Yeah. Not so much.
I was honestly a little worried. Here we are, some 3 weeks away from the election and the new hope for progressives like myself: Barack Obama, has a promising lead over John McCain - a man who has become analogous with the Bush administration and the neoconservative social club that has controlled our country for the last 8 years. No, you don't even want to whisper about confidence, let alone planning for the future - but bipartisan voter stat website fivethirtyeight.com has Obama's winning percentage at 95.1%. Yeah son.
Any sports fan is familiar with the idea of an 'upset' - when two teams face off, people make predictions using complex stats to predict who's probably going to win and lose. When the 'underdog' comes onto the field and promptly destroys the favorite in front of an entire fanbase of crushed, confused people, you've got an upset! Sometimes (like the MLB 2004 ALCS game 4. fuck that game.) the team is so favored to win, that they go and cover the locker room with giant sheets of plastic to protect the room from the impending champagne showers. Surely, at the end of this game, there will be our team, shouting and wailing victory, blasting corks and sending streams of champagne over every teammate and all over the fucking room. Nope, instead, you're the loser, and all that victory preparation - the booze, the plastic, the championship t-shirts and hats that will now be donated to poor kids in third world countries - just makes it burn that much more.
So I'm worried. Worried that for some forsaken reason, on November 4th, there might be an upset. That some unseen, nefarious minion a la Karl Rove has had his plan cooking all along, and that maybe 2 days before the election, they decide to unveil some critical evidence, some calculated influence that just sends the swing voters into some vicious frenzy of reckoning, where they coalesce into an angry mob and finally push the election into the favor of the old white guy and his caricature prop of a running mate. It will be something irrelevant and low brow, it will be something that speaks to the 'values of America' - it will be something that plays on the reptilian brain response, something that will be designed for immediate effect and maybe not seem like such a big deal in hindsight. Give them a headline, a piece of gossip, a dirty allegation - JUST at the right moment, and nothing that has been said or done over the last 20 months of either campaign will matter one fucking bit.
Why is it that American citizens so often vote on the who the person is and not what the person has done or wants to do? The choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate is evidence that this is the known game plan - the Republican voter base cheered when she was introduced, no one knew a thing about her or her experience or policies yet everyone was immediately transfixed - people could relate to her and her hockey mom bullshit. She made people feel as if anyone could be president ... and this is a good thing? Look... i don't know about you, but i don't want anyone to be president. I'll go back to the sports thing: You've always wanted to be the hero at the plate for your favorite team, late in a game, trailing with a chance to win with a single swing of the bat - but if the team really WAS in that situation, who would you really rather have at the plate - your team's MVP? or some asshole that reminds you of you?
Rolling Stones' Matt Taibbi summed it up quite nicely in his piece Mad Dog Palin:
"And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she’s a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin’ Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else’s, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning."
I shouldn't be surprised really. Isn't this our society? Its all about who you are right? I mean who you are in the rhetorical sense: your personality, the way you talk, your appearance, your charisma. Now - what you do, what you stand for and what you've accomplished have very little to do with who you are - on the contrary - even if these important details stand to nullify or disprove some part of the general perception of who you are, it doesn't seem to do much to improve that perception. People are painted in stereotypes and generalizations. For these two presidential candidates, it's by enormous media conglomerates and political punditry. For everyone else, we let things like the clothes we wear, books we read (well some of us), and music we listen to dictate our identity and override our true behavior. Coming to identify a fellow human with your characteristics seems to be a social insurance, a mechanism for dealing with cognitive dissonance. Reinforce what you believe by surrounding yourself with the same identities - even if its going to be bad for you - and try not to think about what it might be like on the other side, so to speak. I can't tell you the frequency I see people together, FRIENDS or significant others treating each other dishonestly or disrespectfully - and continue to do so because they seem more committed to feeling a sense of similarity and validation instead of taking a chance outside of what they know or what they normally experience.
A black man as president? That's pretty new, too new for most Americans and I'll say that if we weren't undergoing this current economic clusterfuck, I doubt Obama would have the lead. Without the crash, we'd all still be talking about Sarah Palin, and wondering just how another election was going to be won on some bullshit that doesn't really matter. I think the idea of a liberal in the white house is enough to send most of the right wing middle American base into fits of denial - a black guy with a funny sounding name might just force them into some terrible angry mob. This is the dangerous stuff, when logic and reason cease to apply and all that's left is a bunch of scared people who do not understand how this happened. An entire generation of people have grown up in this society over the last 8 years and they don't know anything different. Even the actions of Bill Clinton in the previous 8 years saw essentially the same trends - just substitute the privileged, moronic, bible beating puppet with a privileged saxophone playing smooth talking adulterous puppet.
What I like about Obama isn't that he's a black guy or that hes a liberal - what I like about Obama is exactly what his campaign slogan claims to bring: Change. Not change in the sense of we've had a republican and now I want a democrat. I mean change in the sense that Obama isn't from the same upper class yacht club as the Bushes, Clintons, McCains and Kerrys - No more Liebermans, no Romneys, hell - I don't even want any more Kennedys. What I want is a new leadership that has very little ties to the culture of entitlement and elitism that comes with being born into wealthy old money families, people who had daddies and grand daddies in politics, people who don't owe any favors to benefactors and brothers or cousins expecting nepotistic favors. I'm sick and tired of seeing this same tired phony clique run this country the same way its always been run. I think the suits on Capitol Hill and Wall St fear this change very much, they fear that now they will not have the free pass that they've had all along, no more unrestricted, unregulated growth, no more legal loopholes and a system that blatantly favors the wealthy and pisses on the working man. Time for the big guys to sweat just as much as the little guy.
But I'm still worried, because i know that only in this country - a man like Obama - who is seeking to do more for the blue collar middle American than any president since Carter, can still be perceived with venom, fear and spite - all from a perception that's been propagated by a media industry that is more concerned with viewer ratings and protecting the interests of their sponsors than delivering objective journalism. It doesn't take much to push people to vicious acts - and we've seen the old guard resort to any means necessary to stay in control, all we can do is wait with baited breath.
I dare not whisper confidence about November 4. I'm not going to buy the champagne - but if dawn comes on November 5th and Barack Obama is our president - you better believe I'm going to have one hell of a Freixenet hangover on November 6th.
