Election 2008: The Vote For The Most Strange

In every Presidential election there are some images that we remember. Images that have been captured by the media during the heat of the campaign.

Often, these images make us wonder why any sane person would run for political office. Certainly, these images show an absence of common sense and behavior difficult for most of us to explain.

Indeed, there are many examples of bad taste in the 2008 Presidential election campaign. Still, here is my vote for the top five things that will be remembered for a lack of good judgement and even as down right strange.

1. In July, The New Yorker had a picture of what it called a "satire" of Michelle and Barack Obama on its front cover. The "satire" magazine cover showed the Oval Office with Barack Obama as a tribal African. Michelle Obama was depicted in an afro-hairdo with a machine gun.

A picture of Osama Bin Laden was displayed on the wall and an American flag was on fire. Exactly, what was the editor thinking to allow the magazine to publish this picture?

2. Recently, Al Franken, who is not a credible candidate for the Senate but is running even with his opponent, Norm Coleman, was shown as a cartoon character, sticking out his tongue and wearing a beanie in a recent partisan Republican mailing. What ever happened to winning with new ideas in political election campaigns?

3. A Halloween display of Sarah Palin hung in effigy and John McCain emerging from a chimney in flames. These images courtesy of a West Hollywood couple were disturbing, misguided, and pretty strange. It just shows that in America, one man's hate crime could well be another man's Hollywood design.

4. A McCain campaign worker that pretends to be the victim of an attack by an Obama supporter at an ATM. She cuts a backwards B into her cheek in a vain attempt to give credit to her false claim. She was charged for filing a false police report for her deception and cheeky crime of physical pain.

5. A final example of the strange in Election 2008 comes from a quartet of young women in Brooklyn. They are pictured in a poster under the heading "Girls Say Yes to boys who say Obama".

Indeed, it's a poster that exists as an acknowledgement of the "dumbing down" of American society. Certainly, a poster that said "Girls say yes we can, to boys who say Obama" would have been far more appropriate in this strange election year.