For all that this presidential election gets talked up as being so historic, and for all that it has generated an unprecedented level of enthusiasm (at least for as far back as my own memory stretches), I seem to get more and more tired of it by the day. It was kind of a given that once Obama got the nomination he’d start moving to the centre, but I guess I allowed myself to get caught up in that whole "he’s not that kind of politician" gimmick enough that all the stuff that he’s done recently, most notably his decision to support a bill that gives telecommunication providers partial immunity for any illegal activities they performed at the behest of the current administration, has kind of depressed me. I never got the allure of McCain, and it seems like the veneer has all but worn off of the "Straight Talk Express" by this point. I don’t know how this is going to end, but I do know that I want it to end soon. The primary campaign went on for too long, and from the looks of things we’re just in for more of the same until November; Hillary Clinton will probably wind up getting nearly as much television time as an Obama surrogate as she did from her own campaign.

It doesn’t help that my own choices for this election continue to be less than optimal. If Ralph Nader had just run for the Green Party nomination I wouldn’t have any problems right now, but now Nader and Cynthia McKinney are going to split the progressive vote. Although my support is still behind Nader over McKinney, that support is tenuous. If I were thinking about voting strategtically — you know, all of this "party over conscience" stuff everyone else does — I’d vote for McKinney simply to help keep the Green Party strong. If I voted solely on my gut, Nader would get my vote because I still don’t get a good feeling off of McKinney. Issues should be the thing I base my decision on, but that hasn’t worked out so well for me because Nader and McKinney are kind of similar on the issues. For a while I thought I favoured Nader on the issues a little more, but the more I read up, the more I find myself trending towards McKinney.

I haven’t looked into Bob Barr’s campaign that much, but as much as I have some libertarian leanings, I know that I don’t agree with a great deal of the Libertarian Party platform. Still, you would think that the media, particularly the Democratic Party echo chambers I invariably wind up listening to, would pay more attention to Barr’s campaign due to its ability to "play spoiler" on McCain. After seven and a half years of hearing Nader get dumped on, I’d like to have it start going the other way now. For that matter, I’d really like to hear Barr and Nader and McKinney and whoever the Constitution Party puts up get some serious press here, because there’s enough festering just below the surface of the Big Two parties that the third party candidates should be more viable than ever, assuming the media gets off of its collective butts, and starts actually reporting on them in a serious manner.