Dear Friend and Reader,
I’ve been hearing some pretty interesting stuff lately about the presidential campaigns from the other side of the pond. I have a good friend in Norway who summed up the sentiment of cynicism I think most Europeans feel at America’s political antics. He said to me, “It’s so hard being a Norwegian watching you [not very smart people] figure out who’s going to be your next president. In Norway, political commercials are illegal.”
Added to that, I listened to some radio commentary about Britain viewing Palin as though she were from the TV show Northern Exposure and Barack Obama as though he were from the show The West Wing.
Immediately, Europeans have identified the fact that both candidates, from both parties, are projecting on the stage like a group of actors vying for popularity. And I see examples of people every day who are still willing to be fooled by it all.
How weird that the Palin supporters I’ve talked to find nothing odd about her history in competitive sports and beauty pangeants leading up to a run in politics. How terrifying that in my local natural food store, I overheard the owner saying that according to Nostradamus, if Obama didn’t get elected, the world was going to end. And she was serious.
I realized that for many, politics is a sort of blank canvas by which world-view and personal power trips can be colored. The candidates are doing it by characterizing what it is they imagine to be our greatest desires for this country. We are doing it by watching the candidates like vultures for any gaff, bad joke or bad hair day.
Once I realized that I was looking forward to the VP debate with the same enthusiasm as I was during Wrestlemania 15 when Kane fought the Undertaker, I got the chills. Sometimes it seems like the very fate of the country we live in is on the back burner. Ever since the first televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon, the politics of politics flew out the window and entertainment took center stage.