If you voted for Barack Obama for president and you happen to be Catholic, then you shouldn’t take part in communion until you go to confession and get right with God, a Greenville, South Carolina priest has said.

This controversial stance, which his parishioners seem to support 9 to 1, is based on the fact that Obama supports a woman’s right to choose when it comes to abortion, which Catholics consider a form of murder.

The trouble is, many Catholic voters entered the voting booths with other things on their mind:  like improving the economy, solving the situation in Iraq, and keeping the country safe from terrorism.

And I can’t help but wonder whether a vote for John McCain is somehow a vote legitimizing divorce, since McCain himself was divorced.  Catholics don’t support divorce, either, though abortion is clearly the more serious issue.

If all sin is supposed to be equal in the eyes of God, I wonder who Catholics should have voted for so they could have communion without a guilty conscience?

Personally, I think abortion should never be used as a form of birth control.  But I think in the cases of rape or inscest, or in cases in which the mother’s life is threatened, the option should be on the table.

I also think that because we live in a country that values freedom, including one’s right to practice his or her own religion as he chooses (or chooses not to practice), certain liberties should be available, even if I don’t happen to agree with them.  That’s what freedom is all about.  I don’t see it as the church’s job to tell parishioners whom they should vote for.  To me, the church should be focusing its efforts on educating its members about why something like abortion is an option they should never choose.

That’s what I think a church’s job is; if the church isn’t teaching morality, no amount of pressure at the polls is going to make this a more “moral” country.

A new poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans expect great things from the Obama presidency, according to CNN:

“The public thinks it’s likely that Obama will improve race relations, improve economic conditions, bring stability to the financial markets, make the U.S. safer from terrorism, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce global warming, win the war in Afghanistan and remove U.S. troops from Iraq without causing a major upheaval in that country.”

That would be a tall order even for a president coming into office on a thriving economy and a nation whose residents are generally satisfied.  For a president taking office in a slumping economy when many people have been saying for years that the country is headed in the “wrong direction” and we face a stunning national debt, those expectations seem a bit ludicrous.

How much can one president accomplish?  It remains to be seen.

But I’m curious about what you’re expecting.  Vote in the Patrick’s Place Poll in the sidebar.

I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop, pondering what happened one week ago today, and more specifically, what happened in the months leading up to that one particular day.

On Sunday, my pastor did an interesting, brutally-honest sermon about Christians and politics.  It was the kind of sermon you wish you’d hear a pastor deliver, but you’re generally disappointed that no one ever does.

If you’d like to hear it, go to this site and download the podcast from November 9th, titled “Them, Us and Us.”  I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

It was a reminder that as Christians, we’re supposed to respect authority, be supportive, treat others as we want to be treated.  And in the world of politics, that’s beyond a tall order.

He quoted Romans 13:1-2, which reminds us, like it or not:

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.  Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

And he pointed out another passage, from Titus 3:1-2:

“Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men.”

Politics should never be about maligning anyone, but it seems to be about little else these days.  And it gets worse every year.

Both sides of the issues, and in some cases all three, four, or more sides, were guilty of it, and I don’t pretend to exclude myself.  But it seems to me now that we, as Christians, need to be at the forefront of leading a way to unity, not hiding in the background, wondering if the new president-elect is some kind of anti-Christ, or if God is turning his back on us, or any of the other things otherwise God-fearing Christians have been heard to say about the new administration.

I have a lot of hope that positive change will come, but I am realistic to know that no change will come unless both sides are willing to sit down and work things out.  And for some, that’s the last thing they seem to consider appealing.

A record number of people, more than 71 million, tuned in to watch this year’s election results.  That’s a tremendous number of people.  And they were watching the final round of a bloody, bitter football game.  And when it was over, there was excitement, cheering, sadness, hurt feelings, and in some cases, permanently-damaged friendships.

For what?

How do we get past that?  I guess it begins with us getting over ourselves.  Another tall order.

