Mea Culpa – Paying for Advertising I Don't Watch
With only thirteen days left to Election Day, you may be sure that most candidates aren't out there telling you how much they admire their opponents.
Far from it. This is the time of year when the media, the pundits, and especially the voters who haven't put their TV in a closet, complain that the airwaves are saturated with negative advertising.
So I'm sitting here feeling just a little guilty that I've contributed to that saturation. To come completely clean, I admit that over the past year I've made modest monthly donations to political campaigns and political organizations that put up ads on your TV set.
And yet I haven't seen a single political ad myself either for or against any political candidate.
The truth is that I don't watch TV, not out of moral indignation, or fear that it will rot my brain, or any other ideological reason. It's just that when a commercial comes on, and the volume goes up, it's like nails on a blackboard for me, and if somebody doesn't hit the mute button, watch out!
In fact, as I ask myself why I fund a form of communication that I consider as much a form of torture as listening to Celine Dion, I have to confess that I don't have a very good answer.
Who am I trying to convince, after all?
If it's the small sector of undecided voters who still remain undecided after a seemingly never ending presidential campaign, then I have to admit that I pretty much agree with Ezra Klein who wrote that “from a civic standpoint, few creatures are as contemptible” as The Undecided Voter, (“Undecided voters? Studies show that most actually have chosen a candidate,” The Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-klein12-2008oct12,0,6236237.story).
After all we've had two years of news articles, TV debates, blogs, internet sites with reams of data, for the undecided to digest, and few could argue that John McCain and Barack Obama present anything other than a definitive choice for two very different ideological approaches to politics.
So why am I spending my hard earned money trying to sway people whose state of indecision I find almost incredible, given the amount of information available about the candidates who are running for office?
And yet as Klein also points out, “Undecided voters are believed to be the decisive slice of the American electorate, so they get the debates and the ads and the focus groups (assuming, that is, that they live in a battleground state).”
I also agree with Klein's contention, based on recent research by political scientists that many of the Undecideds are not really as “undecided” as they claim but are already leaning in one direction or the other, and may in fact not want to state publicly the name of the person they will probably vote for. And sure there are probably a few who just enjoy reveling in all the media attention they get every four years.
The fact is that I consider this particular election to be so important that I will spend my money trying to push a few people over the line towards the candidate they may be leaning towards. I'll press the Republicans who feel embarrassed at John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin to ask them to question his overall judgment. I'll press the former Hillary voters who aren't comfortable with a black man as President to look again at Colin Powell's endorsement. And I'll keep those ads coming.
So apologies to those of you who've already made up your minds. Just keep your finger poised over the mute button. And to all of you, Decided and Undecided alike – Get Out, and VOTE!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Guilt by Association: Obama and the “Secret Muslim” Charge
Guilt by Association: Obama and the “Secret Muslim” Charge
The most striking part of Colin Powell's interview with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press Sunday was not his endorsement of Barack Obama but rather his disapprobation of the political tactics of the Republican party in trying to associate Obama with the specter of the 9/11 terrorists.
I have long admired Colin Powell, but I have never admired him more than on this past Sunday when he stated that he was troubled by the “approaches” of the McCain campaign and the efforts of the Republican party to taint Senator Obama with the insinuation that he is a secret Muslim and therefore potentially a terrorist sympathizer.
In Powell's words, the party has created an atmosphere in which:
Yet it is not just the more recent threat of Islamic terrorism that Republicans are seeking to evoke in this smear campaign, but also the older, deep-seated association of “radical” black movements and figures from the 60's like Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and The Nation of Islam.
If Republicans can create enough links between “black,” “Muslim,” “radical,” “socialist,” and “terrorist,” in the minds of voters, already nervous about Barack Hussein Obama's uncommon name and mixed race origins, they believe they can frighten them into voting for John McCain or at least into staying away from the polls.
What Colin Powell states powerfully is the fundamental American belief, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that Americans should have the right of free association, and that no one should be tainted or smeared because of their association with an individual or group that happens to be unpopular.
Sadly, in contemporary America, where the drumbeat against the threat of terrorism has generated suspicion of anyone who appears to be of Middle Eastern origin, as a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama has not dared to enter a mosque and has met leading Islamic figures privately rather than openly.
This has left many Arab-Americans feeling rejected by both parties, even as many also feel the need to forge a common voice in the American democratic polity.
