Sunday, August 24, 2008

Obama Momentum Slows Down: Two Political Commentaries, Plus a Mini-Rant

Obama and McCain are basically even in the latest polls. Why isn't Obamessiah way ahead? There are plenty of commentaries about this, but I picked two to share.

Here's a delightfully snarky commentary by a Brit. Blurb:
There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those “Yes We Can” T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.

Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.

How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?

All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people.

And wouldn't you know it, they insist on looking this gift thoroughbred in the mouth. Who'd have thought it? You present them with the man who deigns to deliver them from their plight and they want to sit around and ask hard questions about who he is and what he believes and where he might actually take the country. The ingrates!

Fabulous!

And then there is this, the stupidest and most reductive, desperate-sounding tripe I've read yet about Obama's loss of momentum. Just look at the title: "If Obama Loses: Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him."

Got that? Obama's numbers are dropping because (and only because) we're all a bunch of grunting Neanderthal racists! Excuse me while I bang my low sloping forehead on my desk.

This little bit of whining just proved that the conservative wits at the National Review were very astute indeed with their recent tongue-in-cheek list of 25 reasons that you might be a racist. (Do take a look -- it's quite funny.)

Here's my personal take (a mini-rant), and I've got some shocking news. I don't care at all what Obama is or is not in terms of identity politics. You know that I think ID politics are stupid. I've decided that I'm not voting for Obamessiah because his policies are statist, he's in love with tax-and-spend, he has virtually no experience in governance, and his wishy-washy response to the Caucasus crisis was an indicator that he's not ready to lead in a dangerous world where it's not always enough to deify dialogue and run crying to the feckless UN. If all this makes me a racist, well, whatever.

(By the way, does it even matter that nobody cried "racism!" when conservative black candidate Michael Steele (whom I quite like) lost his campaign for the US Senate in 2006? Oh, and before that he was lieutenant governor of Maryland, FYI a state that before the American Civil War was a slave state. Why does nobody on the left hold up Indian-American conservative Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal as a great example of how the American Dream is alive and well, of how non-white people can indeed succeed in American public life? Are cries of "racist!" orchestrated in part along partisan lines? Also, I am not going to be bullied into voting for somebody whose policies I don't like just to "prove" I'm not a racist. And prove TO WHOM, eh? By the way, is this not the richest of ironies if a lot of white -- and otherwise -- Obama supporters are basically browbeating me, an Asian woman, into voting for their guy? Do these idea-bullies get a free pass because their guy happens to be black? So much for being post-racial, you rabid Obamaniacs!)

Anyway, a brief digression on the nature of my apparently rampant political "racism." McCain is an old, crotchety, irritating thorn in the conservative side; he's a plodding figure who has about zero eloquence and even less charisma. But he's the devil we know: the long-time veteran both of war and government. Obama was "new and improved," but now that the novelty's worn off, he, for all his beauty and coolness, is now beginning to make me wonder if he's also mainly a slick charlatan with a huge cult of personality. Is there anything really substantive behind that gorgeous smile and hordes of swooning young disciples? Is this guy the Joel Osteen of American politics? The eloquence is beginning to sound like facile glibness. The fact that he's also a big blank is beginning to bother me too. He's like a Rorschach test: his followers seem to project onto him all their own personal wishes and hopes. They want to believe, and nothing's as sweet as a little youthful self-delusion about sweeping utopian fantasies and messianic leadership. It's certainly more appealing than grim old reality, a crusty bald codger, and the McCain assurance not of "hope! change! hope! change!" but of living and working day in, day out in a complex and perilous world where life is hard. You know, the real world.

In this election, the voting public gets two choices, really: two people who might actually win. So pick one: McCain or Obama. It doesn't mean that you have to love or even like your choice, as much as one choice is less bad than the other one. Not choosing here means you're giving up your say to the vagaries of other people. (Golly, I'm cynical today! But my coffee has not kicked in yet, and I'm grumpy.) I guess McCain's like a big bowl of boring, tasteless, fibrous All-Bran and Obama's like a great big cloud of colorful cotton candy. One is ultimately better for you even if it won't win any taste tests or popularity contests. Maybe you'd rather have something else; I personally would rather have a nice big juicy prime rib (oh, so good!). But prime rib's not on the menu. The choices are All-Bran or cotton candy. End of my rant. OK. You may now proceed to call me a racist, etc.

UPDATE 1: Or maybe we're all not racists, but colorists, according to a nutty piece in the New York Times. "Colorist"? Well, color me unimpressed.

UPDATE 2: I didn't say this in my initial post, but maybe I should have: picking Joe Biden for VP does absolutely nothing to convince people to vote for this. Obama-Biden? Come on.

UPDATE 3: You know, I re-read the post and the bits about swooning young naive idealists, and now I'm thinking, when did I become a cranky old lady realist? Ah, well. Of course, I have a sneaking suspicion that I was (a) never young, and (b) never a naive idealist, either. Are some people simply born already cranky realists?

Also, I guess I've now declared for McCain, though I hadn't quite realized I'd actually done this -- but I guess it's inevitable if I cross out Obamessiah's name. Oh, dear.

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