Christians have a poor track record of showing compassion when it comes to someone whom they think somehow falls short of their idea of the ideal.

I’m just glad God doesn’t seem to suffer from the same kind of discrimination.

So my candidate won the presidency on Tuesday.  That was nice, and I think we have a good chance of seeing some positive change from the status quo that has helped us reach a miserable economy.  I hope, along with many others of both parties that the negativity will stop and that this country can get back on track.

I’m not holding my breath about the negativity thing, though.  Because it’s still alive and well.

But a few thoughts come to mind about the election and the campaign and their aftermath, and I figured I’d share them while I can still make reasonable use of the little “Election 2008” category.

1. THE DREAM
As expected, much has been made of election of Barrack Obama and the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1963.  Many feel that the fact that Obama was elected to the office of president is a clear indication that King’s dream has been fully realized.

Well, that depends on how you look at it.  And how you voted.

I have a friend (who happens to have been a McCain supporter) who decided to play a nasty little trick on some of his co-workers who were dedicated Obama supporters:  he went to a political website, copied all of McCain’s platform statements, pasted them over Obama’s statements and printed out a page that showed Obama and a list of the points.  He then showed it to some of these Obama supporters, most of whom, he said, were black, and asked if, after reading all of these statements, they were sure that they were still behind Obama.

Each of them, he said, read the paper, (though he added that some spent far less time actually reading what was there than others) and said that Obama was absolutely their guy.

This little experiment, he says, is proof that there were plenty of people who supported Obama solely because of his race, since what he stood for seemed to have absolutely no bearing on their motivation to vote.  If, after all, a Republican’s platforms can be substituted on a Democrat’s one-sheet and it make no difference, someone clearly isn’t paying attention.

If you voted for Obama because he was black, you didn’t help King’s dream come true.  You actually did exactly the opposite:  you perpetuated the very same racism that King spent his life fighting to begin with, because you chose the color of Obama’s skin over all else.

But there were many of us who voted for Obama because of his standing on the issues.  We looked at the issues first, not the candidates who embraced them.  We decided where we stood first, then sought candidates who happened to be in the same place.

There were many of us who voted for Obama despite the fact that he is biracial, looks like a black man, and identifies himself as an African American.  In short, we selected him because his views matched ours, not because of his appearance.  I would go so far as to say that his race played absolutely no role in our vote at all, to the point that some of us aren’t even interested in the furor over his race.

It doesn’t matter to us that Obama is black, or biracial, or African American, or whatever else you want to call him.  It isn’t an issue.

That is what King’s dream was all about.  And that is how it always should have been, no matter what color you happen to be.

2. LITTLE REMINDERS
Politicos and soap fans have something in common:  they love silly little nicknames.

Take the gay couple on CBS’s As the World Turns.  The characters Luke and Noah are referred to as “Nuke” by their over-exuberant fans.  Some might say that the idea of a gay couple is “nuking” the show.

Take a president who uses the initial of his middle name to help distinguish himself from his father and who happens to be from Texas.  Make him a Republican, and that’s all a Democrat needs:  Bush is now “Dubya.”

For Obama, Republicans are getting their revenge with his initials.  Instead of coming up with some kind of nickname, they refer to the 44th president as BHO, a hopeful reminder that the middle name, Hussein, happens to be the same name as Iraq’s former leader.  Obama, therefore, must be an enemy.  It’s not even guilt by association, because there isn’t any association.  But the name’s the same, and so everything else — including any potential ulterior motives they hope you’ll start wondering about — must be, too.

Some of us hope that for the middle class, BHO will end up being our BFF.  Just sayin’.

3. LOOKING AHEAD
Tuesday night, people were already posting blogs about “Palin 2012.”  No, that wasn’t supposed to be funny, but if you’re snickering, I can certainly understand.

A guy I went to school with saw me on Facebook earlier this evening and commented on my blog.  He’s a longtime Republican, so he’s naturally not on the same page with me in this particular election; too bad he didn’t stumble upon me in 2004…chances are he’d have liked the blog a lot more.

