Well, here we are at last.

Published
by
Ryan
on November 3, 2008
in Debating, Interpersonal Communication, Language and Politics
. 6 Comments

I remember thinking right after the ’06 elections, “Man, this is going to be a long presidential campaign.” And indeed it has been. Remember the folksy appeal of Huckabee? The “3AM” advert by the Clintons? Remember Mitt Romney’s headline speech addressing his Mormonism a la (he hoped) JFK on his Catholicism? Remember either exalting or (like me) fainting with fear and incredulity as a little fraud named Giuliani led in the national polls?

One thing that sticks out to me here at the end is that the person ahead in the polls is the person with the most complicated message. Obama has been ridiculed for running merely on fuzzy, easy ideals like “hope” or “change”. (And understandably of course — change and hope have been getting us into real trouble since about 1774.) These though have always been thematic or organizing platforms from which Obama has gone on to articulate a plausibly better set of ideas for the nation. So, “Hope” might be the topic of his essay, so to speak, but the paragraphs themselves explain what kind of hope, hope for what, etc.

Then you have McCain, whose essays instead are strung-together lists of topic sentences, not developed ideas, to wit: Obama is not a real American, supports terrorists, is a socialist, or as I recently read, in a shout out to the 18th or 19th century, is “a leveller”. These are all things McCain can’t possibly actually believe. And of course we are reminded in subtle little ways that he’s black. Also, this whole “Joe the Plumber” thing — this is perhaps the most simplistic message of all (“Look, America, Palin’s just as unqualified as you, plus she shoots stuff!”) — one that Bush had success with but that perhaps has run its course (for now).

Now, I’m as cynical as the next person about the state of the electorate and the state of politics and government in this country. What a #$%^&* mess. But it’s nonetheless refreshing to see that the person who argues the smartest might actually beat the person who slanders the most. I think that would be a first in my lifetime. It was a counterintuitive strategy by Obama, one anchored by real hope, the hope that Americans could be trusted to be, even if only a little, better.

6 Responses to “Well, here we are at last.”

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  1. 1 Szidonia
    November 3, 2008 at 10:12 pm

    Well, yes, there you are, Americans. I can only cheer from the sidewalk, (“Oh, I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien in New York!”), but that I do with all my heart. Go now Americans and vote the right thing (and the right syntax)!

  2. 2 Suzanne
    November 4, 2008 at 9:23 am

    Well with that I ‘m off to vote!

  3. 3 Suzanne
    November 4, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    Well Ryan, I am back from voting and yes indeed the line was around the block. I have voted in the same district since I was 18 and I have never seen that many people voting at any given election.But I couldn’t help wondering how many are doing it because it feels good and not because it is right thing to do, participate in our democracy.  I can’t help wondering if all the new voters will come back in these numbers for the legislative election or for the next presidential…?

  4. 4 Luke
    November 4, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    Hendrick Hertzberg just wrote this blog post:

    In Which I Take Communion

    I vote at Public School 165, on West 109th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. It’s an oldish building, dingy and utilitarian but with some of the dignified solidity that marked public works in the age of Roosevelt and LaGuardia. You walk through a high gate and across a concrete courtyard right into the gym. When we arrived—we being me, my wife (who can’t vote because she’s not an American citizen), and our son (who can’t vote because he’s ten)—the gym was full of snaking lines of people. We happily weaved our way to the line corresponding to our election district on the other side of the room. It was 7:30 in the morning.

    In that room four years ago, the mood was warily hopeful, but with a jangly, jumpy edge. This time it was serene, as serene as the man almost everyone there had come to vote for. It was friendly. It was mellow. Kindness and consideration all around. The poll workers smiled and made gentle jokes. Our line was one of the shorter ones—maybe fifteen minutes.

    I’ve always loved the experience of voting. For an unchurched secularist like me, it’s the closest I’m likely to get to the feeling of sacred solidarity which I imagine believers derive from their religious rituals. It’s especially satisfying in New York on account of our ancient voting machines. No punch cards or touchscreens or spindly little aluminum-and-plastic booths that look like they’d tip over at the slightest push. Our machines weigh eight hundred pounds. They’re tall, the size and shape of a confessional. You go behind a calf-length curtain and pull a big three-foot-long lever from left to right, like a gondolier’s oar. It goes Chunk! The candidates are laid out before you in neat columns, with an inch-long black teardrop-shaped lever next to each name. You snap the levers down. Chunk chunk chunk! You survey your work. You pull the oar back from right to left. Chunk! Most satisfying. I let my son pull the little black levers, as I did in 2000, when he was two, and 2004, when he was six. This time he was tall enough to reach the Obama lever on tiptoes, without a boost. Next time he’ll be too big to come into the booth with me. But the time after that he’ll be able to go in alone.

    This is the last election we’ll have our magnificent machines, which are slated to give way to some sort of third-rate technology. But the human pleasure of this beautiful civic ceremony will remain. God bless the Upper West Side and the United States of America.

  5. 5 Jim
    November 5, 2008 at 12:22 am

    Wow Luke,That story give me tingles in my spine, damn  miss NYC, and I will miss those machines, but  sure as shit won;t miss GW BUSH!Hallelujah, it’s 11:14pm on Nov 4th, 2008 and that war criminal has finally been dethroned!!!

  6. 6 Agnieszka Kajrukszto
    November 5, 2008 at 2:05 am

    Amen!

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