As an Obama supporter this primary has been like enduring a year-long root canal, without Novocain.
It's been painful. It's been like watching two bullies harass, belittle, lie and push your kid around everyday at school, and not being able to do a thing about it except to try to reassure yourself that, in the end your kid will emerge a better and stronger person because of it.
Or not.
After all, the same kind of sleazy, low-brow, thuggish politics is exactly the kind of politics that got George W. Bush elected, twice. So maybe "my kid" will come out of it a better and stronger person, AND lose.
But alas, a ray of light. After tying Rev. Wright around the kid's neck like a dead chicken, Obama still won by a huge margin in North Carolina and cut Hillary's lead in Indiana down to a mere margin of error win.
Can this be the first hard evidence that Americans have wised up to political thuggery? Will voters of 2008 have become immune to Swiftboat-like smear attacks?
In the closing days of the Indiana and North Carolina races Hillary Clinton tried to transform herself from New York monied suburbanite into Huey Long in a pantsuit. She promised a chicken in every pot -- in the form of a summer repeal of the federal tax on gasoline. She claimed that Obama's refusal to propose the same meaningless jesture was proof he was not "one of us" -- meaning he was not a white, working class, ordinary citizen -- that he was "disconnected from ordinary working Americans."
Voters responded with a resounding, "forget about it." They were more interested in hearing some straight talk -- the real kind, as opposed to the same old:
"Tell-em-whatever-it-takes-to-get-their-vote-and-then-move-on," strategies of the McCain/Hillary campaigns.
But the past success of sleaze politics made me anxious. I've sent emails to the Obama campaign over the past few months urging the candidate to "start punching back." I was afraid that the Hillary and McCain politics of sleaze and innuendo would work again, and come November I would be faced with a choice between Twiddle DeeDee or Twiddle Dumber.
But Obama never did punch back in kind. He was right not to listen to those of us encouraging him to, in effect, join the "your-mother's-so-fat," quality campaigning of his two opponents.
So, the question is, could it be that we are about to have an Presidential campaign -- at least on the Democratic side -- that will not be decided by the machinations of the lowest common denominator types, but on the very many, very real, very serious issues suddenly facing America and the world?
Will Americans vote based on which candidate is associated with the craziest minister, or will they vote for the candidate most likely to begin healing the widening breach between the Muslim east and Judeo/Christian west?
Will Americans vote based on Internet hoax emails accusing one candidate of secretly being a Muslim? (If so, those same Americans need to start wiring money to those Nigerian bankers holding $20 million in a secret bank account just for them.)
Will Americans vote for a pro-Iraq war candidate solely because, 40-years ago he was held prisoner by North Vietnam during another disastrous, misguided war? Or will they vote for the guy who knew a bad idea when he heard right from the get go?
Will Americans vote along racial lines, as Hillary Clinton "suggested" they might:
Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.
Great article. It's interesting to watch the networks and big talking heads try to cajole the american people into believing this or that but I must say the people are more awoke and they are becoming hip to main stream media ploys. They are not all the way there but they are getting there. I have a feeling this election will be different and significant than any other before it.
by
Sharon Roach (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 38 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 2:24:04 PM
