Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Obama '08

The election is going to both excite me and kill me the next two months. I realize that everyone has differing opinions about who will do a better job, but I also realize that I am not able to talk to unintelligent people anymore. I get rather tired of the "I get a bad feeling about this guy," or "there's just something wrong here" notion that people spew so as to justify who they are voting for. I mean, seriously? Since when should we personally like the guy in office? I know this has been said over and over, but I have to repeat it. We should not want a mirror copy of ourselves in office! I mean, seriously, I know I am a wonderful person with lots to offer the world, and quite honestly the universe would be a sad place without me, but would I want myself in office?! Hell, no. I want the person who is most qualified and also agrees with as much as what I believe in as possible.

There was an interesting article in the Financial Times (note, if it asks you to register, just copy the link directly from this blog and paste into your browser, the FT is annoying this way) that talks about why people who the "Democrats are fighting for" are not voting for the Democrats. It was a little badly written in that it clearly has the view "Dems good, GOP evil," (I don't disagree but a news article should in principle be a little less obvious), but makes some good points. Mostly: Obama is not elitist, he's an intellectual (which people in this country fear, because that means he's smarter than a lot of people, including myself).

The main area that it states that Democrats have gone wrong in getting those with similar views to vote the opposition is that they are "condescending" in how they speak to Americans. I imagine I don't feel that way because I look past that and just listen to what the person is saying it; not his/her tone. But the majority of Americans, it seems, cares more about "not what he said, but the way he said it" I'm reminded of a certain scene in Friends where Joey says this about something Chandler said, and then freaks out because, "Oh my God! I'm a woman!" In my everyday life, in my interactions with people, I fall into this category. The overly emotional and overly senstive person (the stereotypical woman, as is seen in that Friends episode, but I am certain everyone can come up with roughly an equal number of members of either sex who act this way). While I am this way normally, I remove this feeling when I watch a politician speak. I turn a bit cold and forget how they are saying what they are saying (even though any well-given speech will of course excite some emotion in me), but just listen to the words.

What is it about people who cannot do this? Is it the fact that we are in a society that likes to think of everyone around as a peer? Thus, if someone who is much smarter than we are starts talking about things we don't understand (or in a way we don't understand, like many Physicists when talking to non-scientists), he or she is immediately some elite snob who just thinks he or she is better than us. I think this is probably what happens, and it allows everyone to automatically become better than everyone else. "She is an elitist, and I'm down to earth, so she clearly is a worse person than I." "He is an idiot, so I'm so much smarter than him."

I think we do this both ways, and this is possibly one of the requirements of the winner of this election. You have to balance being smart enough to know what to say, when to say it, and how to articulate yourself while not sounding to high and mightly. With that, you must also make it seem like you are no smarter nor stupider than everyone in America, so that people don't think they are better nor worse than you for whatever reason.

What is sad is that this revelation, while not terribly new in my mind, frightens me. It worries me that the majority of voters are nowhere near as smart as, hell, either of the candidates, and wouldn't understand the details of policy (I do lump myself here, so I'm not just shitting on everyone else; I don't understand that much of the intricacies of how the US actually functions and that is why you should never vote for me for a public office. In case you were thinking it.).

It all comes down to this: Do you vote for the candidate you most agree with or the one you would rather have a beer with after work?. Luckily for me, I can say this year that it is the same candidate on both issues. Hand me a Guiness.

by Topher at 8:57 AM |