Why Obama will win...

Obama is more media-friendly, specifically internet-savvy. He owns the youth vote (I've read up to 92% of young voters in urban centers), and one could argue he's younger and resonates with the youth better than McCain. I would drill down deeper and say he had better technical advisors, leveraging the internet to his benefit, while McCain ran a more traditional campaign. McCain is out of touch with America and especially the youth.

As a proponent of technology, I may be overstating its role in this election, but I could also make a very compelling argument that the US defeated the USSR in the cold war because of our smart investments in technology. Due to our capitalist system, we were able to launch smarter, more powerful weapons of destruction. How? The transistor, the precursor to today's high-intellectual content of semiconductors. Russia had a huge lead on us in Physics (they were first to launch humans into space, for instance), but our country fostered an environment conducive to innovation, as we allowed Moore's Law to produce smaller, faster, and most importantly, cheaper processing power. Hence, our bombs and missiles were more precise. We not only outspent the Russians, we were more precise in our investments. They had to inevitably declare "Uncle"--we tapped them out.

While they were playing around with glass tubes, Intel was busy producing CPU's cheap enough and powerful enough to house more processing power in one chip than in a whole Univac machine back in the day.

Much like the former Soviet Union, McCain never had a chance. The problem is whether we learn from our "win", because Russia and the rest of the eastern Europe certainly has learned from their "loss".

We need to keep developing the next great mousetraps, whether it's in nanotechnology, a cancer cure, genetic bio-indicators of disease, sustainable technology ("greening" our ecosystem), etc. We not only have to make things smaller, faster, and cheaper, but we also need to make them consume less power.

Who stands to benefit from this? Buy Intel. They've created a moat around their business, continually road-killing potential competitors. Their huge market capitalization makes them an unlikely 25% gainer per anum, but it's a play on America's future.

The market may tank more short- and mid-term, but when the dust is settled, Intel will be standing. No one else can power your laptop like Intel can. Of course, please consult your investment advisor, as any investment has risk. This is not a solicitation to purchase stock. This is just what I've done personally, as I hope to live another 40 years. As a non-real estate professional, certain areas seem pretty cheap long-term also. Not sure where the bottom is, but I would hope we're close to it. Although, hope is no strategy.