“'What's upsetting to me is you're completely discounted by both parties,' said Ahmad Ezzeddine, an associate vice president at Wayne State University” according to a recent Boston Globe article. “Ezzeddine, who immigrated to the US from Lebanon 20 years ago, said he voted twice for President Bush, but now feels politically orphaned, adding, 'There's no attempt to reach out. Obama wants us, but is so afraid because he doesn't want to be labeled, and the Republicans . . .'” (Michael Paulson, “Arab Americans Yearning,” Boston Globe, October 21, 2008, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/10/21/arab_americans_yearning/?page=1).
Since the Powell endorsement, Republican campaigners have simplified the guilty by association tactics even further by talking about the “pro-America” parts of the country and in the case of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, a call not only to investigate the “anti-American” aspects of Barack Obama but of the entire Congress.
Now by extension we can accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim, radical, socialist, terrorist, anti-American. The perfect bogey-man, made-up and marketed on every TV channel just in time for Halloween.
But it's not just the guilt by association tactics that should concern every American but the associations that are being tainted with guilt. It is no crime to be of Arab descent in this country, and no Arab American should be suspected of any criminal activity simply because that individual is of Arabic descent. Arab Americans are a diverse group in themselves, comprising both Christians and Muslims, and representing a wide geographic distribution from the horn of Africa to the Arabian peninsula.
After November 4th, these ugly campaign tactics will likely cease, but the rhetoric that sees every person who looks Middle Eastern as a Muslim and that suspects every Muslim of terrorist sympathies will continue to infect our public discourse until more of leaders find the courage of a Colin Powell to say: “Let every Muslim American child and every Arab American child dream that he or she can be be President of the United States, and let us make certain that those dreams can become a reality by overcoming our fear.”
The most striking part of Colin Powell's interview with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press Sunday was not his endorsement of Barack Obama but rather his disapprobation of the political tactics of the Republican party in trying to associate Obama with the specter of the 9/11 terrorists.
I have long admired Colin Powell, but I have never admired him more than on this past Sunday when he stated that he was troubled by the “approaches” of the McCain campaign and the efforts of the Republican party to taint Senator Obama with the insinuation that he is a secret Muslim and therefore potentially a terrorist sympathizer.
In Powell's words, the party has created an atmosphere in which:
It is permitted to be said such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.
But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America.
Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?
Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
Yet it is not just the more recent threat of Islamic terrorism that Republicans are seeking to evoke in this smear campaign, but also the older, deep-seated association of “radical” black movements and figures from the 60's like Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and The Nation of Islam.
If Republicans can create enough links between “black,” “Muslim,” “radical,” “socialist,” and “terrorist,” in the minds of voters, already nervous about Barack Hussein Obama's uncommon name and mixed race origins, they believe they can frighten them into voting for John McCain or at least into staying away from the polls.
What Colin Powell states powerfully is the fundamental American belief, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that Americans should have the right of free association, and that no one should be tainted or smeared because of their association with an individual or group that happens to be unpopular.
Sadly, in contemporary America, where the drumbeat against the threat of terrorism has generated suspicion of anyone who appears to be of Middle Eastern origin, as a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama has not dared to enter a mosque and has met leading Islamic figures privately rather than openly.
This has left many Arab-Americans feeling rejected by both parties, even as many also feel the need to forge a common voice in the American democratic polity.
“'What's upsetting to me is you're completely discounted by both parties,' said Ahmad Ezzeddine, an associate vice president at Wayne State University” according to a recent Boston Globe article. “Ezzeddine, who immigrated to the US from Lebanon 20 years ago, said he voted twice for President Bush, but now feels politically orphaned, adding, 'There's no attempt to reach out. Obama wants us, but is so afraid because he doesn't want to be labeled, and the Republicans . . .'” (Michael Paulson, “Arab Americans Yearning,” Boston Globe, October 21, 2008, http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/10/21/arab_americans_yearning/?page=1).
Since the Powell endorsement, Republican campaigners have simplified the guilty by association tactics even further by talking about the “pro-America” parts of the country and in the case of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, a call not only to investigate the “anti-American” aspects of Barack Obama but of the entire Congress.
Now by extension we can accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim, radical, socialist, terrorist, anti-American. The perfect bogey-man, made-up and marketed on every TV channel just in time for Halloween.
But it's not just the guilt by association tactics that should concern every American but the associations that are being tainted with guilt. It is no crime to be of Arab descent in this country, and no Arab American should be suspected of any criminal activity simply because that individual is of Arabic descent. Arab Americans are a diverse group in themselves, comprising both Christians and Muslims, and representing a wide geographic distribution from the horn of Africa to the Arabian peninsula.