Anyway, he said that Palin was too controlled by McCain’s people.  I’ve heard others say this, too.  Palin, supposedly the one person who has her finger always on the nuclear — or is it “nucular”? — button ahead of Bush himself, which is only a slight relief, and who tried real hard to portray herself as a Maverick like her running mate?

Controlled?  What kind of maverick is that?

Then again, some are asking the same question about McCain’s adoption of that word.

In any case, the people have spoken.  Hopefully both sides of the fence will not only listen, they’ll get to doing something about it.

Tomorrow is Election Day, which means, thankfully, that it’s almost time for the campaigns to finally shut up.

But in the last hours before the polls open, I think it’s time to get a few points out there. Perhaps they’ll get you thinking before you step up to the voting booth.

1. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH
I am absolutely amazed by the number of people — otherwise reasonable, well-educated people, in fact — who continually forward emails designed to besmirch one candidate or the other. In the majority of these emails, the target seems to be Barack Obama: he’s either a Muslim or he’s ineligible to run because he wasn’t really born in this country. (Or, he’s just a bad guy because of that one photo in which he wasn’t standing with his hand over his heart during the Star Spangled Banner.)

Seriously, people: Snopes.com.

Look him up over there and marvel at the sheer number of emails that contain distortions or blatant lies about him. It begs the question: why are so many McCain supporters — many of whom identify themselves as Christians of the Religious Right ilk — resorting to dishonesty? I don’t think that’s what Jesus would do.

And it speaks much more about McCain’s side than Obama’s.

2. ACCENTUATING THE NEGATIVE
Negative campaigning us alive and well, and it’s not getting any better. The funny thing is, these little attack ads not only berate the competition, they then try to assure the voters that once the “golden child” of the ad gets in office, he or she will cross the aisle and work together to reform government.

As if they really think that we’re stupid enough to believe that after all of those attacks, they’ll all be buddies again. Clearly that has worked so well over the past to get us to this delightful point in our economy.

I’d like to see a candidate not resort to anything negative for an entire campaign.  Such a candidate would have my vote.

3. REDISTRIBUTING/SHARING/SPREADING
We love our money. We love our stuff. And it’s ours, by God, no one else’s. At least, that’s what the Republicans keep telling you in a scare-tactic-inspired campaign that falsely promises that a vote for Obama will increase everyone’s taxes.

Recently, I volunteered to help register needy families for special assistance this holiday season. There were people of all races, all ages, and all backgrounds. I met people who are struggling to make ends meet.

They have jobs. They’re not sitting at home watching television all day. In fact, most of them don’t even have cable. They don’t have credit card bills. They don’t have luxuries that you and I take for granted. And somehow, to hear the ads, these people are the bad guys?

Falsehoods about the tax plans aside, why shouldn’t the people who have money be expected to pay at least an equal amount of taxes as the rest of us? Why shouldn’t those who can actually afford a tax bill be handed one?

Many in the Religious Right need to check their bible to make sure that Luke 12:48 has not somehow mysteriously been deleted. A passage found there says, quite clearly, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

Funny how we miss little jewels like that when it’s convenient.

Has the whole trickle-down theory worked for you? In all the years that companies have gotten major tax breaks (while laying off our workers and sticking us with foreign tech-support phone banks), are you better off? How many companies have just slashed their prices to help out those of us who aren’t getting the breaks we are? How many major corporations have written you a check just because they have more money to work with and can therefore help us little guys out? If mine’s in the mail, it’s been lost for a long time.

McCain has given us this effective icon, Joe the Plumber, to express our discontent with the thought of taxation. He’s running campaign ads with “everyday” people saying that they’re Joe the Plumber. We’re all Joe the Plumber. We don’t like taxes. And oddly enough, it’s Obama’s plan that will get us greater savings at tax time, unless you make more than $200,000+ a year.

