the appointments they make.

When primary season began, I put together a compilation of each candidates stances on religion, in their own words. As the final candidates selected their vice-presidential candidates, I added them to the list. Each candidate also received a summary, based on their quotes, as to where they stand on religion and the separation of church and state.

Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim. Clearly, during this election, the United States made it clear that at no time soon will they be ready for a Muslim president. Woman, yes. Black man, yes. Muslim, absolutely not. I’d imagine a candidate would receive the same treatment if he were an “alleged” atheist. But Obama is a Christian, to be sure.

Early in the primaries, Obama played to the Christian part of this country, and professed his faith quite clearly. As the scandals with Rev. Jeremiah Wright became more popular, he backed away from invoking his faith so often. While he doesn’t seem to be a man who will govern God-free, he is not expected to be a friend of secular America.

But not appeasing secularists or atheists is fine with me, as long as he’s not going out of his way to play to the religious groups of America. I think Obama is a genuinely religious man, but I believe for him it’s as much about political gain as it is his own beliefs when it comes to using God in the public eye.

Obama will likely keep America on the same path to more faith-based initiatives, but will likely be appointing judges that govern more secularly. I think the religious and non-religious alike will see minimal differences in the next four or eight years in terms of religion in government.

His running mate, Joe Biden, is a very religious person. But Biden has a track record that is very strong that he will not allow his religious beliefs to dictate his legislate. I honestly believe that Biden is a friend of secularists, despite his strong religious beliefs.

John McCain, I think that he shouldn’t be something to fear for a secularist. But if he wins this election, it’s going to be because of the support he gets from the religious right. For that, he may have some favors he owes in the White House. Put that with his extremely religious running mate, and we may have a recipe for a whole lot of religion in the next four to eight years.

Like Biden, McCain has a history of being fair to the religious and non-religious, but his change of style in the last year was not what I was looking for in the next president.

Sarah Palin is alarmingly religious. She runs with the wrong kind of crowd in the religious world, and is quite extreme in her views. In my mind, she is someone that America can’t have in a powerful federal office.

Having said that, Palin governed very much by the book as Alaska’s governor. She vetoed bills that she agreed with that went along with her beliefs because they were unconstitutional. But a vote for McCain in this election may be a vote for Palin in ‘12 or ‘16. Is that what this country wants?

One question you have to ask with regard to Palin’s possible future run for the presidency is whether or not now is the right time to vote against her. Realistically, the vice-president is a relatively harmless position. Other than Dick Cheney, you have to go back some time before you find a VP that was seriously influential. For that reason, you could decide that the time to make Palin not the president is when she runs, not now.

Palin should never become president, but if you lean towards McCain on most of his politics, Palin probably should not be the reason you vote against him. You can vote against Palin in the primaries if and when she runs for president.

I think there are positives and negatives for both parties when it comes to religion in this election. Neither party’s candidate is willing to take a stand against the influence of religion in government, and until that happens, it really doesn’t matter. Unfortunately, both parties are pandering to the religious population of this country, and more importantly, their money. For that reason, neither side wants to upset them.

In this election, I think you can vote on politics and other matters, since I don’t think it much matters who is president when it comes to separation of church and state.

But if you’re still on the fence, and religion is the final vote, I’d probably say that the Obama/Biden ticket runs slightly less of a risk than the McCain/Palin ticket when it comes to religious freedom.

**This is not an endorsement of Barack Obama, just an opinion on religious freedom in the next four years.**