After November 4th, these ugly campaign tactics will likely cease, but the rhetoric that sees every person who looks Middle Eastern as a Muslim and that suspects every Muslim of terrorist sympathies will continue to infect our public discourse until more of leaders find the courage of a Colin Powell to say: “Let every Muslim American child and every Arab American child dream that he or she can be be President of the United States, and let us make certain that those dreams can become a reality by overcoming our fear.”
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Cut Sarah Palin No Slack Nor the Man Who Chose Her
Cut Sarah Palin No Slack Nor the Man Who Chose Her
Today on NPR's Morning Edition, Senator McCain proved his knight-errantry by rushing to the defense of his damsel-in-distress, Governor Sarah Palin, whose performance in a couple of TV interviews with Katie Couric has demonstrated that like “there's no 'there' there.”
At least not when it comes to foreign policy, whether or not the financial crisis will lead to a another Great Depression, or any specific examples of Senator McCain supporting regulatory legislation during his twenty plus years in office.
Her floundering responses made many viewers, and a growing number of conservatives, think out loud that this choice of a running mate was not the brilliant strategic stroke it seemed at the Republican Convention, especially since Governor Palin is clearly not ready for prime time, much less the White House.
But this morning Senator McCain, who seems to think it a virtue to stick with a decision once made, however impulsive and wrong-headed, still insisted that Palin was a good choice, and a better one than Senator Obama or Biden, a comparison you'd think he would have avoided rather than sought.
Asked “what specifically do you believe that Alaska's proximity to Russia adds to Palin's foreign policy qualifications,” McCain responded with a vague reference to “the fact that they have had certain relationships,” and then immediately turned the question to Palin's energy experience, knowing full well that he was not going to be asked what those “certain relationships” might be, much less how they might relate to foreign policy.
McCain then made the tired political rhetorical gesture of suggesting that all the fuss over Palin's lack of qualifications was nothing more than “Georgetown cocktail party” gossip (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95240063).
In fact, listening to Steve Inskeep interview Senator McCain, I could not help thinking that the Senator hopes that voters will be lulled into what Jonathan Swift once defined as “the sublime and refined point of felicity, called the possession of being well deceived; the serene peaceful state of being a fool among knaves,” (“A Digression upon Madness” from A Tale of A Tub).
When Senator McCain defends his choice of Sarah Palin and the paucity of her qualifications, he is either a knave or a fool. When he claims that her critics are a group of cocktail party lightweights, he ignores a growing chorus of criticism from conservatives ranging from Senator Chuck Hagel to David Frum to George Will and Kathleen Park.
In some ways, Palin has been given a more sympathetic response from many on the left, who seem to feel almost a need to apologize for the position McCain's handlers have put her in before they can bring themselves to criticize her. For example, NPR's Nina Totenberg started her assessment of Palin by stating, “There's no way to sugarcoat this. After a brilliant debut at the Republican National Convention and a speech that electrified the delegates and the country, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is struggling in her second act,” (Morning Edition, 9/30/08, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95196691).
A bracing dash of cold water on this “pity party” comes from Salon's Rebecca Traister, who writes that: “Yes, as a feminist, it sucks -- hard -- to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview. And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics,” (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/30/palin_pity/).
Traister is absolutely right that the 2008 campaign has proven to be one more betrayal for those, men and women like, who hoped that this election season, women would be judged on their merits, not their looks, and that any woman who had a reasonable hope of making it to the White House would not be going there as an “arm piece” or just because she's a woman.
McCain's choice of Sarah Palin was a slap in the face, not only to all the Hilary Clinton supporters who were so devoted to her because of her hard work, her intellect, and her grasp of complicated policy issues, but also to the many highly experienced and articulate Republican women he could have chosen – like Elizabeth Dole, Olympia Snow, or even Condi Rice. (And wouldn't she have enjoyed playing the role of Dick Cheney for a change?)
The fact that Sarah Palin has already performed so poorly in the few interviews she has given should not set the bar lower for this Thursday's upcoming debate. Instead, this debate should be viewed as her last chance to stop mouthing platitudes and giving her convention speech over and over, and prove to the public that she really does know something about the major domestic and foreign policy issues she will need to face if she makes it to the White House.
After all, this is the woman that John McCain cynically handed to the voters as a possible Hilary Clinton replacement. Let her prove that the comparison is anything but laughable.
Yet Palin also has another reason to prove herself at Thursday night's debate. Voters cannot help but consider that if John McCain is elected, his age does raise the prospect that Palin might have to take on the responsibilities of president alone.
