Wow. This presidential election season has it all. You’ve got dueling rock star candidates, a historically unpopular president, the Clintonian drama, financial meltdowns and a one-time maverick who sold his soul eight years ago, but of course will never admit it.
And the latest is that the same candidate – John McCain – who is now getting pummeled in the polls due to his party’s role in the deepening financial crisis (and his own seeming disconnect from the depth of the pain), now plans to 'suspend his campaign' to work on the Wall Street Bailout plan. Yeah, I am sure that’s not political spin. More like, keep throwing ‘Hail Mary’ passes in hopes of the big touchdown score.
When you net it out, however, this election is about which vision of our political future prevails. Do we continue to embrace the politics of ‘fear and division?’ Or do we aim higher and embrace the politics of ‘hope and unity?’
To be clear, it’s not a black and white decision, and obviously there are a lot of underlying social, economic and global world views that go into how we as individuals opt to place our vote.
It is shaped by whether you view the next four years as needing to materially depart from the past eight years or if you don’t.
Some of that is colored by whether you look at McCain’s veep selection as bringing in a fresh, original outsider to ‘change Washington’ or view it more darkly, as, “the first pure Rovian Republican (i.e., Karl Rove), grown totally in the petri dish of cultural crusaderism,” as Maureen Dowd aptly puts it.
Some of that is further framed by whether you see McCain's surprise VP choice, his sudden decision to suspend his campaign and spontaneous pronouncement that he would fire the head of the SEC (a week after saying that the economy is fine) as examples of the old Maverick in action, or as proof positive of a desperate, reckless, shoot from the hipster.
As the final credits approach on this election season, one particularly interesting question is whether old media ‘grows a pair’ (euphemistically speaking), and is relevant to the narrative that shapes these final days, or once again allows themselves to be bullied into submission, as will be their legacy during the Bush administration.
One final note on the topic of division versus unity. Part of Obama’s vulnerability is a by-product of a continued division within his own party, the flames of which are not so subtly kept burning by the always self-dealing Clintons. Consider this excerpt from Dowd's 'Park Avenue Diplomacy' in yesterday’s The New York Times:
Even if she (Sarah Palin) blows off the First Amendment — and lets McCain’s Rove, Steve Schmidt, demonize the press even though she disdains women politicians who whine — Bill Clinton is still a fan.
Besides talking about what a great man John McCain is on “The View” and “David Letterman,” Bill praised Palin at his Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York and will receive her there on Thursday.
“I come from Arkansas. I get why she is hot out there,” he said authoritatively, adding: “People look at her, and they say, ‘All those kids. Something that happens in everybody’s family. I’m glad she loves her daughter and she’s not ashamed of her. Glad that girl’s going around with her boyfriend. Glad they’re going to get married.’ ” He said voters would think: “I like that little Down syndrome kid. One of them lives down the street. They’re wonderful. ... And I like the idea that this guy does those long-distance races. Stayed in the race for 500 miles with a broken arm. My kind of guy.”
On “The View,” he said he understood that some women might vote for Palin on the basis of gender, even if it was against their economic interest.
“You can’t tell someone else that the ground on which they make their voting decision is irrational,” he said primly.
Well, actually you could, if you weren’t still sulking and plotting for 2012.
As they say, politics makes for strange bedfellows, an all the more appropriate double-entendre considering old Bill’s adulterous legacy and Palin’s rumored one.
UPDATE 1: The New Yorker has a great article, 'The Choice,' which crisply, and in detail, articulates why Obama is the right presidential choice for our current world, and not McCain.
Here is an excerpt:
Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?
(article found via Daring Fireball)
Related Posts:
- Obama and the Dems: Are they just wimps? On whether Obama is prepared to take off the gloves and go for the kill.
- Why Experience Matters: On Palin, Putin and Prudence.
- Rhetoric - Why it matters: Obama's acceptance speech and where free markets and government meet.
- Base motivations: The Matter of McCain v. Obama.
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