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Wednesday, September 17. 2008
Most Like Me
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski confirmed every fear and embarrassment I have about America: collectively, we don’t elect officials based on qualifications and credentials, it’s all about perception, is the candidate “just like me.”They had these horrific polls on the screen, one of which was titled, “Which of these candidates is most like me.” Topping the list was Sarah Palin with 31% of the polled. Barack Obama was next with 22%.
Here’s my problem with the media reporting polls and information like this. They speak of this information without pointing out the flaws of this thinking. There are a lot of people “just like me,” including me, and I wouldn’t vote for any of them because they are not qualified to be either president or vice president.
The poll doesn’t speak to whether the candidates are qualified to be president or vice president.
Technically, all one needs to be, as far as legal qualifications, is at least 35 years of age and U.S. born. All four candidates meet those criteria.
Those basic qualifications met, our more important considerations have to be what does the candidate bring to the office in the form of experience and social and political philosophy and most important: knowledge.
For reasons I have yet to understand, knowledge has become a liability in presidential politics. From the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s run for the presidency in 1979, knowledge — even the perception of having knowledge — has been used as a weapon against Democratic candidates. Knowledge equals elitism for Republicans and they have been labeling Democrats as elitist ever since. The question this election is, will people want someone “just like them” or will they opt for someone who will actually apply some intelligence to the fundamental problems of the day.
It’s a topic because Joe Biden made the remark that Republicans weren’t used to talking to a smart guy running for president, Barack Obama being the smart guy. Technically, it was a throw off joke line but Scarborough began riffing on how Reagan, pilloried by everyone for being dumb, for graduating from … gotta look it up … Eureka College, laughed it off on his way to winning the Republican nomination and then the presidency.
In other words, Sarah Palin equals Ronald Reagan. Joe and Mika’s larger point was that the Democrats paint themselves as elitist when they portray Republican opponents as dumb or some variation on that theme. The thesis, as stated by Joe, is that by calling popular political figures dumb we are calling the American people dumb because, according to these polls, most American people relate to dumb politicians so therefore accurately describing dumb politicians is an insult to the American voter.
They miss the point of why it’s an insult to the American voter. Along with “the media,” Democrats have been portrayed as “out of touch” with “Traditional American Values” because of the knee-jerk issues that have no impact on the economic well being of the average American voter; guns, gays and god. Issues that, for the most part, Republican politicians care little about except when it comes time to win an election or launch an illegal war.Despite the fact that Democratic ideals are overwhelming better economically for average, blue collar America, Middle America, as it is called, overwhelming votes for Republicans because the G.O.P. owns, or maybe once owned, the issues of guns, gays and god and according to the Republicans, Democrats want to take away every good American’s guns, forbid them to worship god and force their children to become gay. Because, Democrats are educated, smart and therefore elitist and because “the media” is overwhelming educated they too are elitist and part of the Democratic plan to make the United States a cheap imitation of the Atheistic Soviet Union — despite the fact that the U.S.S.R. has not existed for about 16 years.
I’m kinda cynical because the Republicans have been selling this B.S. for nearly 30 years and a large number of my fellow Americans have bought it, enough to give us Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, 12 years of Republican control of Congress and now Jethro and the Dark Lord as president and vice president.Because more Americans would rather sit and have a beer with the most incompetent president in our history than either Al Gore or John Kerry, we have George W. Bush as president.
The news media, in particular programs like Morning Joe and Hardball, assist the G.O.P. in this by reporting on these types of polls — useless information when it comes to comparing who is best qualified to be president — and letting it go without any challenge about the relevance of that information.
What we don’t hear or read is that Middle America doesn’t have to be “dumb” or relate only to dumb politicians; that the notion the average American voter is best personified by dumb politicians is a construct of the Republican Party elite who, cynically, believe enough Americans are dumb enough to buy into that bullshit.
Actually, it isn’t so cynical considering they’ve been proven right so often in the past 30 years,
There have been a few polls shown about who voters believe is the best qualified to be president and vice president and I haven’t seen any of those polls on either CNN or MSNBC for weeks now.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had the best line I’ve heard in quite some time about our current president. Pelosi was talking about Palin’s qualifications and whether she had the experience for the office for which she is campaigning. “George Bush has proven that anyone can do it. But can they do it well? He’s proven they can’t.”Nancy Pelosi, I love her!
So, the fundamentals of the economy are strong. We are going to be hearing that and watching the clip for the next 49 days. McCain is backtracking of course, but if ever there was proof John McCain is out of touch with reality, his lack of knowledge on the economy should provide ample evidence.
The irony — and it’s funny — McCain, the “deregulator,” hasn’t met a regulation he wouldn’t get rid of, if cooler, more intelligent, heads hadn’t prevailed. One of McCain’s top economic advisors, Phil Gramm, is the former senator who wrote the bill that removed much of the regulation that kept the banks from falling into the mess they’re in now.
We hear McCain and Palin refer to Depression era regulation as the problem and that is what they would get rid of to correct the problem, once McCain’s “9/11” commission tells us what McCain wants to hear. Trouble is, Phil Gramm and John McCain removed those regulations nine years ago. These regulations kept banks, brokerages and insurance companies from intermingling, putting savings and investments at risk with business practices that were once illegal. The bill is called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act of 1999.
And Phil Gramm, still McCain’s chief economic advisor, is the man who said America was in a “mental” recession, it is all in our heads and we have become a nation of whiners. At least he didn’t tell us McCain isn’t qualified to manage a company. Carly Fiorina gave us that bit of information and she is one of McCain’s top advisors. Really, McCain hasn’t got a clue about the economy. I’m going to work now, the shitty, part-time job that barely pays some of my bills. I dare not whine about my condition because fundamentally, I’m still strong.
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