That possibility offers a very serious reason to treat Palin's performance as more than just a debate but rather as a dress rehearsal for the White House. And finally, however well or badly she does on Thursday night, her performance must also be taken as a reflection on John McCain, and the judgment he showed in selecting her as his running mate and his possible replacement in the Oval Office.
Today on NPR's Morning Edition, Senator McCain proved his knight-errantry by rushing to the defense of his damsel-in-distress, Governor Sarah Palin, whose performance in a couple of TV interviews with Katie Couric has demonstrated that like “there's no 'there' there.”
At least not when it comes to foreign policy, whether or not the financial crisis will lead to a another Great Depression, or any specific examples of Senator McCain supporting regulatory legislation during his twenty plus years in office.
Her floundering responses made many viewers, and a growing number of conservatives, think out loud that this choice of a running mate was not the brilliant strategic stroke it seemed at the Republican Convention, especially since Governor Palin is clearly not ready for prime time, much less the White House.
But this morning Senator McCain, who seems to think it a virtue to stick with a decision once made, however impulsive and wrong-headed, still insisted that Palin was a good choice, and a better one than Senator Obama or Biden, a comparison you'd think he would have avoided rather than sought.
Asked “what specifically do you believe that Alaska's proximity to Russia adds to Palin's foreign policy qualifications,” McCain responded with a vague reference to “the fact that they have had certain relationships,” and then immediately turned the question to Palin's energy experience, knowing full well that he was not going to be asked what those “certain relationships” might be, much less how they might relate to foreign policy.
McCain then made the tired political rhetorical gesture of suggesting that all the fuss over Palin's lack of qualifications was nothing more than “Georgetown cocktail party” gossip (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95240063).
In fact, listening to Steve Inskeep interview Senator McCain, I could not help thinking that the Senator hopes that voters will be lulled into what Jonathan Swift once defined as “the sublime and refined point of felicity, called the possession of being well deceived; the serene peaceful state of being a fool among knaves,” (“A Digression upon Madness” from A Tale of A Tub).
When Senator McCain defends his choice of Sarah Palin and the paucity of her qualifications, he is either a knave or a fool. When he claims that her critics are a group of cocktail party lightweights, he ignores a growing chorus of criticism from conservatives ranging from Senator Chuck Hagel to David Frum to George Will and Kathleen Park.
In some ways, Palin has been given a more sympathetic response from many on the left, who seem to feel almost a need to apologize for the position McCain's handlers have put her in before they can bring themselves to criticize her. For example, NPR's Nina Totenberg started her assessment of Palin by stating, “There's no way to sugarcoat this. After a brilliant debut at the Republican National Convention and a speech that electrified the delegates and the country, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is struggling in her second act,” (Morning Edition, 9/30/08, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95196691).
A bracing dash of cold water on this “pity party” comes from Salon's Rebecca Traister, who writes that: “Yes, as a feminist, it sucks -- hard -- to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview. And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics,” (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/30/palin_pity/).
Traister is absolutely right that the 2008 campaign has proven to be one more betrayal for those, men and women like, who hoped that this election season, women would be judged on their merits, not their looks, and that any woman who had a reasonable hope of making it to the White House would not be going there as an “arm piece” or just because she's a woman.
McCain's choice of Sarah Palin was a slap in the face, not only to all the Hilary Clinton supporters who were so devoted to her because of her hard work, her intellect, and her grasp of complicated policy issues, but also to the many highly experienced and articulate Republican women he could have chosen – like Elizabeth Dole, Olympia Snow, or even Condi Rice. (And wouldn't she have enjoyed playing the role of Dick Cheney for a change?)
The fact that Sarah Palin has already performed so poorly in the few interviews she has given should not set the bar lower for this Thursday's upcoming debate. Instead, this debate should be viewed as her last chance to stop mouthing platitudes and giving her convention speech over and over, and prove to the public that she really does know something about the major domestic and foreign policy issues she will need to face if she makes it to the White House.
After all, this is the woman that John McCain cynically handed to the voters as a possible Hilary Clinton replacement. Let her prove that the comparison is anything but laughable.
Yet Palin also has another reason to prove herself at Thursday night's debate. Voters cannot help but consider that if John McCain is elected, his age does raise the prospect that Palin might have to take on the responsibilities of president alone.
That possibility offers a very serious reason to treat Palin's performance as more than just a debate but rather as a dress rehearsal for the White House. And finally, however well or badly she does on Thursday night, her performance must also be taken as a reflection on John McCain, and the judgment he showed in selecting her as his running mate and his possible replacement in the Oval Office.
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