If you can “relate” to a candidate, you probably shouldn’t vote for them
October 3, 2008 by William K. Wolfrum
After watching the Vice-Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, and then watching the Political Entertainers spin it this way and that, one overriding opinion has settled into my mind: Can we stop acting like ordinary, “Joe Sixpack” types have all the answers and would be perfectly capable of running the country?
Hear me out, here. Because I include myself among those who have no business being President. But after hearing Palin being praised for her down-home style, I just can’t stand by quietly while Americans are being told that Bob the butcher or Carol the mechanic could run the country just as well as someone with an “elite” education, or someone who has dedicated their lives to public service.
I’ve spent my whole life with normal Americans. And by that I mean white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Hindu, Muslim, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, the transgendered, church-goers, atheists, single, married, in a relationship or not, etc. Just normal folks trying to get by and trying to have pleasant lives. We are the backbone of the country. When foreigners talk about how they like Americans but dislike our government, the Americans in question are us. We are good people.
But let me tell you, I don’t want to see any of us run the entire country. We can run families and businesses, but running the United States of America is just something that’s beyond us. And we need to accept that and look for someone better than us to run the country.
And when Palin spoke of being from “Main Street Wasilla,” my blood ran cold.
Let me just tell you something about Alaska that no one seems to want to mention – a large percentage of the Alaskan population are people who just didn’t fit in where they were born. Alaska is the final frontier for those who just don’t mesh with ordinary society. There are thousands of people in Alaska right now who are there because they finally said the six magic words: “Screw it, let’s move to Alaska.”
And let me tell you, I fit in great up there. But if you want to think that folks from “Main Street Wasilla” are the same as people from “Main Street Cleveland,” well, you are sorely mistaken. If you ever meet someone from Wasilla, you’ll have two feelings – you’ll like them, and you’ll be happy they aren’t President. Ok, maybe three feelings, because you’ll also be a little freaked out at how militantly religious they are.
Look what happened when the media convinced Americans that George W. Bush was just a normal guy you can have a beer with, not just an incompetent blue blood. Both Al Gore and John Kerry were far too educated to be President. But we could relate to the kid that had pissed away every opportunity he had been given at birth.
My friends, I am one of you, and I say this with no malice whatsoever – You are not up to the job of running the country, and voting for someone who “relates to you” is just madness. Presidenting is hard. It’s a job that requires someone with education, experience and drive at the highest of levels. Saying “doggone it” is not a qualification to be the leader of the most complex nation in the history of the world.
So, to all of you Joe and Jane Sixpacks out there, let me just say I’m honored to have known as many of you as I have. You are the salt of the Earth and all that. But you have no business being President and you should recognize that a politician that’s trying to relate to you is either a liar from the get-go, or terribly unprepared to be a national leader.
Let’s vote for the educated, thoughtful people this time around. We don’t need to fear them. And it should just make no difference whether you want to have a beer with them or not.
–WKW
** Palin’s crusade for The Un-Enlightenment **
Sarah Non Sequitur skirts her ultra-right xian domestic program.
Palin is Peter Pan, a never-grow-up tomboy. How else to characterize a mental and behavioral juvenile who opines that human beings and dinosaurs walked together in a world at most 6,000 years old. Abandon rationality and honesty if you would be one with her.
Millions of fundies who want a theocratic America — an Ameristan, complete with puritanism and fanaticism — will forgive her handlers’ subterfuges. After all, she’s lying in a holy cause as a shill for dominionism.
We know exactly what Sarah Palin reads — it’s the Bible in its ultra-right ideological interpretation by the Dobson and Hagee crowd. That’s the only source for law and morals, domestic and foreign policy, war strategy and negotiating tactics.
Fundies hate what the US has become. Christian fideists, just like Islamic fideists, cannot tolerate an open society, a pluralist culture, or a secular state. They wax nostalgic for racism, for male dominated social control, for misogyny, for unquestioned acceptance of religious tyranny (not by those labels of course).
