More afraid for Obama

I have just watched the last of the US Presidential election debates. It was halfway through when I caught it on CNN. Among the first things that interested me during the debate telecast was that while the two American presidentiables exchanged fiery notes on the most pressing election issues, breaking news were being flashed on screen about markets all over the world tumbling one after the other. The bulletins were reporting mostly Asian markets including the Philippines, as these parts of the world were going through their first hours of trading while the presidential debate was going on. The tumbling of markets would later follow daylight as it moves around the globe.

No, the negative trading was not caused by the presidential debate; but by a larger paranoia about worldwide recession. Why the paranoia? Beats me.

But I can tell you my own paranoia after watching the final Obama-McCain head-to-head tussle. I have become more afraid for Senator Barack Obama. Yes, for Obama, not of. The Democratic candidate won the debate, again. And by the looks of it -- polls, both US and global, would indicate -- he is poised, now better than ever, to become the next president of the most powerful nation in the known universe.

Now, if you are a Republican, an ultra-Republican at that, say a member of NRA (yes, the National Rifle Association, descendants of the Ku Klux Klan who burned colored people at the stakes), or an ultra-rightist super-Conservative who, throughout the election campaign, has thrown every nasty thing into the campaign arena and has branded Obama a communist and a terrorist; what would you do? Dig deeper into your campaign kitty (read: kaban ng bayan), say "Hello, Garci" and buy 1 million votes?

Have I been watching too many Hollywood movies? Call me paranoid. I am.