Does it Really Matter?

I don't want to be one of those political pessimists but as my morning viewing of the Today Show was interrupted once every hour to "break" the news of John McCain's pick, I started to get annoyed.

The American process for picking a President is a reality T.V. show and nothing more. Before this new season started everybody already had their favorite. If your favorite got voted off the island then you moved on to a new favorite and more than likely you sit in one of two categories. 1. You are going vote along party lines regardless of the person or, 2. You are going to waste your vote and vote Libertarian. Either of these voting tactics is perfectly fine with me as I am completely convinced that voting is actually a waste of time. I also say this as someone that plans on voting. It doesn't make any sense. I know. But outside of my own personal confliction, what I don't understand is why so many people seem to pay so much attention to this part of the campaign. I mean most of us decided months ago who we were going to vote for.

Does Obama delivering an amazing speech at the DNC really make someone sitting on the fence say, "Yeah, that was awesome, he's my guy?" I doubt it. Obama has delivered a ton of great speeches at this point. All of them slightly different, mostly the same, all pretty entertaining. He's a great speaker, but with the exception of W, this is generally at least a minor pre-req for running for office.

McCain picked a woman as his running mate. Big freaking deal. I don't see how this could possibly make any women out there suddenly decide that John McCain is her guy. He likes women, he is married. The woman he picked (I don't remember her name. I also don't care.) is the Governor of Alaska so clearly she is very accomplished. I mean that as a compliment, not as an insult on Alaska. So she seems as good of a choice as any, as well as a good play to combat Obama's unique minority appeal.

I just can't for the life of me see how any of the theatrics at this point really sway anyone in either direction. I love reality T.V. as much as the next person and for me, that's all this Presidential race is, entertainment, that I am doing a poor job of trying to ignore.