The Life-Story Election
With the emergence of Sarah Palin, this is officially the year of personal narrative in national politics–no more Bush or Clinton dynasties, but a quartet of compelling biographies to let voters choose from a menu of American success stories.
Last week it was all about Obama’s mixed racial heritage with heartland grandparents and an idealistic single mom, paired with Joe Biden’s journey, on Amtrak, from hardscrabble Scranton childhood through personal tragedy to decades of public service.
This week John McCain’s transition from POW patriot to straight-talking politician will be paired with the rapid rise of Sarah Palin from hockey mom to crusader against corruption who detoured from the Bridge to Nowhere to Somewhere Indeed.
In our llogorrheic panels’ eye view of the conventions through cable TV squeezed down into an hour of network coverage of highlight orations, there is little tolerance for all those boring speeches about policy and issues.
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2 Responses to “The Life-Story Election”
Frankly, it's pathetic. Imagine what success a company would have if it chose its leaders based on whether we are “inspired” or “touched” by a video news release of their lives, with stirring strings and patriotic-sounding theme songs. What a joke!
We would ask about their education, experience and vision for the company and their past accomplishments, check in with former employers and personal references, and never, never ask about age, marital status, fiscal resources or any of the other things considered irrelevant to their ability to lead and manage the company (and incidentally, forbidden by law to ask in job interviews)..
I just despair of the lack of rationality and vision in our electorate. I'm really showing my age to confess that I remember the show “Queen for a Day”, in which one of 3 or 4 women would be chosen by applause-O-meter to have praise and prizes lavished on them for the touchingness of their stories. This isn't that show, but kind of feels like it.
The presidency is not something you “deserve” for being a war hero, having a tough upbringing, being working-class (Ha!) or choosing to keep a Downs syndrome baby. And none of us will be “having a beer” with any of the candidates, unless in some kind of venue like Invesco Field (at Mile High) in Denver.
We're not in their social strata and to kid ourselves that they are “one of us” in that sense is just sad. For instance, EVERY U.S. president becomes a global celebrity (and so what?). All of them are well above median income, education level and financial assets. Come on, America, they're politicians asking us to hire them to do a job. Let's try to focus on hiring them the way we would an actual employee who is to manage tens of thousands of our company's employees and a multi-trillion dollar budget.
Please understand that I do not, in any way, endorse the practice of taxidermy. (FFS, I’m a vegetarian!) But I happened upon this… thing in a bookstore near VCU (which, in keeping with its catering to eccentricity, is open sometimes, closed at other times, with no amtrak promotion code predictable pattern to it), and I just didn’t quite know what to do with the surreal image. So of course I’m foisting it upon you.