Why I’m PUMA

I am a PUMA today for the exact same reason I went looking to become something that didn’t yet exist on May 31, 2008; I object to the manner in which Barack Obama became my president.  And nothing I’ve seen before or since has mitigated that essential truth in the slightest, in fact, the more I see of the way he operates, the more upset I get.  Barack Obama offends my sense of fair play.  From what I’ve been able to determine through my research of him, he has pushed the against “da roolz” envelope in every contested election he’s won.  Though he cannot be accused of outright cheating, he has built his entire pseudo-impressive career out of finding obscure loopholes to screw to his orgasm, thereby raping the process to his pleasure and advantage.

As has been extensively chronicled, in 1996, Obama won his first election to the Illinois Senate by contesting the voting petition signatures gathered for all of his challengers, getting them all disqualified, and running unopposed.   Before he could complete his second term of office, after winning re-election in 1998 over African American Republican Yesse Yehudah (whose name later emerged in Obama bribery allegations) he mounted a disastrous 2000 campaign for sitting Congressman Bobby Rush‘s seat, who beat the pants off him like he was a red-headed stepchild, by playing his “my black card on the table trumps the Uppity Magic Negro card up your sleeve.”   It worked, and Obama never let that happen again.

Given Illinois’ convoluted system regarding Senate terms…

Every Senate district elects its members to serve two four-year terms and one two-year term per decade.

…and Obama’s predilection for reticence, the details regarding his Illinois Senate runs are rather sketchy.  However, considering that his opponent in  1998, Yehuda, won approx. 10% of the vote, and that in 2002 he ran unopposed, its safe to assume that, for some reason, Obama’s re-elections were basically a rubber-stamp formality.  Curiously, Wikipedia mentions that Obama was re-elected to the Illinois senate in 2002, presumably in November, yet numerous sources report that he had already begun preparing for a run at the U.S. Senate by June of that year.  From the Boston Globe:

In mid-2002, Obama began to focus on the upcoming US Senate race. The incumbent, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, seemed beatable, and it was not clear Carol Moseley Braun, who had held the seat before Fitzgerald, would try to reclaim it. Obama and his wife made a deal: This would be, as his wife puts it now, “the last hurrah.”

And, from a Chicago Maroon piece written July 12, 2002:

Democratic State Senator and University Law School Senior Lecturer Barack Obama has begun assessing his chances in the 2004 US senate race. Obama has commissioned a statewide poll by the Colorado firm Harstad Strategic Research, and he has filed for federal permission to begin fundraising. Obama will have to win the democratic primary in order to face incumbent Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald in ’04.

Note the article from 2002 refers to Obama as a “Senior Lecturer” not “professor,” as he has claimed to be; a claim which was backed up, but “nuanced” (their word, not mine)  by Fact Check.org via the University of Chicago.  Another example of Obama’s fondness for “nuance”regards his now, much bally-hooed, then, largely ignored, unfilmed, 2002 Iraq war speech:

“My objections to the war in Iraq were not simply a speech,” Obama said. “I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war.” (Obama delivered the speech in October 2002; he did not officially declare his candidacy for the U.S. Senate until January).

Even in this era of YouTube and camera phones, a recording of Obama’s speech is all but impossible to find. The Obama campaign has gone so far as to re-create portions of the speech for a television ad, with the candidate re-reading the text, with audience sound effects.

So, according to the above article from NPR, this cornerstone and centerpiece of Obama’s presidential campaign was actually an insignificant speech delivered to about 1,000 people by a little known guy running unopposed for the state Senate, at somebody else’s (Jesse Jackson) rally.    Even Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, has admitted as much.   Quoted in the New York Times Caucus blog lamenting the lack of recorded Iraq war speech material:

“I would kill for that,” he was quoted as saying. “No one realized at the time that it would be a historic thing.”

Similar “nuance” marks the man’s entire biography, yet he has somehow managed to create the illusion of transparency.  When David Axelrod joined (became) Obama’s team in 2004, the elements of Obama’s new, “I am, too, black enough, but not too black, just short of under-handed envelope pushing” political philosophy began to successfully knit themselves  together.  On his AKP&D Message and Media website, “the Axe” takes his full share of credit:

In 2004, Axelrod helped State Senator Barack Obama score a landslide win in his U.S. Senate campaign, developing a message and media strategy that enabled Obama to defeat six opponents in the Democratic primary with an astounding 53% of the vote. He is currently serving as media advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.

Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate as the second African American to do so from Illinois, amid scandal.  In fact, from the scandal surrounding Congressman Mel Reynolds in his first state Senate bid, to his predecessor Carol Mosely Braun‘s legal troubles, to the fortuitous (for him) scandal and gossip swirling around two of his opponents in his U.S. Senate race that caused them to drop out, to the current Blagojevich brouhaha, somebody in Illinois is always getting into trouble for something that often ultimately benefits Obama, that he’s miraculously never really otherwise affected by.

