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writerpo writes a post about the American dream...
If Barack Obama represents the American Dream, then John McCain represents the American Fantasy.
Barack Obama worked hard and became rich. John McCain won the lottery.
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I might be wrong twice. Not only will Hillary not win this election, but with this kind of misreading of America, it may not even go to the Democrats. It's not just about working hard. It's about how you behave once you've got it.
Let me illustrate.
I get the Duluth Trading Company catalog. It's a catalog of manly stuff. They even use "manly" in their product descriptions. They sell everything from long-tail t-shirts designed to prevent plumber's crack to logger pants made out of fire hose material to nose hair trimmers to practical math books that explain trigonometry as it applies to construction. But there was one product description that caught my eye in particular.
"Bashful Billionaire's" Leather Briefcase
We get tired of all those brash billionaires we see on TV and the gossip pages, yakking about their latest skyscraper or “can’t miss” investment. Give us those bashful billionaires of days gone by, with their sack lunches, corner barber haircuts and unassuming air.
This is a briefcase for them; and for you, if you prefer fine craftsmanship to flash. It’s ruggedly handsome, thick cut full-grain cowhide – you can almost imagine it slung over some cowpoke’s saddle...
Like most catalogs, the Duluth Trading Co's is aspirational. I'm sure most of the guys who buy from it aren't carpenters or plumbers or loggers or cowboys or billionaires. I'm a computer programmer who sits on his ass all day and softens his hands on a keyboard, and I love the damn thing. They're selling an ideal. One that appeals to men, and the way they want to see themselves.
And you notice how it sells the image of wealth? Extreme wealth. Billions! Sack lunch. $5 haircut. Unassuming. In this ideal, having money isn't a problem. It's how you behave once you've got it.
And Barack Obama's going to step out there tonight on a stage lined with Grecian columns and will be shocked to discover that lots of people find it easier to identify with the guy whose wife owns seven houses.
Comments
I think all the recent successful presidents had an aspirational story to sell. W as the frat boy bumbler who got his life on track only after he met the right woman. Bill Clinton as the trailer trash hick from a broken home who won a few scholarships and married above his station.
The problem with Obama is that his story makes no fucking sense to vast swaths of America. He's friends with a guy who wishes he bombed the Pentagon more? His wife is ashamed of America? He worked as a "community organizer"? What does that even mean?
By way of comparison, McCain's story is pure awesome. Despite not doing all that well at school, he comes home after fighting in a war (and being a fighting naval aviator in the first 20 years of the jet age is NOT an easy occupation) and going through hell as a POW to trade up his wife to a hot brewery heiress and now has so many homes he has to stop and think about it. Hell yes!
Wait, What?
WTFF?
"Worked Hard?"
Does this person know what _working_ entails?
I'm not a big McCain fan - hell, I don't like the guy, but yeah, getting tortured, abused, and maimed for life as a POW is easily considered "hard work".
I can't think of anything that Obama's done that even qualifies as "hard work". (Hell, what the hell has Obama done? Run for office and won by getting all other candidates disqualified, run for the Senate against a guy (seen as unbeatable - why someone as unremarked as Obama was guided towards running aginst him for name recognition) who the local media was (very probably illegally) looking in his closet for skeletons - and who then dropped out of the race, allowing Obama to run (essentially) unopposed.... "Community Organizer"? What did he organize and how well? The Annenberg Challenge (Woah! Wait! Not supposed to mention how Ayers has known him for a long time!) turned out to be a total waste of time and money.)
The ability of the Democrats to create their own mythology, and insist that everybody else believe in it and abide by it is just staggering. (John Kerry, Reporting for Duty!, anybody?)
But that's just delusionally insane. McCain not working hard - even if he hadn't been a POW, being a Naval Aviator is hardly noted as a life of leisure - while Obama, with nothing to show but a law degree, "worked hard?"
WTFF?
And just didn't want to. I did want to point something out to you, to reinforce something you said, however:
Not in and of itself a bad thing, but Hillary was his first real fight.
Deserves to be emphasized here. The reason Obama was running for the Senate was Ryan looked unbeatable.
Get Obama some TV time, get his name out there for the future, planning ahead kind of thing. The sort of race you don't stick someone in who's really going to have to give it their all, or sacrifice a lot for it.
...
Except Ryan dropped out of the race, leaving Obama the uncontested* contender. (Also note why he dropped out...)
Obama got to the state level by getting opponents DQed, got to the National in a cakewalk that had been nowhere in the plans for the Chicago Machine... And his experience with Clinton really demonstrates it. (Or the reaction to unexpected events, such as today. I really with Clinton had put up a serious backstabbing fight at the convention, just to see the Obama cart fall utterly apart. (On the other hand, what could he have offered her to stop fighting?))
Even McCain handles criticism far better, and with far more aplomb than Obama and those closely around him. Had he had to fight a serious political campaign before, he'd be a lot better at it.
* uncontested for any real value of "Contested".
From the time it became clear she couldn't win the nomination legitimately, Clinton has been trying to ensure Obama lost without *looking like* she was doing so. Her plan to run in 2012 on the "I told you so" platform won't work if she's seen as the reason Obama loses.
So she couldn't put up too much of a fight at the convention. Or at least, she couldn't give the appearance that she was doing so.
Not that I doubt your suggestion that she got huge concessions from Obama for pretending to play nice. But anything she got out of Obama for doing something she was going to do anyway is just a mark of what a lousy negotiator he is.
Right.
Which is a tricky, tricky step. Got to make sure he loses, but without looking like we're making sure.
"I dunno... Campaign casual!"
But she could have made it a big floor fight. And she's canny enough not to have given any advantage away prior to the convention by conceding that. Hence the indrawn breath by partyt faithful when Democrats discussed the possibilities. Obama didn't have a majority of the delegates. (Which is why I was still thinking Gore had a shot to end up coming out the nominee after a floor fight. Drat. I was wrong, but I was close. :))
I think she genuinely didn't know what her convention behavior was going to be. She's smart and canny - she probably had several choices, and I'd bet that the final choice didn't get made until after the convention had started.
Which is why I wonder what he might have promised her. (side note: he's not kept his *other* promises to her.)