Memo to Obama Camp: Ask The Damn Question

So far, I haven't heard the Obama campaign ask The Damn Question.

You know the question: The one question politicians are afraid to ask when they're running because they're afraid it will be turned back on them when they're in office.

You know the question:

"Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?"

Or, in the case of this failed Bush administration, "Are you better off under W than you were under the Bill?"

Somehow, we've allowed the country to lose focus of what's at stake: Four more years of being on the wrong track.

The Bush administration has failed this country domestically, internationally, environmentally, you name it. And people forget that we're not just electing a president (or vice president, for that matter), we're also electing a party. The likelihood that McCain won't drag back into office more Republican ideologues? Not high. Not high at all. Idealogues who paint Democrats as tax-and-spend liberals and then run up deficits and national debt. Idealogues who don't want to leave until there's victory in Iraq, but haven't defined what victory is. Idealogues who are just now accepting that global warming is for real. Idealogues who would invade Iran at the drop of a hat, or rather, at the hint of weapons of mass destruction (Oh, by the way, where are those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, anyway?)

And personally, I'm tired of our nation being governed by "likeable" but average/stupid people. Yep, W may be likeable enough, but that's not a qualification for the job. Intelligence is. Good judgment is. The ability to work with Congress is. Not whether you can thow back a few beers or dress a moose. Or, in the case of Cheney, shoot your friends on a hunting trip.

I don't think any C student should labor under the misperception that he or she can be President of the United States. It should be a job reserved for the most intelligent among us, not the most likeable. Too much is at stake. Did W know that Russia would eventually invade Georgia (Gov. Palin: That would be the former Soviet bloc country, not the state south of the Mason-Dixon line) when he "looked into Putin's soul?" I don't want a soul-looking president; I want a president who is sharp enought to assemble sharp enough staff to provide good intelligence briefings that are actually paid attention to (that means you, Condi Rice).

Average, likeable people don't belong in the White House. They belong in the shoe department at Macy's.

So, Obama Camp, you've brought us supporters too far to eff up now by being silent.

Ask the Damn Question.