Memories of Election 2008

We need to exercise T-Steel’s new and improved comment section, so I was wondering what all of our readers’ favorite and least favorite moments from the campaign trail were during the endless election of 2008. To add to the difficulty factor, let’s disqualify election night as your favorite if you supported Obama or your least favorite if you supported McCain, Barr or anyone else. That’s too easy. So what were the high and low points for you?

For high points, though I didn’t support him (and I know how trite it sounds to all of my more conservative friends) I will include President Obama’s speech on Jan. 8, 2008 in Nashua, New Hampshire. It was the famous “Yes we can” speech and I will confess that I had waited a long time to hear a politician who could move a crowd in that way and connect with the voters. (You can watch it again here.)

I will also include the day when Bob Barr won court battles in three states in 24 hours to get an independent, third party voice on the ballot, though state Republican parties were fighting hard to keep him off.

For the low points, I would include the second half of the first presidential debate when I watched John McCain seem to fall apart on stage. They were discussing the economy and I felt that McCain really had built the more solid set of proposals for an economic platform, but he just seemed tired. Obama’s strength as a speaker seemed to simply wear him out and it was kind of painful to watch.

The other low point was probably when the media (at least certain segments of it) latched on to the so-called “Whitey Tape” alleging that Michelle Obama had made certainly racially charged comments. The tape, of course, turned out to be complete fiction, but it at least briefly pivoted the campaign trail and the online communities into one of the uglier mudpits we saw during the entire affair.

So, give us your best and worst moments of the campaign. What really lifted your spirits and what made you want to pack it all in and call it a day?