Democrats. Have we done it again? Have we shot ourselves in the foot? And, if so, is it the same foot we’re forever sticking in our mouths?
Let’s take a look at Barack Obama’s strengths. He’s smart. He’s savvy. He’s a great communicator. He doesn’t pretend to love NASCAR or pork rinds or Budweiser. He’s not another unimaginably rich man pretending to be middle class. And that’s why John McCain, an elderly, out of touch, inept campaigner is running neck and neck with Senator Obama.
Eight years after picking as President the guy we’d rather have a beer with, Americans seem to have learned nothing. Barack Obama is too elite. But he only just finished paying off his student loans. He’s not a man of the people. But he was a community organizer in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago. He prefers fresh salmon and steamed vegetables to a triple cheeseburger, fries, and a Frosty. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t have the all-American pot belly and a double chin. Senator Obama is suspiciously svelte. Even more scary, he can drop in a 3-point shot like Kobe. Everyone knows that basketball is not the sport of the people. That would be golf. You know, that game people play on restricted courses.
John McCain plays golf. He was tooling around a week or so ago in a golf cart with the first President Bush. What a great photo op! Two men, both richer than Croesus, discussing the world’s woes or comparing their putters?
Senator McCain is married to a beer heiress. In far too many ways, his positions are more regressive than George Bush’s. He wants to extend the Bush tax cuts. He has said he’d nominate Supreme Court justices in the Scalia-Thomas vein. McCain’s position on energy is much the same as his position on birth control — drill, drill, drill and let God sort out the consequences.
Racism is no doubt at play in this tight race. We’ve come along way, but we’ve a long way to go. Given the economy, the devastation wrought by the Bush Administration, the high cost of gas, and the overwhelming and widespread belief that this country is on the wrong track, Barack Obama should be streets ahead of John McCain and the status quo. That he’s not is a terrible testament to our skittles and beer, short-sighted, terminal anti-intellectualism.
I want to be hopeful about this coming November. I want to believe that we’ll turn a corner, that we won’t miss this opportunity to mature and grow as a nation. I’m trying to ignore that small, cynical voice that keeps whispering “President McCain.” But if I really want to believe, I’d probably be better off if I forgot about politics and just went to the new X-Files movie.
