A Pilgrim’s Digression

Yesterday, a Republican friend asked me if I watched the Brokeback debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, this past weekend. I admitted I hadn’t watched it, nor had I heard anything about it. It wasn’t really the Brokeback debate; I think it was actually something like Steelback, but since I didn’t watch it and haven’t read anything about it, I don’t know.

This Republican friend was excited, though, because apparently John McCain blew Obama out of the water. She mentioned that even Limbaugh had to give McCain credit for a stellar performance. People are probably giving McCain credit for simply doing better than expected; or perhaps people were disappointed that Obama did worse than expected. I don’t know. I do know I have not been impressed with what little I’ve seen of Obama when he’s off teleprompter, speaking impromptu. He’s a good public speaker, but not a good extemporaneous speaker, which I’ve always found to be the oddest thing.

Apparently his speech coach in law school never taught him that “uh” and “um” kill all momentum in an opening or closing argument.

However that may be, I don’t know how he did in the debate, and I don’t really care. I can’t remember an election in which I’ve had so little interest after the primaries.

Despite that, I pick up bits of pieces of news here and there. On Tuesday night, O’Reilly did a bio-piece on McCain, which I listened to on XM on my way back to D.C. I’m anxious to see a similar piece on Obama, because I think we need to be able to compare his life experiences with McCain’s. Obviously McCain has had a longer life, so his experience is bound to be much richer, but we need to be able to size up the two men, side by side.

Personally, I don’t think McCain’s military service is going to matter as much as he hopes. Yes, compared to someone who was a POW in North Vietnam, the life of someone whose purported qualification for the Presidency is that he was a “community organizer” is going to look pretty small and uneventful. But in the end I don’t think the vast majority of Americans can relate to a military man anymore.

A very small percentage of the population currently serves in the armed forces. Most people spout the usual drivel about supporting the troops, but we are all removed from the actualities of military life, to the point that war is something that happens on TV to men and women we have built up as larger than life “heroes” (such an overused word).

McCain himself has polished the image of his younger self into that of a bronze statue; and while we dutiful pay it respect, a statue can sometimes make the real-life model look much smaller. The portly, somewhat corrupt little Napoleon who thrusts his thumbs at us from the stage is so far removed from the dashing pilot of 1967, I’m not sure anyone can make a rational connection between the two.

A liberal co-worker said to me a few weeks ago, “He holds himself so stiffly; he looks like a robot.” I responded, “That’s because he broke both his arms when his plane crashed, then the Viet Cong re-broke his arms and dislocated his shoulder while torturing him. He can’t lift his hands above his head.”

“Oh,” the co-worker said flatly. He might have been embarrassed, but the truth is that most people are like him: people don’t know, and if they do know, they don’t care. It’s like when Dole made his service in World War II part of his campaign, or Kerry played up his Vetnam War experience–ordinary people can’t relate to the military experience anymore than they can relate to the experiences of a wealthy Hollywood star.

In the end, I think this election is and always has been a referendum on Barack Obama. McCain hardly matters. Right now, I don’t think things are looking good for Obama, though. It seems less important to me that McCain’s campaign is resurgent in the polls; the real indicator of Obama’s fortunes is the stagnation of his numbers. He hasn’t really moved up or down significantly, this summer, as if everyone else in the United States is as tuned out as I am.

I’m starting to think maybe the pundits of the winter were right and the fight with Clinton did more harm than good, sucking all the energy out of the General election. However, perhaps the Convention next week will turn the tide that currently seems to be running against Obama.