I’m not trying to start my own business. I’m not likely to ever have my own business, and if I do, it’d be a pipe dream to think that I’d be so overwhelmingly successful that I’d face the kind of tax hike that so few businesses would face, anyway.

But even so, first things first: I’d like to save enough on taxes now so that I could pay off a few more bills and put more money in savings. That way, when I suddenly find the inescapable need to be my own boss, I’ll actually be able to afford to do so.

4. HISTORIC MOTIVES
There are still people caught up in the historic nature of who is running. Obama will be America’s first black president, or Sarah Palin will be America’s first female vice president.

Not all blacks feel that Obama is the right choice, and not all women are firmly behind Palin.

Unfortunately, there are blacks who are voting for Obama because he is black, and they can’t tell you what specific policies about him they support. And, even worse, there are women who have embraced Palin because she’s a she, and some of them were fervent Hillary Clinton supporters; here’s a clue, folks: the two women stand for opposite positions. If you’re that fervent a supporter of one, it’s not a matter of just switching to the other without completely rethinking your political leanings. How many of them really did that?

I don’t care that Obama is black. It makes no difference to me at all. It doesn’t scare me that a black man could be president, and I really don’t understand why it seems to scare so many others. If I supported the McCain ticket, it would make no difference to me that Palin is a woman.

Frankly, I wouldn’t mind a woman president or a black president. But if that’s the only reason you can find to vote for someone, please do the world a favor and sit this one out: you’ve failed to immerse yourself in the issues well enough to know what you believe.

No good can come of that.

5. MEDIA BIAS?
Is the media biased? It depends on what you consider bias to actually be.

Rush Limbaugh is part of the media. But his program is not a news broadcast. Neither is Bill O’Reilly, or those myriad talk/opinion shows that cable news networks have made so popular.

So if you’re counting their schtick as news in a search for bias, you’re already looking in the wrong places.

For years, I’ve seen people send emails to local television stations I’ve worked for, and they’ve almost always taken the same position: we must be biased because we won’t talk about this or that. It’s that same tired old line that those books sold on overnight infomercials use as their subtitles: “the secrets they don’t want you to know about.”

But you can’t blame “them.” We’re the ones to blame; we love our little conspiracy theories a little too much.

An email I saw recently accused us of being biased against McCain because we did a report on Sarah Palin’s $150,000 makeover. The reasoning was that we ignored Michelle Obama’s lavish room service bill at the Waldorf Astoria. Unfortunately, the email about that room service bill has been proven false: she wasn’t even in New York on the day the bill was supposedly generated. But rather than deal with the issue of any candidate receiving a $150,000 makeover, this viewer was ticked off because we didn’t “smear” the other guy the way they thought we were trying to smear their side.

That’s not balance, especially if you expect our coverage to include blatant lies just to make your candidate not sound so bad.

And think about what these people are really saying (without admitting to saying it): if one room service bill that seems to scream excess is so terrible, it stands to reason that a six-digit shopping spree might just send these folks over the edge. But they forget about the same thing from their candidate as long as there’s something — anything, even falsehood — to sling back against their opponent.

Around these parts, that’s a double standard.

Are we biased against Obama when we compare his experience to McCain’s? Or are we just comparing two candidates’ records? As long as the information we provide is true, it isn’t bias. Even when you see a story about one person siding with one candidate because But there are people who will see it that way regardless. There’s no talking to them, no reasoning with them.

Ironically, these defenders of journalistic integrity who serve as self-appointed watchdogs who alert us to every offense they think they see tend to produce the most twisted, distorted, unbalanced blog posts you can find. Way to practice what they preach.

Sounds like yet another double standard, but maybe that’s just me.

So here we are…down to the final hours before decision day. How will you make use of your time? Will you take a few moments to really think about why you’re voting for whomever you’re voting for? I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind: I’m merely suggesting that you make sure there’s a valid reason to vote for the candidate you’ve selected. If you can’t, maybe you should rethink things.