Palin has tried to conceal her own warped desire for bringing to life Margaret Atwood’s wretched dystopia stripped bare in her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Millions far saner than Sarah still do not know what’s in her mind . . . unenlightened beliefs clogged by (Super-size me Jesus!) junk-food faith.
bipolar2 ©2008
Yes. Though I don’t generally think of myself as a “Jane Six-Pack” (I went to college), I guess I am. I do realize that I am in no way prepared to be POTUS. EVEN THOUGH, I know who Hamas is, where I get my news, a few Supreme Court decisions I disagree with…etc. I will vote for Obama–not because I necessarily agree with everything he says, rather, because I think that he and Biden are thoughtful, highly educated people who surround themselves with–and listen to–other thoughtful people.
PS: Note to bipolar2: I grew up in Texas with Hagee, some of my family attends Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. My Mother calls him “Pastor.” (please pity me–I have had the Bush administration, not just for 8 years like everybody else, but for 16 years–not counting the father Bush.) You are right. bipolar2–as are you, William K Wolfrum.
I am female, and I am appalled by Governor Palin. I may be a “jane six pack” but I am not Hockey-mom fluff.
I’ve always been befuddled that (a) the Repubs think that comments like “our opponent is so smart & so popular” are an effective attack and (b) this strategy has actually worked before. The again, their base believes that John Kerry should be ashamed of his military service during Vietnam, while Dubya Bush should be proud of his, so there I go with that whole “logic” thing again …
For years, the Repubs have made quite effective use of the “stupidity card” — (1) nominate stunningly unqualified candidate (see: Quayle, W, Palin); (2) let “elite, edumacated liberal media” point out that said candidate has intelligence equivalent to proverbial box o’ rocks; (3) make political hay by crying that media observations about obviously unqualified candidate were actually directed at electorate (“see — the lib’rul New York Times says you’re all stoopid”).
But then we find ourselves in a time like the present, when the nation is slowly starting to realize that the economic free fall isn’t simply the result of “greedy wall street fat cats who need a mavericky ol’ cleanin’ up ” but rather is a by-product of extremely complex legislative & regulatory maneuvers employed by some nefarious (but undeniably smart) people over a series of years. And that fixing this and other messes (see also: Terror, War on; and Constitution, Shredding of) may require the ability to think in paragraphs rather than soundbytes.
Suddenly, electing a president whose worldview can easily fit on a bumper sticker doesn’t seem like such a (dare I say the word? oh, dare I do) *smart* thing to do after all.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying “Thank you, O Wise & Benevolent Wolfrum” for pointing this out much more effectively than I’ve ever seen it expressed before — and for doing so without maligning the many great contributions of the many fine “salt of the earth” people around the world.
I consider myself a fairly smart guy, but as I believe Jon Stewart once said, I want a president who is *significantly* more intelligent that I am.
Ya know, someone like WK Wolfrum
I find it funny that people aren’t pissed at Palin for thinking they so stupid as to buy into her phony “gee shucks, golly gosh, I’m just a hockey mom from main street” patronizing attitude.
Hockey moms from main street may know how to be a passable mayor of their podunk town (I came from a similar podunk town), and may know how to get elected to governorship, but we don’t know really how well she does that job of governor because she’s only been doing it for less than two years. She certainly doesn’t show the kind of attitude that I’d expect in a VP.
ILke John Stewart said last night, we need to stop pretending like “real people” don’t live in major cities. “Real people” live in New York and California too (though Cali can be pretty hard, even for a progressive like me, to stomach at times, but still, real people all the same).
someone like WK Wolfrum
Oh, I’m pretty inept. I’d totally destroy the country. But I can promise it would be a lot more entertaining than Bush has made it
No average folks shouldn’t be President. As a matter of fact, the men that sat down and hammered out the constitution decided that average folks shouldn’t even be allowed to vote for President.
Just normal folks trying to get by and trying to have pleasant lives. We are the backbone of the country. When foreigners talk about how they like Americans but dislike our government, the Americans in question are us. We are good people.
Thank God someone has said it. As someone living in the UK I can honestly say that we find Americans to amongst the nicest people you could ever meet. Friendly, outgoing, sociable people. And it’s not even your government that we despise as we loved Clinton. Our current problem is with the Republicans. With Bush and the neo-con thugs who rip up international law at will. Unsurprisingly, when you don’t live in a nation with the largest military on the planet, we are quite attached to international law, so that’s quite a big deal to us.
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