"It’s the economy, stupid!” That was the refrain when Bill Clinton bested George Herbert Walker Bush for president in 1992. Now, the economy is once again dominating the news and weighing heavily on voters’ minds. Now that it is clear what this candidate stands for and what “that one” stands for, we can get down to the real nitty gritty of this presidential campaign.
With three weeks to go and John McCain mired in electoral quicksand, he is flailing about trying to find a way to halt Barack Obama’s momentum. When in doubt, play the race card.
Oh, McCain won’t say it is race. He won’t come out and say, “Don’t vote for that one because he’s Black.” He’ll couch it in terms of “character” and “readiness,” but what he is really saying is “Do you want to vote for someone who is not like us?” His running mate, Sarah Palin, has already voiced that at several campaign stops. She hasn’t said “don’t vote for the Black guy” either, but she has pointed out that Obama is different from the people who have come to cheer her on. She has pointed out that he is from a different place, has different beliefs and values, different friends and…a different name.
McCain and Palin are addressing crowds, and they are whipping their followers into an angry, volatile mob. When someone screams out “kill him” at a Republican rally, referring to Obama, McCain is supposed to step in and say, “Hold on. That is too much. That is over the line. I do not condone that kind of talk.” He said he didn’t hear it, but enough people heard it to draw the interest of the Secret Service. But those who hurl those threats are given the idea that their anger, their frustration, is condoned, if not encouraged.
While the economy is flushing into its worst downturn since...yes, The Great Depression, McCain doesn’t go from stump to stump talking about how his plan to fix things would involve having big government takeover banks and assume bad loans because that is anathema to his base, conservative Republicans.
Instead, McCain and his pitbull veep pick, and now, his wife Cindy, are attacking Obama for his ties to his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. They are attacking him for his ties to former 60’s radical William Ayers. They are attacking him for being from Chicago. They are attacking him for voting against bills that funded our troops, though McCain also voted against some of those funding bills. Wonder if Cindy got a cold chill during that vote, too. No use letting the truth get in the way of a good story.
But underlying it all is the notion that America still doesn’t know Obama. America, despite 20 months of Obama campaigning all over the country and microscopic scrutiny of all things Obama, dozens of debates, interviews and books, still doesn’t know Obama, according to McCain and his bunch. And what America doesn’t know, they say, America should fear.
So they are peddling fear as quickly as they can, noticing that it is late in the campaign. Every other tactic they have tried, including disavowing a two-term president from their own party, has not worked. Obama is still ahead in the polls, and widening that lead, especially in some of the battleground states where McCain must do well or he simply becomes “that one” to the electorate.
But fear keeps coming down to race. Fear of someone different. Fear that Michelle Obama will have okra in the White House and maybe even chittlins. Fear that on January 20, Obama will organize a gigantic Electric Slide line down Pennsylvania Avenue. Fear that Black people will become uppity with a Black man in the White House, and you won’t be able to tell them anything.
But if Obama has shown anything, it is that while he is secure in his race, it does not define him, as a man or as a politician. He recognizes that as President Barack Obama, he will represent everyone in America, of every race, color and creed. He represents those who like him and look like him, and he represents those who fear what he represents and who could not look more different.
Obama will represent those who vote for him, and more importantly, those who will not vote for him, even if the only reason he can’t get their vote is due to his color.
Lou Ransom is executive editor of the Chicago Defender. He can be reached at lransom@chicagodefender.com.
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Copyright 2008
Chicago Defender. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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Julius
