[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]In a provocative A.P. article titled “Clinton hints at shared ticket,” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305, we’re teased yet again with the tantalizing one-two punch of a Clinton/Obama bid for the White House. Of course, the fat lady is nowhere in sight, and the primary loser’s swan song is far from being sung. Predictions as to who would get top billing on a hypothetical team-up are still very much in the fuzzy stages. And what did Clinton say, anyway? To quote from her appearance on CBS’s The Today Show, “That may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.”
Oh, well, that settles it, right? The people of Ohio – Ohio! – have spoken, therefore it is decided. Of course, since “no one has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary,” the Democratic party might as well just hold its convention now and give the laurels to Clinton. The stench of spin is suffocating. So is the stench of dumbness.
And dumbness is what the primary season has really come to embody. Dumbness, as in the whole process is dumbed-down because voters are assumed to be incapable of making intelligent choices. The thing is, though, it’s true: Voters seem mostly incapable of making intelligent choices. How else to explain the alleged effectiveness of the “3 a.m. phone call” ad in bringing over last-minute deciders to the Clinton camp? And who are these last-minute deciders anyway, and where have they been all this time? I am frankly puzzled, but not surprised after all this time, at how silly little ads – pieces of propaganda, really – influence people’s decisions. The primaries leading up to the general election, aka Indigestion ’08, have been going on now for about two centuries. There is plenty of information out there, from candidates’ voting records, to their websites, to their background. A simple check can confirm an ad, refute it, or even make ads irrelevant. But though ours is an information overloaded society thanks to a corrupt media with a corporate agenda, and we have enough to worry about with paying the bills, I can understand it’s hard to do a proper due diligence. Not that hard, though. Certainly a minimum of effort can break through the blurring of opinion and fact in the punditry’s endless analyses and speculations – efforts that very much prove the axiom that the act of observation can often change that which is being observed. Certainly we can do some fact checking of our own when politicians lay out sleazy accusations as “facts.”
…And Dumber
But dumbness doesn’t end with the childish viciousness of the Clinton-Obama grudge match. Let’s take a look at some sound bits from Senator McCain’s nomination victory speech http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/:
“Our campaign must be, and will be more than another tired debate of false promises, empty sound-bites or useless arguments from the past that address not a single American’s concerns for their family’s security.”
“Americans aren’t interested in an election where they are just talked to and not listened to; an election that offers platitudes instead of principles and insults instead of ideas; an election that results — no matter who wins — in four years of unkept promises and a government that is just a battleground for the next election.
Their patience is at an end for politicians who value ambition over principle, and for partisanship that is less a contest of ideas than an uncivil brawl over the spoils of power.”
So let’s see. His campaign won’t be about false promises or empty sound-bites, but will instead be predicated on listening to the American people and ending partisan brawling. Well, duh. I mean, really: Duh. You can pick apart the speech of just about any presidential candidate to find similar affirmations orbiting the contention that the president must address those issues that concern America. I say again, duh. For a president to say he’ll carry out the will of the people who voted for him or her is like visiting a doctor who promises to practice medicine or hiring job applicants on the basis that they promise they’ll do their job well. Of course a doctor will practice medicine. Of course a person hired to a job a job is expected to do it well. Of course a president in a democracy is supposed to listen to – and carry out the will of – the people. The fact that these sorts of things need to be said, with great fanfare and back-patting, is astonishing. Even more astonishing is how people lap it up. The bar has been set pretty low, methinks.