Yesterday, I went to the Election Commission headquarters here and voted early.  Not all states allow this, and South Carolina calls it “In-Person Absentee,” apparently, but in my case, since I’ll be at work all day on Tuesday, breaking away to vote would have been difficult (and perhaps impossible), especially considering the lines they’re expecting.

I arrived and got into one long, winding line to actually register to vote.  They ask why you want to vote early, and as long as it meets their criteria, they approve you, take your ID and register you in the system.  You are then directed to a second line that takes you to the actual voting machines.

Considering it’s a beaurocratic process, it is surprisingly efficient.  The lines do move fairly quickly. Faster, in fact, than they typically do on Election Day itself.

Still, it took about an hour and a half to vote.  Not because of problems with their set-up, not because of problems with the machines.  The only “problem” was that there were just that many people there to vote.  Already.  And that’s not a problem at all:  it’s wonderful that there are that many more people who are finally waking up to the fact that not only can they have a voice in this country, but that it’s something they actually should do.

Election Day is going to be a long day in many ways. But I hope you’ll all go and be part of the process.  No matter who you vote for, you owe it to yourself to make the effort.  And please don’t fall victim to the “my voice won’t count” crap some like to toss around to discourage you from showing up:  at some point, you have to have at least a little faith in the process, and the only tried and true way to guarantee beyond any doubt at all that your voice won’t be heard is to not vote at all.  That’s not really what you want, is it?

You gotta love politics.  At least that’s what they tell me.  I’m very much on the fence on that one.

What I do love is the humor of watching diehard Republicans run to the defense of Sarah Palin’s $150,000 makeover to make her look “presentable” on the campaign trail by either pointing to examples of lavish spending on the other side or by changing the subject entirely.

Sure, there was that $400 haircut John Edwards took so much flack about.  And it was absolutely justified.  No haircut is worth $400 unless the scalp itself could somehow immediately be removed from the head and put on display at the Louvre.  If it’s not worthy of being called a piece of art on that level, it’s not worthy of a $400 price tag.

The last haircut I got cost me about $30, and that included a shampoo, a tip and a bottle of this cool, minty shampoo that helps me actually begin to wake up.

Then there’s that lavish meal that Michelle Obama had at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York.  You know the one, right?  You’ve heard about this one…it has been a popular forward lately.  Two steamed lobsters — not one, but two, thank you — Irianian caviar, and a bottle of champagne…a lavish meal for a would-be First Lady before she even is a First Lady.

Of course, unlike the Edwards haircut, this Obama pig-out was a work of fiction.  According to Snopes.com, the day Michelle Obama is accused of ordering this pricey snack in the Big Apple, she was actually campaigning in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

But I have to admit, the Irianian caviar was a nice touch from the hate-mongers.  Still, heaven forbid that facts get in the way of a smear job.  And it begs the question:  if the other side is so much better, why would they even have to resort to a blatant lie to make themselves win points?

Another example of avoidance is a recent email that pulls quotes from Barack Obama’s books that seem to indicate that he’s going to transform America into some kind of Muslim stronghold.  I’ve gotten this one a few times, too.  The funny thing is, since I actually read The Audacity of Hope, it was painfully obvious that the writer of this email hadn’t.  What wasn’t absolutely made up was taken so far out of context that it might as well have been made up.

But the bottom line is this:  the Republicans were wrong to spend that money.  Period.  And to think that they had shown so much promise when they made fun of that haircut.

The same way Kerry was wrong to make military service a campaign issue in 2004, after he had been so right in condeming the practice when it was used against Bill Clinton in 1992.

Part of Palin’s appeal, apparently, is that she’s just a “regular gal.”  She’s “one of us.”  She and Joe the Plumber may not be neighbors, but they could hang out together sharing beer, nachos and a football game and it’d be completely natural.  She’s not fake, she’s not pretentious.  She is who she is and she’s fine with that.

So why does she need a $150,000 makeover?  Why spend that money?  If she’s so proud — and if she’s so right to be proud — of her modest, frugal ways, then why not parade that look around?

