The past week has been very frustrating for me. While last week started with the most brilliant political speech I’ve ever seen, the controversy that spurred it has totally confused me. Rev. Jeremiah Wright said something people find offensive, so Barack Obama is not qualified to be president. Wait, what?
To say I consider Obama’s association with Wright a non-isuue is a dramatic understatement, but it’ll do for the moment. We’re having a presidential election here, there are more important things at hand. Even so, I understand that the Republican attack machine is going to attack and attack it did. But this is a primary. Why are democrats concerned about this nonsense?
I’m not looking to analyze "the speech" right now. What seems more pressing is understanding why this was a controversy in the first place. Of course the media talking heads made this a much bigger deal than it needed to be, but to write off the whole thing as a media fiction is foolish. People appear to genuinely care about this. For some people, association with a spiritual guide you may disagree with about issues is unacceptable and it was my general impression that those people were republicans, but it seems we have plenty of them in our ranks too.
It’s important to use the words seem and appear in this context because it’s hard to get a definitive bearing on anything in this media environment. The sensational treatment this story got reeks of manufactured controversy and hit piece framing, so discerning what truth dwells beneath the headlines is tough. At the same time, I live in San Francisco so I generally take my sense of public opinion with a grain of salt; of course no one in San Francisco cares, but that’s SF, not the rest of the nation. Maybe the church going folk of the Midwest or the south think this is a big deal.
So I’m stuck in this informational limbo where I know the area I live in is heavily progressive and unlikely to care much and I know that I can’t trust the media dialogue about this because, well, they’re the media and generally untrustworthy when it come to scandal. When I find myself confused about what the average American is thinking, I ask my dad. My dad is a republican in title only; he’s voted green in every major election since I can remember because he feels abandon by both parties and wants a third party to succeed so they can break the two party system. He’s actually fiscally conservative (not fiscally neo-conservative) and socially moderate (he’s a Catholic).
When I told my dad that I thought it was because of race the whole Rev. Wright thing ever came up, he disagreed. His belief is that it’s a partisan issue. Republicans can hang out with crazy preachers because republicans believe that craziness, but democrats can’t because they don’t. Seeing that, the right made this their latest hatchet job.
After that conversation, things were a little less murky though no less encouraging. While it made have just been a republican hit piece, it was still a republican hit piece and those are never pleasant. It appealed to the fearful in our party who are more worried about having a bland candidate than a substantive one, and I can’t stand that. I voted for John Edwards knowing he would drop out, because I believe in Edwards. I stand by that vote and I’ll vote for Obama in the general for the same reason, but it’s infuriating to me that so many people get sucked in to the "This trivial happening means this candidate will NEVER get elected" mode of thinking.
I know I am hardly the first person to rail against the worriers, but it needs to be continually reinforced: we need bravery right now. We do not need a safe person to lead the nation, we need someone who’s not afraid to tackle the issues head on and kick ass if necessary. Judging solely from the way they’ve led their respective campaigns, Obama is brave and Clinton is safe. He’s trying to lead (though I still wish he’d do more in the Senate) and she’s trying to not step on any toes. That right there tells me who’s getting my time and money (since I can’t vote again).
Watching this whole media narrative play out threw me off. It’s hard to tell what’s media and what’s genuine, what’s coming from republicans and what’s coming from democrats, what people actually care about and what they’re just worried about. I guess this is why they call campaign season "silly season," nothing really makes a lot of sense.