So far this election, my parents have been great bellwethers: if they forward me an email it either is viral, or goes viral in no time.
So here's today's:
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight…..
- If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're “exotic, different.”
- Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, it's a quintessential American story.
- If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
- Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
- Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
- Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
- If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
- If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7, 000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
- If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
- If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
- If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
- If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
- If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
- If you're husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
This is exactly why you’re bound to be so disappointed the day after Obama loses the election. Aside from the humorous spin and jokes involved, this list betrays exactly the sort of snobbish elitism that the Democratic upper class is so steeped in. You probably have no idea that there’s anything beyond indignation at how Obama has been treated unfairly in this.
Being a Yale man, you think everyone of worth should think like a Yale man, so the idea that someone might have moved from college to college w/o graduating, or might not have bothered voting until he was 25, might actually purposely give birth to a disabled child, or might have held a series of relatively unimpressive jobs, somehow makes them unworthy of serious presidential consideration. None of YOUR friends did that. And after all, shouldn’t the elite run the country? Shouldn’t the proud intellectual heritage of Cardozo, Story, Marshall (both of ’em), etc. be the ones we should trust with the tough decisions? Maybe the answer is yes. Certainly the Ivy Leaguers would have it no other way.
What you fail to give serious consideration to, and why you will be surprised, is that the vast majority of Americans didn’t do well in college, if they went at all. They’ve held, and been fired from, lots of crappy jobs you would never stoop to take. They don’t bother voting, because they don’t really follow politics and don’t see the point anyway. They don’t know ANYBODY who went to a top-ranked college, much less the Ivy League (except maybe their doctor). They like stupid movies that you would never allow your children to see, and have three books in their house, one of which might be a bible, but is even more likely a joke book. These people have NOTHING in common with (you or) Obama and don’t see him as one of them in any way. Then Palin comes on the scene and here’s someone MOST Americans can relate to, both liberal and conservative, whether they agree with her politics or not. You can call her family a bunch of rednecks all you want, but you are only showing your own perpetual snobbery and I feel 100% that come election day, there are going to be far more people than you think, who will more consider voting for someone like them, than someone who is not. Obama is not going to win because he’s a smart Ivy Leaguer, he’s going to lose for that very fact. Nobody automatically likes smart Ivy Leaguers, except OTHER smart Ivy Leaguers. The rest of us just feel sad that they spend all of their time reading and mulling over how other people don’t do the right thing all the time. And they are generally no fun in bars, because only the worst of them know any jokes. And when they start calling the rest of us stupid because we don’t think like them…
The Dems had their chance for a President with Hillary, but they blew it. Now we’ve got 50 days or so of snobbery and self-righteousness, and then America will elect yet another Republican. Thanks smart people, you’ve done it again by picking Obama. Hope you’re happy.
It may surprise you to learn that I don’t actually hold a number of the beliefs you impute to to me.
For one thing, I don’t think I’ve ever called anyone a redneck in my life.
For another, I don’t think that where someone went to college, or even how many colleges, tells you much of anything about their fitness for political office. (How they did where they went, why they left if they left, those might be more telling.)
How people deal with adversity is usually more informative than how they deal with success, although there are exceptions to this.
As I’ve noted previously, breadth of experience is important. That can come from many different places. Thoughtfulness is important. That may be innate. Reading Truman’s biographies and “Plain Speaking” suggests he had it — and his resume was not one of your particularly fancy ones before he became a Senator (and some would say it wasn’t even when became Vice President).
If you want to call me an elitist when it comes to politics (as opposed to tenure decisions), far better to attack me for this belief: Another important issue — the main reason I was never a big Howard Dean supporter in ’04 — is the breadth of talent the future President will be able to call on. As a general rule, governors from less populous states make inferior Presidents, even if they have great talent, because the circle they bring with them isn’t as strong or diverse. This was a big part of Carter’s problem. President Clinton was an interesting exception. By virtue of his Rhodes scholarship, Ivy League connections and especially the fanatical national networking (remember the ‘friends of Bill’?) he undertook while Governor, he built up a large a loyal circle of very able people. I don’t see in Palin anything like what we saw in President Clinton — indeed, she seems much worse than Carter in this respect. And Alaska is a very small state by population.
As for Senator Clinton, I think she twice failed the executive-ability test and that is why I was never able to support her with any enthusiasm, and indeed why when the choice came down to two I preferred Obama. First she blew it on the health care fiasco,where she trusted the wrong people, and again she made serious personnel misjudgments in her campaign where she hired the wrong people (and created an atmosphere where they were afraid to give her bad news). While Obama was not my first choice — he’s very very middle of the road — I do have great respect for, and draw comfort from, the way he’s run his campaign. “No drama Obama” is a great achievement for a Democrat. And doubly so for the no leaks.
His campaign team has focus, discipline, and has been making its financial targets. That’s impressive. It suggests he might run a good White House.
But as regards your view of the American people, there we strongly disagree. I don’t think they are nearly as dumb as snobs like you seem to think. My experience of retail politics has left me with a pretty good feeling about the average voter. Yes, they’re not necessarily well informed — they’re busy working, taking care of kids. Yes, they may be a little uncritical about what they see on TV or hear on the radio — but who could blame them when the news is so monolithically biased. Yes, they form and change their views slowly and with some reluctance, but that’s human nature. I think, though, that the average voter tends at the root to be pretty decent. And I think they’ll see through Palin pretty fast. Indeed, her poll numbers are sinking…
Then Palin comes on the scene and here’s someone MOST Americans can relate to, both liberal and conservative, whether they agree with her politics or not. You can call her family a bunch of rednecks all you want, but you are only showing your own perpetual snobbery and I feel 100% that come election day, there are going to be far more people than you think, who will more consider voting for someone like them, than someone who is not. Obama is not going to win because he’s a smart Ivy Leaguer, he’s going to lose for that very fact.
If what you say is true that Obama will lose because he’s smart, then history will sadly repeat itself and we are simply doomed. George W. Bush, the far less cerebral of both his Democratic opponents Kerry and Gore, has led this country into one disastrous policy after another….. let’s recall a small sampling of his numerous failures:
~ Pre-emptive war (4100 American military dead. 100,000 Iraqi’s dead);
~ Cronyism (way to go Brownie! Haliburton! Enron! richest cabinet in history of US);
~ Fiscal irresponsibility (Wall Street as we type; $9 Trillion national debt, mortgage crisis);
~ Highest gas prices ever (i paid $4.60/gallon this wk; oil prices up $6/barrel yesterday);
~ Bankrupted federal gov’t (with our aging population!);
~ World stature (Abu Graib, Guantanamo, 71% of the world view Bush as biggest threat to world peace);
~ Avg Americans in a world of hurt (jobs, education, immigration, healthcare).
I just have to believe that most Americans now realize, thanks to the Bush years, that intelligence is an essential quality in a leader, and certainly more valuable than who we can best relate to or want to have a beer with. Palin is an affront to all those who respect and honor the highest office in our land. MOST cannot relate to this pick and will see through it before Election Day. Her “celebrity” is fading fast.
Looking ahead… the debates have the power to inform to the extent that most Americans will emerge from this divisive political discourse and choose the thoughtful, intelligent, dynamic Barack Obama to lead us out of this morass.
McCain/Palin ??????
In the words of tennis great John McEnroe…. you can’t be serious!!!!!