And please spare me the crap about the clothes not being hers.  Sure, they’ll be donated to charity so somewhere down the line some everyday woman will be able to wear a designer suit once worn by Palin herself.

Who cares?

If they’d really wanted to be so charitable, they’d have stayed away from the designer racks, gone to Target for whatever clothes they felt Palin really had to have, and donated the rest of that money to a local women’s shelter so that those women could have gone on a shopping spree for clothes for themselves and their children.  After all, $150,000 goes a lot further and could have helped a lot more people if designer brands weren’t in the mix.

I wish someone would give me a third of that money.  I’d show them what being frugal is really all about.

One week from now, we’ll go to the polls and vote for president.  At least, those of us who aren’t too lazy or too jaded will do so.  Then we’ll count up everything and find out, depending on which party leads, who won or who “stole” the election.

This next week promises to be full of more bitter attacks, more of those forwarded emails that lie and distort virtually everything, that no one bothers to take the time to fact-check before sending them on to the next victim, and more nasty political spots that turn the stomaches of everyone except the most blindly-loyal candidate supporters.

I’m sick of this election.  I’ll be glad when it’s over.  And I’ll be even happier if we get that positive change we’re being promised.

In an interview last week on ABC News, Sen. Barack Obama issued a challenge to Sen. John McCain, who has been attempting to link Obama to 1960s anti-war radical Bill Ayers, an action Obama calls an attempt for “cheap political points.”  Here’s what Obama said:

“I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face. But I guess we’ve got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.”

It reminds me of the kind of thing two kids would say to each other on a playground.  “Oh yeah?  Let’s hear you say it to my face!  Step across this line.  Knock this off my shoulder.”

McCain, who seems to enjoy parading his military experience around more than John Kerry, and who likes to paint himself as the tough-as-nails, maverick type, not surprisingly, has pledged that he will raise the Ayers issue at the final debate tonight in a “guilt by association” ploy:

“In an interview on a St. Louis radio station, McCain said Obama’s comments that ‘I didn’t have the guts’ to talk about William Ayers in the last presidential debate have ‘probably ensured’ that the former 1960s radical will come up in Wednesday’s debate.”

What a shock.

A McCain aide said this:

“I expect it could come up and I expect John McCain will ask Barack Obama to speak truthfully about his relationship with friend and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. I think that voters deserve to know, deserve to vet these candidates to the fullest extent… Certainly, Bill Ayers raises questions. Certainly, Tony Rezko raises questions.”

If McCain supporters want those questions answered, only in the spirit of full disclosure and not just to smear the competition, I’m sure they must also have their own questions about their candidate’s association with William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist McCain selected to lead his transition team.  It’s now being reported that Timmons aided an influence effort on behalf of none other than Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Saddam Hussein the bad guy?  I mean, we didn’t exactly give him a bouquet of roses when we found him in that underground hideaway.  It would seem, in fact, that we invaded his country and removed him from power.  And that was just the beginning.

Given the “you’re either with us or you’re against us” mentality the Republicans seem to have embraced so eagerly over the past seven years when it comes to fighting terrorists and anyone who might be remotely called a terrorist, one might wonder how someone who did anything on behalf of an enemy isn’t the enemy as well.

So if McCain gets to infer that Obama must be the bad guy because of who he associates with, and if McCain is correct that such an association puts a bad mark against Obama, then the same mark should be against McCain as well, right?

Tie game.

Double standard.

Complete waste of our time.

No mention of the economy, or taxes, or education, or poverty, or energy.  And our politicians still wonder why so many people have become so uninterested in the political process.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the paper once owned by Joseph Pulitzer’s family, released its endorsement for president on Sunday. I’ve always had mixed emotions about newspapers endorsing any candidate, because the implication for far too many news customers, even when the endorsement is confined to the Op/Ed page, where everyone is supposed to have an opinion, is that the paper itself cannot be impartial if it favors one candidate over another.

