Back to the Noise

Well, after a weekend without the noise I thought I would reflect on a couple things from the last week in the wide world of politics. In no particular order here goes:

1. Is it McCain-Palin or Palin-McCain?
According to one story I read over the weekend Sarah Palin is more popular than either McCain or Obama. All the stories and focus and fanaticism has been aimed at her. I wonder if part of it just isn't the newness and surprise of it all. She is a brand new face in a long and almost tedious drive. Out of the nowhere frozen north (that makes Minnesota look and feel downright tropical) comes a new excitement. She also seemed to know how to handle herself in the public eye. Give her a couple months weeks and that should all change. But of course they have isolated her from the press. An odd move I must admit, in what has been a series of odd moves.

In addition the tide will turn back to the candidates and the issues (and non-issues) that are raised. Debates will arrive. She will have a moment against Joe Biden but the rest will be Obama and McCain. If we all stay focused on her, we will lose sight of the race- for president.

2. (Not) Seeing contradictions. This is one that surprised me. In a number of conversations last week with friends and acquaintances who were all Democrats, I was surprised at how narrow-focused we can be. Some of it is selective hearing that celebrates what we agree with and puts down what we disagree with. One person, for example commented about how Palin had brought her whole family onto the stage and how much the camera was focused on the kids. They felt that was using the kids for politics. I simply said, well, Michele Obama did the same thing last week. I got a puzzled look. "She did?" Another comment was questioning Palin's motherhood because she is willing to leave them to campaign (they do have two parents after all) and then questioning the Palins because they have five children (and not only one or two.)

I know that there were similar kind of things said and thought the week before. One of the human sins we are all guilty of is to make these judgments based on what we believe and often not on the facts before us.

3. The rise of militarism.
I wonder why the crowd wanted to shout "USA" when protesters tried to drown out McCain's speech? Isn't freedom of speech and protest an important mark of the USA? Yet that was part of a greater theme that kept disturbing me. Excessive flag-waving (at both conventions) and excessive focus on the military (at both conventions) that often seemed to drown out the other issues that a military cannot fix such as the economic problems, health care, and education. While we should continue to uphold the men and women in the military, I find it a little disconcerting when so much focus appears to be the military.

4. Suffering is not a qualification.
Michael Kinsley in Time magazine made an interesting point. Why is it that we feel a story of personal suffering or bravery is enough to qualify one to be president? From McCain's Vietnam POW years through Biden's family tragedy in 1972 to Obama's being raised by a single mother and her parents, these stories do lend a certain quality to the candidates. But they do not in any way shape or form constitute any qualification for being president. Kurt Vonnegut was a POW in WW II; I see families shattered by personal disasters regularly; my brother and I were raised by a disabled single father and his widowed sister who then raised us when our father died.

The truth is we are looking for stories, not issues. We want to be touched, uplifted, inspired. Jimmy Carter was a policy wonk whose mother Miss Lillian was a better story. Bill Clinton was another policy wonk whose story was overcome by a good ability to speak at times. Even Obama tends to be a policy wonk but who knows his story will gain him the national exposure.

But we can't lose sight of the need for the issues.

5. Running Against the Establishment
How odd that we have two parties, in a two party system, both running against the establishment in Washington. Even Hubert Humphrey didn't (and couldn't) run against his own party in power during the Vietnam War. He might have won if he did. McCain-Palin are talking and acting like they have nothing to do with the party in power. Maybe they don't have as much as some might, but the special interests they have supported and who support them will not like the end-run that seems to be happening. Joe Biden, too, is part of the Washington establishment. Obama hasn't gotten that far. Yet. But this attempt to run against the establishment is a great American tradition- even if you are the establishment.

6. And finally, the new political statement:
God bless you and God bless America.
Both parties. Most candidates. About as meaningful as just saying "Goodbye."

But it sounds better. (Okay, enough cynicism.)