"I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the fall of 2007. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."
As always, I feel the need to explain my gut feeling of pessimism after Obama's party has come so far. My fear is that the majority of our country simply isn't ready to take a risk. If I were a conservative, I would have ripped apart the aforementioned statement. Try to tell? We don't try, this is America, we do! What you believe will make this country great? Who says it wasn't great already and if our country isn't great by your standards, why the hell have you been living here for so long? And finally, to borrow a line from Obama himself, having the audacity to say hopefully as a potential presidential nominee (he hadn't won yet) is suicide by conservative standards. The man is not cocky, he is realistic, he is not blind, he is hopeful, but he is not SURE. To be the president, you have to be sure. John McCain is sure of something, even if he can't quite explain why he differs on immigration policy from so many other conservatives, even if he has no fact-based logic behind his support of offshore drilling.
John McCain wears the pin, and he wears it well. If I'm a swing voter who doesn't follow the minutia of these two campaigns, but I am informed enough to argue at a bar when there's nothing better to do than talk about politics, I would vote for John McCain. He at least seems sure of himself, and isn't that what Americans want? But I'm not a swing voter, and I'd like to think that I absorb a good amount of the information that's disseminated by our trusty and prudent news outlets. I understand that Barack Obama is attempting something that has never been attempted before in the political realm (except for JFK, maybe): he is not sure of anything. He harps on progress, but where is this master plan? It doesn't exist of course, we must have faith in Obama's own critical introspection. We have to believe that he will not be the figurehead for a party, that he will always be looking forward, will not allow our country to revel in any past glory or to celebrate that we've made it this far. We have to believe that he will make the choices that will ultimately make our country a better place, not only for those privileged enough to live here, but to make our country a better place in the global community.
It's a scary idea, I know, giving your vote to a man who does not have a plan. I am scared sometimes, as I mentioned before. This morning I was scared. I was asking questions, questions like, am I buying into this hope thing too much, am I blind to reality in any way? Has the Obama approach become a hallmark of the Democratic campaign, and if so, have I been swayed into thinking that I'm being completely objective about all of this? Is Obama's patriotism indicative of how the majority of Americans feel, or is McCain's message of loyalty to our fathers, the celebration of our country's struggles, faith in a military tradition, is this message striking the hearts and minds of our popular vote?
McCain makes a fairly out of character statement in his piece for Time. He says: "The good citizen and patriot know that happiness is greater than comfort, more sublime than pleasure. The cynical and indifferent know not what they miss. For their mistake is an impediment not only to our progress as a civilization but to their happiness as individuals." Really, John? You wrote that? That sounds almost like something Obama would say. The only problem I can see here, is that you, Mr. McCain, have a significantly larger voter base who give you their vote without ever reading what you just wrote, without caring about what you have to say about progress and ambivalence and patriotism. They only care that when they turn on the television, they'll see your muscular head and misshapen jaw, with your chest puffed up like a pigeon, and right there on the left side of your jacket, a shiny red, white, and blue reminder of why they like you as a candidate.
1 comment:
I disagree that the "swing" voters are going to be encouraged to vote by a pin. The swing voters are the ones for whom being an advocate is (well, just a little )more complex. Those pin votes were already a lock. Plus who reads TIME besides me?
I'm doing my happy dance every day at the prospect of a black president, and get all knotted up at each CNN ticker that looks like a hit for Obama. BUT neither of the candidates are willing to blame the voters for overusing oil, wasting resources, buying houses they can't afford, buying crap from china, etc, and so it'll keep being easy to be an advocate as long as you keep your constituency victimized. Neither of them are doing any intellectual hard work at this point so I'm gonna say I'm not cynical, just normally disappointed.
One wears a pin, one doesn't. One voted for the war in Iraq, one didn't. But aside from being young and black, there's nothing essentially different between Barack Obama and Michael Dukakis (bear with me). This is a GOOD thing! But it's good only because I believe the democratic party thinks that what you EARN is not directly proportional to what you MAKE and is willing to write LAWS on that.
I am voting democratic, not for Obama. I think we need to take the intellectual taboo off of the idea of voting party line. Unless it isn't still IDEAS we believe in and not heroes. They're both patriotic, as the article was good to point out.
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