Also, when it comes to voting for any office, you shouldn’t rely on a newspaper to tell you who should be getting your vote.  That’s a decision you should make after considering all of the points raised over the course of the election, and how each candidate has handled them.

Still, there are interesting points that are raised in the editorial, and worth your consideration regardless of whom you support or plan to vote for.

So in that spirit, I invite you to read their take, here.

Here’s a disturbing video making the rounds on the internet.  You have to decide for yourself whether you think being a hothead might be a problem if you’re the one who answers that infamous 3:00am telephone call.

If the allegations are true, it’s a scary thought.

There was an interesting table in this week’s edition of Parade magazine.  (I know, most of you only open that little insert to read the inane questions sent in to Walter Scott’s Personality Parade.)

But this particular table compared the tax plans of Barack Obama and John McCain to show how much you’d save depending on whose plan became reality.  I’ve received several chain emails lately from rabid McCain supporters promising me how much Obama will raise my taxes.

I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that most of the people who are forwarding the emails don’t fall into the income category that would make them pay more, and I’ll even speculate that most of the people who stop by here to read this blog don’t fall into that category, either.

But here’s a partial listing from that table:

If you make less than $19,000 income (the bottom 25% of earners):

• Obama will save you an average of $567.
• McCain will save you an average of $21.

If you make between $19,000-$37,600:

• Obama will save you an average of $892.
• McCain will save you an average of $118.

If you make between $37,600-$66,400:

• Obama will save you an average of $1118.
• McCain will save you an average of $325.

In fact, you don’t start saving more with McCain’s plan unless you make more than $111,600, and even then, the difference in savings is an average of $449.

If you are fortunate enough to be in the top 5% of earners, meaning you bring home more than $227,000 a year, McCain will save you lots of money, while Obama will make you pay more…sometimes only a little more, depending on how “elite” you are payroll-wise.

The unfortunate thing about the whole “trickle-down” theory of economics is that giving tax breaks to the wealthy means expecting the top 5% of earners are carrying the entire economy.  Give them all the breaks, the theory says, and they’ll help everyone else.

When was the last time you got a big handout from the wealthy?  When was the last time some millionaire got a big tax break then decided to write you a check to help you pay your bills?

I have nothing against millionaires, of course.  If there are any reading this, I’ll be glad to take any amount they’re willing to send.  But I think that most of us know that the average rich person is rich because he keeps a lot more than he gives.

May that happen to us all one day.

Commentators were speculating that the debate line everyone would be talking about at the famed water cooler this morning was McCain’s little jab at Obama, when he accused the Illinois senator of voting for Bush’s 2005 Energy bill that McCain described as being “loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies:”

“You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.”

McCain gestured towards Obama, but never looked at him when he made the comment.  It was contemptuous.  Some have tried to claim that “that one” should be seen as some kind of racial thing.  I don’t see that at all; I just think McCain was being snide.  And snide is the word that best describes the John McCain I have seen on the campaign trail.

And I keep asking myself this same question over and over again:  if I did agree with McCain on everything (and I don’t), could I really trust him as president, to get over himself and work with everyone, foreign leaders included, to reach actual agreements rather than taking the “Our way or the highway” model that Bush has demonstrated for the past eight years?

The answer I keep getting is no.  At least not without precondition.  And Lord knows, that should make everything all right, just like it has the past eight years.  Can you imagine a more peaceful, more economically sound world than what we have now?

And to think McCain’s camp wants people to stop talking about the economy!

We have to sit through a third debate before we go to the polls.  I’m wondering if anyone who hasn’t already decided who they’re voting for is really going to get the information they need from another debate.  I’m wondering what a candidate really needs to say at this point, less than a month away from decision day, to grab their vote.

By now, surely we know what we want and what we don’t.  By now, surely we know where we stand on the issues.  And by now, surely we should be dropping all of the smokescreens and non-issues to focus on what’s really important to the country.

Do you really need more “that one” moments by now?