In last week’s installment, I demonstrated my amazing mastery of the blatantly obvious by suggesting that Barack Obama was bound to stub his toe sometimes between now and the last primary in June. Well, sure enough, this week he was caught cribbing some real zinger lines from his best bud,’ Massachusetts governor Duval Patrick, and his wife, Michelle, exhibited symptoms of Ferragamo-in-mouth disease when she declared that her hubby’s success made her proud of her country for the first time in her “adult life.” (African American ambivalence on this point is understandable, but in the broad public view, I suspect, Princeton and Harvard Law degrees hardly suggest strong grounds for smoldering resentment.) So what happens as a result of these potentially injurious gaffes? Oby goes out and lays a 17-point whipping on Billary in Wisconsin, where she held what seemed to be comfortable lead in the polls as recently as three weeks ago. Exit polls showed he even bested Clinton among voters who placed a premium on health care, an area where her expertise was presumed to count the most.
Basically, it seems that Senator C’s constituency shrinkage has become so severe that she and I now share the same demographic: white women over 60. (My estimates are based solely on the people most likely to laugh at my jokes when I’m out on the rubber-chicken circuit.) In reality, all of this suggests to me that many people are drawn to Obama not by where he stands on any particular issue but because he presents an attractive leader-model in whom they choose to believe with astonishing ferocity. Ironically, in this regard, he seems very much like the charismatic, inspirational (though also a bit short on specifics) Ronald Reagan, whose gravesite a desperately hopeful GOP checks for signs of exit every Easter.
Whether this determination to believe in Oby can sustain itself all the way through the primaries, the convention and the general election remains to be seen, of course. John McCain is understandably intent on making an issue of it if Obama welches on his earlier promise to use only federal funding for his campaign, but thus far the O-man seems all but untouchable, his loins girded with the same Teflon tighty-whiteys that served the ol’ Gipper so well and are clearly far superior to Mitt Romney’s magic Mormon underdrawers. Never one to give up on a good metaphor—or a bad one either, for that matter—let me observe that since effectively clinching his party’s nomination, Sen. McCain has acted as though his skivvies may be riding up on him a little. To my mind, at least, Johnny Mac was far more appealing when he was out there swing for the fences, saying what he really thought in defiance of the party poobahs who had long since written him off. Now that he’s the presumptive nominee, instead of inspiring, he seems brittle, tight, and well--old. If Obama survives the final desperate, last-ditch, shoot-the-wounded-and scald-the-kittycats Billary counter-blitz that is certain to come, and McCain doesn’t get his groove back, it could be a long fall for the Republicans.
It’ll definitely be a long fall for those of us who have to survive media coverage of the campaign. The obnoxious Chris Matthews, who never allows anyone to finish a sentence, was strutting around on MSNBC this morning after beating down a lowly Texas state senator who supports Obama by insisting that the man give him just one example of an Obama legislative accomplishment. Naturally, the poor guy couldn’t do it. My complaint is not that Matthews didn’t make a valid point, but that he chose to make it with some obscure little dude who was thrust on national TV for the first time, rather than with one of the dozens of nationally prominent Obama supporters he has interviewed on MSNBC over the last few months. What’s the matter Chris? Does the size of the old kahones vary inversely with the stature of the interviewee?
One last morsel for premature thought. Thinking back to Ms. Obama’s comments, if Mr. O is actually elected president, what kind of political fallout will there be for African American leaders who continue to premise their policy initiatives on the historic disadvantages facing people of their race? It’s not too hard for me to imagine a conservative line to the effect that the election of a black president should effectively bring down the curtain on the supposed era of atonement.
