Evangelicals have no monopoly on the use of the word “Christian”.

That’s the first thing that should be clear.

However, George Bush didn’t really follow the “Christians” too much. Neo-conservative policies were not about banning abortion, making homosexuality illegal, or teaching religion in science class. Those are the key positions of the Evangelicals and George Bush didn’t pay much attention to any of them.

Sarah Palin is a different animal though. Having heard her way of making sure not to be seen as a Creationist, I cannot say that I trusted her not to try to introduce religion as a science (or to understand why science is not religion).

George Bush’s policies in the middle east certainly did not support the homophobes and Creationists of the region.

People are now looking for excuses for why the Republicans did so badly.

Here are mine:

1. The selection of Sarah Palin as vice-presidential candidate was supposed to shut up Republican opposition to John McCain and unfortunately rallied his opponents among Democrats instead. (I have heard few people actually say that there was something deeply wrong with John McCain. Everyone seems to respect him, even in Europe.)

2. The media loved Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton and John McCain had to suffer for it.

3. The media never did report about the situation in the middle east outside Israel and post-2003 Iraq. Nobody knew what kind of regime George Bush replaced, what Arab governments did and do to minorities (outside of Jews in “Palestine”), and what George Bush did in Sudan. According to the view one gets from the media Israel is a hotbed of violence in the middle east and the only place worse is Iraq since 2003. Both are simply not true and if people realised it, George Bush’s policies look quite different.

4. Obama outspent McCain. The “rich boys” simply outspent the poor dudes. Popular opinion is that Republicans represent “the rich” while Democrats represent “the poor” (and downtrodden). In reality Democrats have the support of many of the super-rich and powerful and Republicans represent the common people in the mid-west. Because of popular belief Obama outspending McCain was seen as a miracle rather than buying an election. And despite reports about Sarah Palin’s massive spending on costumes (Sarah Palin spend too much money on cloths, Michelle Obama always looked nice; that was how the media put it. Both are true.) she was actually of the three the one with the closest to a normal income.

McCain was simply too sane for many Republicans just like Hillary Clinton was too sane for many Democrats.

When the primaries started I didn’t think that extremists like the crazy uncle (the only man who can save America, Ron Paul) or the Messiah (Obama) could make it. But while the Republicans had their weirdo shield switched on, the Democrats did not.

And there we are.

Luckily Obama’s positions seem to be changing by the minute and he miraculously turned from a left-wing extremist with a hatred for certain races into a president who will most likely not withdraw from Iraq and who now has advisors like Colin Powell and Rahm Emanuel, which makes me feel a lot safer.

At this rate, in time, he will probably see why America invaded Iraq and will use the opportunity to sponsor a peace agreement between Israel and the PLO (which Hamas will hate) that Arabs might actually support.

He has two advantages that former presidents didn’t have: Someone removed the PLO’s last powerful supporter from power for him, and the terrorists celebrated him as their saviour and will find it difficult to explain now that he might protect Israel instead.

I wish him the best of luck in Afghanistan and Pakistan (why not attack Pakistan if they shelter terrorists, he has a point).

But what will he do about Iran and Syria?

It would be nice if Obama did something about the mad Saudis. George Bush, I understand, had excellent business connections with them. Obama might be more independent.

I don’t know if there is a “Zionist lobby” in Washington (outside the people who keep telling the President that middle-eastern Jews should have a right to remain alive, even if the Arabs screams “death to the Jews”), but there sure is a Saudi lobby.

Here’s hoping that Condi Rice will run in four years and change half-black and half-white Obama from the first black President into the last white President for eight years!