Can Yet Another Old White Guy Win?

In the 20-year sweep of the last five presidential elections, two of the three Republican candidates have been old white guys and the third was the son of one of them.

For reasons having everything to do with the ossification of a political brand that is toxic to many women (who make up half the population) and most minorities (who make up a quarter), the field of GOP wannabes this year was entirely old white men — a bunch of “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club,” as David Letterman put it — and the oldest of them will be the party’s standardbearer.

Age, gender, race and physical appearance shouldn’t matter, of course, but they do. For many voters, including the folks whom Kurt Vonnegut acidly described as never having gotten out of high school even though they graduated, these qualifiers are the major determinants as to who they will vote for. Or against.

So while John McCain brings ample gravitas and well-deserved respect to the 2008 race, I happen to think that his being yet another old Republican white guy will be a burden for a couple of reasons:

* There has been a seismic shift in the electorate this year with millions of new and young voters, many of them minorities and most of them registered Democrats for whom someone like McCain is anathema.

* Barack Obama is powered by the electricity of the portion of the electorate desperate for change while for McCain change is something to put on the dresser along with his wallet when he takes his trousers off at night.

Here is an unavoidable reality that should have Republican strategists crying in their martinis:

The Democratic candidate will be a lithe, charismatic and comparatively open-minded 47-year-old whose speaking skills harken back to the great orators of years past. He will contrast sharply at every joint appearance and in every newsreel clip from now through to Election Day with a pudgy, taciturn and narrow-minded septuagenarian who chews his words with all of the grace of another old Republican white guy — Bob Dole.

It gets worse when you consider that Obama will campaign on a platform chockablock with fresh ideas — the kind of thinking that he will remind us made America great — while McCain will have to try to put lipstick on a pig by repackaging the disgraced ideas of the Bush administration — the kind of thinking that has left America perpetually at war, its economy a shambles and its world standing at low ebb.

Of course it is not as simple as Obama being a member of the YouTube generation and McCain being a member of the vacuum tube generation. Many voters will prefer a virtual Bush third term to seeing a black man in the White House.

Other voters may actually weigh where each candidate stands on the issues that matter most to them and vote accordingly.

And then there is the quadrennial wild card — a dinosaur known as the Electoral College.

But for those voters who are undecided — and I foresee a tight race that could be decided by undecided Independents — many of those who comparison shop by watching and listening to McCain and Obama are bound to be impressed by Obama’s style and not whether McCain may actually have more substance.

I almost feel bad for McCain — but not quite — because among all of the old white men he had to beat to become the presumptive nominee, he pretty much alone has felt the sting of racism because of the Rovian smear campaign in 2000 targeting his adopted Bangladeshi daughter and his heartfelt but subsequently regretted statement that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism shows that there is a conscience lurking somewhere beneath his grizzled countenance.

Still, at the end of the day McCain’s message is the typical Republican prescription of exclusiveness (”I know what’s best for you and you’ll be glad that you took my medicine even if it does taste bad”) that contrasts sharply with Obama’s inclusiveness (”Join with me, all of you, and we’ll give the Washington establishment a long overdue dose of our medicine”).

Beyond the here and now, the Republicans’ chronic disinterest — as opposed to inability — in attracting women, minorities and young voters in general will accelerate their irrelevance and quite possibly marginalize them as a regional (read Southern) relic.

I can see it now: Pickup trucks with gun racks, Confederate flag decals and I Voted For McCain, What’s Your Excuse? bumper stickers.