I came to an understanding with myself on Wednesday night that makes me feel a little better about my soul but slightly worried for my future as a business person.
I flat-out told an undecided voter — one who was undecided, open, friendly, ready to talk politics and probably leaning Obama after watching the debate in the room where his Democratic friend was — that when it came down to it, I’d rather he vote for McCain than not vote at all.
This is not a position Democrats are going to shout from the rooftops (Republicans should shout it, but only to registered Republicans if they plan to win). Look at what happened when Bush decided to force elections on the Gaza Strip. I bet Hamas is still thanking him for that blunder. “Real democracy” doesn’t necessarily mean that the populace will vote in its own best interests. If you want to run a registration drive, be sure you know what audiences you’re targeting and whether you can afford to spend the time educating and persuding them to vote for your issues.
As you know, my suggestion is probably not the wisest thing to say to someone who might be looking for an excuse not to vote for your candidate but who wants to know that someone understands, that he’s doing the right thing.
I said it anyway.
As badly as I want and need and hope and pray for Obama to win this election, as painful as the last eight years have been, as furious as I am with the Bush Administration and conservatives right now, I don’t want to sink to their level. I want to win this fairly. I need to know that of the people who care enough to actually register, stay informed and vote on November 4th, more of them believe that Barack Obama is the better person for the office. I have to see that my neighbors and relatives and friends and peers and acquaintances and rivals and those who are strangers to me all stop what they are doing or could be doing on that Tuesday and do whatever it takes to cast their ballots because they give a damn about what happens on this planet and know that as a great force in world history, part of the planet’s future depends on what we decide and will lay out a path forward upon which the next generation will have to walk.
Yes, there are many, many important decisions that we cannot afford to make under the rule of another conservative, like Supreme Court appointments, business regulation and civil rights laws. In the shadow of the steps our country has taken backwards, those choices are more critical and more prescient than ever. That doesn’t change the fact that a dishonorable victory would feel hollow and hypocritical.
What would it say about the progressives of this country if we had to resort to suppression, intimidation, threats of violence, misinformation, propaganda, cracking, fraud, trickery and outright lies in order to triumph?
How would we sleep at night, when despite knowing that acts of nature and of artificial means had melded together so fortuitously at one time, that the rest of the world thought we had a fighting chance to prove that we are who we say we are and not just a band of selfsh people who want all the power and privilege without the sacrifice or the responsibility, that for once we didn’t have to say one thing but believe another or make rules for others to obey that we ourselves do not follow, that we had held in our grasp all the cards, that the deck was all but spent and someone had probably dealt us a winning suit, knowing we might yet turn back from the precipice — that the very stars had aligned for our cause — despite having all these favors, we still had so little faith in ourselves that we cheated and forfeited the game to avoid risking the hand?
How would anyone else trust us or believe in our sincerity ever again? How would we trust ourselves?
I think Bill Maher put it perfectly last night on Larry King Live when he said, “If you want to be the first black man to do anything, you have to be better than anyone else.” That is what Obama has done. It was not John McCain who held to his straight-talk mantra that “he’d rather lose the election than win the war.” It was Barack Obama who staked his candidacy on the idea that a candidate could run for a political office without employing dirty tricks and personal attacks and win. Unlike McCain, Obama’s not using the type of smear tactics Bush’s unofficial advocates used to defeat him in 2000, like automated voice calls that claim Obama’s close friends with a terrorist, that the terrorist’s group killed multiple civilians (Weather Underground killed one police officer, and William Ayers was never convicted of a felony related to the WU), or that Obama’s a radical leftist who will bring socialism — oh, the horror! — to Washington, D.C. Obama’s not the one who’s consulting with a GOP state manager who gave talking points to his volunteers on how to compare Barack to Osama Bin Laden ‘”because they both have friends who attacked the Pentagon.” Nor does he stir up a cloud of fear, panic and xenophobia with implications about his opponent’s origins that are both nativist and racist, then make no clarifications when the racists at his rallies shout out “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” or fail to point out that not all Muslims are Arab, not all Arabs are Muslims, and not many Muslims are terrorists, then demand that his opponent APOLOGIZE for RIGHTLY calling the bigots on their hate speech and for chastising him for allowing such behavior to go unchallenged. Those are but a sampling of the varied skill sets that McCain has acquired over the course of the campaign as the campaign has slowly acquired him.
McCain’s bid for the presidency, in all its Sarah Palin-esque glory, has taken on a slimy, rotten personality of its own, and as we count down the days until the final voting, this malicious and odious quest to tar and feather Obama’s reputation — not just as a candidate, but as an American — threatens to overwhelm its creator and take him with it on a ride to the end, no matter if that end justifies the means or not.
This is our first true Web 2.0, YouTube-enabled, 24/7 live-blogged and live-recorded presidential election in history. Every off-color joke, every lie, every gaffe or faux pas, every contradicting quote, every smirk of contempt and twitch of apoplectic rage, every hate-filled diatribe, every nasty, false email circulated, all of it will be logged, categorized, downloaded, cached, duplicated, mashed up, remixed and re-distributed, forever. We inhabit a world where the press no longer sleeps because its power never lies solely in corporate hands anymore. Someone is always watching, witnessing, waiting for the first mistake. Sure, the pseudo-intellectuals and Karl Roves of the future will lie through their teeth, even when the footage is playing back at them, but every time that happens, they reduce their honor and the ethical capital they have to spend. They look that much worse.
For his sake, I hope that’s the price John McCain is willing to pay in order to win: his honor and integrity. That is what this race has cost him — his legacy. Long after he is gone, people will remember how low one campaign sunk to reach so high. He must know by now that bloggers never forget. I know I won’t.
Print This Post