The divorce records of Obama’s leading primary opponent in 2004, Blair Hull, as well as those of his Republican opponent Jack Ryan were not-so-mysteriously leaked to the Chicago Tribune, (given David Axelrod‘s previous association with the newspaper) sinking their chances.  Obama/Axelrod could then employ their newly developed “blacker than thou” techniques against last minute, carpetbagging replacement Republican candidate, Alan Keyes, sweeping to victory.

In the presidential primaries, Camp Obama again pushed “da roolz” envelope to their advantage.  From the exploitation of delegate appropriation in the caucuses, to the active solicitation of “anybody but Hillary” Republican and Independent temporary crossover voting, to the deliberate, yet unnecessary, removal of his name in the Michigan primary, something he was forbidden to do in Florida,  Obama consistently pimped the process.  With the complicity of the DNC, the mainstream media and the faux progressive blogosphere, who rewarded, celebrated, and championed his every questionable move, he barely squeaked by enough to be ceremoniously handed the nomination, “fair and square.”  Those of us in his party who questioned his experience, qualifications, and tactics were belittled, bullied, and ridiculed when we couldn’t be ignored, as the Obama campaign and the DNC turned their heads and allowed his minions in the media and blogosphere to engage in misogynistic race baiting on his behalf.  None of which dampened our outrage in the slightest, in fact, as most any fool besides these would expect, the opposite is true.

Wickedly delightful, completely non-politically correct author Christopher Moore has brilliantly analyzed and explained the concept of “Beta Male” in much of his work.  While I recommend you read his books for yourself, and cannot presume to speak for him, the basic point, as I perceive it, is that the world is populated by far more Beta Males than Alpha, yet they tend to fade into the background of life because they’re…well…Beta.  Moore hilariously champions their cause.  Yet, as a female, I have a couple of observations about the concept of my own.  One, Alpha Male is not all it’s cracked up to be.  Basically, it just means “first guy through the door.”   While a man’s looks, wealth, education, whatever, might contribute to his cockiness, the bottom line is, it’s the cocksure confidence he exhibits that women and Beta Males respond to, often to their detriment.  Because, there’s no guarantee that the Alpha Male is the smartest, or best qualified guy in any group, he’s just compelled to go first.  This is not always a good thing for him, or the group, after all, the first bull off the cliff in a buffalo jump was probably an Alpha Male, too.

Secondly, not all Alpha Males are created equal.  Primarily because, not all male tribal affiliations, teams, clubs, cliques, squads, etc., are.  True, there are Alpha Males in Alpha Male societies, but even Beta, Gamma, Delta, Theta and Omega groups have Alpha Males, too.  And while those lesser Alphas might not fare well in clubs higher up on the food chain, in their little domains, they rock.

Barack Obama is not an Alpha Male, even in a Tau society.  He is an actor, adept at adopting the persona of an Alpha, (when he stays on script) but even then, only as top dog of a Gamma society, at best.  Therefore, his campaign, comprised of refugees from Revenge of the Nerds, had to be equally adept at crafting a message designed to dumb down the masses, get them to accept and embrace their Gamma society identity, so that they could then embrace their Gamma society Alpha Male leader.  “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” conjures images of clueless hordes standing around idly, with their fingers in their noses and their thumbs up their asses, waiting for somebody smart to come along and tell them where to go and what to do.  Barack Obama is that somebody, for those people.

I don’t want a nerdy fake-Alpha Male president of a Gamma society.  America is better than that.  I don’t want a president who gleefully resorts to racially guilt tripping a largely innocent society into voting for him so that they might avoid the undeserved lash of the stigma of racism, while the minority of the majority who are real racists, escape unscathed.  I want a level playing field.  I want the best man to not only have a shot, I want him to win, even if the best man is a woman.  I don’t care if state houses and government buildings have to add stalls to the ladies’ rooms to accommodate an arbitrarily mandated quota any more than I want any old black guy to be appointed or elected just because he’s black.  If the best government of the people ends up being comprised of an unusually large percentage of third world immigrants, Munchkins, and Buddhist transvestites, so be it.  I want to work for a world where those things don’t matter, not live in a country where we agree to pretend they don’t against any and all evidence to the contrary.

I don’t want to have to be political about being political, to activate and agitate society for my right to participate in it.  Why should I still be burning my bra and raising my fist, even in this era of “historic accomplishment?”  Why should I co-sign the tactics of a group of “win at all costs, by any means necessary” rulebook waving, loophole screwing, process rapists, hellbent on blackmailing the country into validating their Beta Male in a Gamma society  twerpitude?  What’s wonderful enough to celebrate about the election of a black Alpha Male of a society that has to tacitly agree to Gamma-fy itself in order to elect him?  Especially when there was an imminently qualified, female Alpha Male in the race, one who actually had to fight her way out of the shadows of a bona fide Alpha?

I thought leveling the playing field, championing the cause of the little guy, real dedication to fair play, and social responsibility in a color blind, gender neutral country was what being a Democrat was all about.

I found out through this election that I was wrong.

That’s why I am no longer affiliated with any political party.

That is why I’m PUMA.