Contrary to the myths that get tossed about by campaign staff and politicians behind in the polls, I’m looking forward to the next change of administration. Not because I’m in a cult, attracted to celebrity or am anything close to delusional. hell, I don’t even believe the guy i plan to vote for will be able to achieve much more than half of his ambitious agenda.

It’s a low bar to hurdle to be better than the last president. Why do you think the oldest candidate in 232 years is running? A guy on a lounge chair on a cruise ship who naps all day could outperform the current president.

I’m enthused because I’m certain we can get someone better than we’ve had in decades. I’ve been voting for 34 years and this will be the 36th year since my first presidential vote. And this time, I think we’re going to have a president better than any in that time.

A pragmatist. Compare that to the opposition whose party has:

- chosen 7 of 9 Supreme Court justices, 60% of federal appeals court judges and blames Democrats for the court being too liberal.

- utilized every trick and every fear available to subsidize the record breaking profits of Big Oil, including the latest round, which includes suspending federal gas taxes last summer (which would have given most car owners a $28 savings), increase offshore drilling so the oil companies can sell that oil to other countries, opposing Democratic initiatives to pass a windfall profits tax on Big Oil then selling their vice presidential candidate as someone who passed a windfall profits tax on Big Oil. That has the flopsweat smell of a party acting out of desperation.

- has been beaten in the presidential popular vote tally in 3 of the last 4 elections.

- fallen further and further behind in attracting the majority demographic in America: women. Their latest ploy in that regards is aptly defined by Gloria Steinem:

Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing — the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party — are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women — and to many men too — who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the “white-male-only” sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won’t work. This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

Read the entire article to better gauge her pragmatic outlook, too.

In 2006, I predicted the women’s vote would swing several close elections and put Congress back into the hands of a Democratic majority. I’ll add a fresh prediction: John McCain will pull a smaller percentage of women voters than Bush did in 2004. That’s a no-brainer, despite what the pundits are saying today about his VP pick. Apparently, they’ve been wowed by the notion that an extreme rightwinger can carry a speech at a convention of rightwing extremists without stumbling over words with two or more syllables. While wearing pearls.

It doesn’t take much to get some folks excited, I guess.

Having rural roots myself, I’m completely familiar with folks who hunt, farm, slaughter farm and game animals, use snowmobiles for work and recreation, raise multi-children families, attend church regularly, hold elective office and perform admirably, with several in military service in every major American war except the Korean War. And out of my 6 pairs of uncles and aunts, my parents, their parents, my siblings and cousins, for some odd reason, between 90% and 95% of the time, they’ve voted for Democrats for federal offices. And the surviving ones are enthused about the Democratic ticket for the White House this year.

These aren’t people sold on lofty rhetoric, tax-raisers, living on the public dole, weak defense strategies and few were particularly progressive on matters like Civil Rights for black, Latino or gay Americans. They have and will continue to help out their neighbors, however, including the black, Latino and gay ones, as readily as any other neighbors.

Had John McCain put Olympia Snowe on his ticket or a couple of others less extreme with substantive records of accomplishment as public servants, they certainly would have taken a second look. They just aren’t easily fooled by someone who slashes education budgets for special needs children while claiming to support special needs children because they recently got one of their own.

From my 84 year old mother to cousins, siblings, inlaws and daughters, in Oregon, Florida, rural New York and Massachusetts, my polling indicates 15 of those women will vote for Obama, 1 for McCain and 1 remains undecided. Not one has changed to McCain because of his VP pick. In fact, two shifted to Obama because of that choice.

It’s tempting to get discouraged if one gets tunnel-visioned watching an extremist opposition at their quadrennial party or listen too much to the overly comfortable Beltway news punditry extol the virtues of those who’ll advance their stock portfolios. But if you listen to voices urban and rural, from families with incomes of $150,000 or less, the sounds remain the same as they have for the past three years: they want a good economy back, they want our troops back from Iraq, they want a sensible foreign policy back and they want their government out of the hands of extremists.

And women will be the decisive demographic deciding this election once again. Despite the bruising primary. Despite the desperate gambles of a campaign struggling to remain relevant to the needs and aspirations of a stressed electorate. Despite the standard fluctuations of polls. Even the desperate effort by Big Oil to get gas prices down to $3/gallon to aid their favorite son/grandfather has produced no sustained increase of support for the Republican ticket.

Because it’s really not about McCain and Palin or Obama and Biden. It’s about us and our financial uncertainties, our failing infrastructure, our nearly exhausted troops, our dreams for our daughters and sons. That’s not a call for more extremism but the moderation of the extremism that’s worn out its welcome.

For 12 of 16 years, there’s been a Republican Senate. For 10 of 16 years there’s been a Republican House. 77% of the Supreme Court was chosen by Republicans. The only place there’s been any balance has been in the White House.

Compare the economy of the Nineties to our past 8 years. Consider the losses of more citizens on 9/11 and during a major national disaster than anything anyone alive can recall. Consider more troops dead than the last 5 presidents combined have caused, the veterans’ hospital scandals, the underequipping of our troops, the fight to advance the GI Bill.

Those realities won’t be hidden in the memory come November by the glitz of either convention, or snowed under by rhetorical skill or false ads. In comfortable times, voters can be snowed under with stupid campaign tricks. These aren’t those comfortable times.