[Edratman]

Many well written and thought provoking posts in this thread. Thank you all. It is a demonstration, that this game appeals to a bright and intelligent set of gamers.

I believe that is a significent factor in the substantial lead Obama has in this very small poll. I am referring to the Republican party's demonizing of intellectuals and pandering to "Joe Six-Pack" as a new definiton of the line seperating loyal Americans and (I am not sure what we are in that definiton; terrorists, socialist, dis-loyal Americans?).

While I do think the line defining intellectuals would have to be lowered and blurred quite a bit to include me, I am for sure a well-read, open minded, thoughtful and learned chap who considers himself branded as outside the Republican definition of a true and loyal American.

And that bothers me beyond description. Primarily because I think of myself as someone with a foot on both sides of the line between blue-collar and white-collar. I was raised in a lower middle class, urban, ethnic family, attended college, not by choice but really because it was the dream of my parents and grandparents that my generation would go to college.

My career is in manufacturing management, but I am very pro-union and an out spoken critic of corporate abuse of the working man. My beverage of choice is beer and I am very capable with my hands. That pretty much sums up my adherence to the Democratic party.

But it appears to me that the Republicans realized that they needed traditional Democratic supporters to achieve a plurality and they concocted a plan to achieve this objective. Yet many components of this plan are divisive, hateful and demeaning to many of the people in the classification that they wished to appeal to. On the other hand, it was successful enough to seperate adequate numbers of voters from the herd to achieve their objective.

I personally felt alienated and demonized. So I am voting, not for Obama (I do think he will do a very fine job), but against the Republican hate machine. I would vote for a yellow dog if it was running against a Republican hate monger and I also hear the echoes on 1930's Germany in the Republican "message".