Sorry Obama, families are fair game, sadly
It’s a sad state of politics when a candidate is judged by his or her offspring. But it’s where we are. Why? A few reasons, I think:
Candidates have lied to us. A lot. It’s to the point where we don’t knock the candidate’s credibility anymore, we just get frustrated with them for lying. “Read my lips - no new taxes.” “I didn’t inhale.” “I did not have sex with this woman.” “The US shouldn’t police the world.” “Saddam has WMDs.” All of those statements made by presidents, all of them shown to be outright lies. If we can’t trust what a candidate says, how do we determine who’s best?
We could continue to debate the merits of their policies, but eventually that cuts around party lines and leaves swing voters right where they usually are - somewhere in the middle. “I’m against abortion but don’t want people to own guns.”
We start looking elsewhere, somewhere where candidates can’t lie - their families. Even if they do lie to their own families, the consequences usually boil up (with great drama, as an added bonus), and, many of us either coming from families or having them, make judgments accordingly. “Pregnant daughter? Failure.” “Teen buying alcohol? Failure.” “What the hell, braces? Failure.” It’s not an accurate system - I’d say Bush had great control over his kids and terrible over his country - but it does give us something to measure against: ourselves.
We’re looking for a candidate who reflects our own views. If the candidate challenges them, they have to be persuasive, and can only challenge so many. Family is something by which we evaluate ourselves (I know I think I’m cooler than I was now that I have an adorable son), and consequently we evaluate our candidates accordingly.
I also think that families become such big issues because they’re so gossipable. CNN can run one of two stories: McCain’s energy plan would kill the red spotted purple headed salamander, or that his VP’s daughter is pregnant. Which is going to provoke more discussion and more interest? Not salamanders.
I think it’s a combination of government officials being found less credible (possibly because media coverage has increased transparency more than most officials would like - I’m sure JFK would have been crucified if he’d been a candidate during the 90s) and mainstream news outlets trying to find stories that catch fire.
Sadly, it means our political discussions hinge on “flip flopping”, teen pregnancies, early adulthood drug use, and church attendance. Guess how many of those issues were pertinent when Katrina hit, or during 9/11, or during this energy crisis? Yeah.
Oh well. At least it lights up twitter.
meezy said:
Sep 02, 08 at 11:26 amI don’t understand why people make such a big deal about the media or one campaign bringing up dirt on the other campaign. If it is something that doesn’t have enough evidence, or you think it is irrelevant to your decision on if this person/his party/his administration would lead our country well, then just ignore it. McCain says “Obama is a celebrity, see here is his picture after showing Paris Hilton”. This means nothing to me in the context of his ability to run our country so I ignore it. Media says “Michelle Obama is a terrorist because if you replace every occurrence of the word ‘world’ with ‘i eat babies’ in her speech then she sounds mean” (thx comedy central) I don’t care because that is retarded, so I ignore it. Now when someone says “This person puts Jesus before everything and wants the constitution to coincide with the infallible word of God, his name is Crazy Pants Huckabee”, then I listen and that slightly tips my decision like a big fat fucking retarded fucking black girl on a see-saw opposite…a dwarf. (courtesy In Bruges). I know these are fun, but last example: Obama says “families are off limits”. Obama doesn’t tell me what I think is important to deciding who to vote for, my brain does so I ignore him. Maybe he doesn’t want me to base my vote for him on the way he conducts himself as a husband/father/person, but if I want to, then I will.
Unfortunately the world is half full of retards (don’t boycott my comment pro-retard people, it literally means ’sub-average intellectual ability’ via m-w.com and is a joke/play on words) and they will listen to and be swayed by every argument presented no matter how ludicrous the evidence or tangential the relevance.
So I guess Obama is trying to gently guide what arguments are allowed to try and help the dumb folks not be subjected to things that shouldn’t matter and will only confuse them. It’s like a mom telling the media that she feels blessed that God chose her to raise a down syndrome daughter-grand-daughter in order to shield them from the fact that it probably kinda sucks.