When the going gets tough, when you are in the final 100 meters of a marathon, when you are tired and spent and just aching to get to the finish, the layers are stripped away, revealing the essence of who you are and what you are made of.
Often in this presidential race, both sides have asked, 'Who do you trust in a crisis?' While I feel this is important, as the world can be unpredictable and things can develop and change in a breath, I think we, as Americans, need to examine how each candidate is handling himself in the final stretch, with the end of the race so near, with the economy teetering on a cliff face, with the earth of the verge of climate change from which we cannot come back. What does each candidate inspire and evoke in people? To borrow from Martin Luther King Jr. what is the content of each candidate's character?
When the chips are down, we more clearly see these two men for who they are and what they believe. As we've seen from the debates and the rallies of late, the essence of each man is revealed. Barack Obama and Joe Biden appeal to the best in people, while John McCain and Sarah Palin appeal to the worst parts of our natures.
We look and react in horror and disgust and the tone of the McCain/Palin campaign. The fear mongering, the thinly disguised disdain that they show for Obama and Biden. How McCain referred to Obama as "that one." How McCain barely acknowledges Obama's presence, let alone look at him. The disturbing ease with which they incite the darker, more base aspects of human emotion. How they encourage by their silence calling Obama a terrorist, referring to an African-American cameraman as a 'boy.' The way they manipulate and play on people's prejudices, unease, and worries about the present and the future for their own gain. Like vampires they feed on negativity and ugliness to gain power and position.
And look at the audiences and tenor of any McPalin event. The sameness, the anger, the hostility. It makes me squeamish to watch more than 10 seconds of any of their events. It makes me feel sick inside.
And what do Obama and Biden appeal to in us? The appeal to our better and best selves. They inspire hope and possibility, passion and belief that positive change is possible. People feel empowered to work together towards a better day, a better way. They bring people of diverse backgrounds and interests together under the common theme of progress, of self-empowerment, of belief that anything is possible if we just work together. They call us to be involved in our communities, get out the vote, talk with our neighbors, friends and strangers. They help restore faith to (some) of the cynical. They inspire those who've never engaged in the political process to donate, phonebank, canvass, host fundraisers. You watch a Obama or Biden event and you feel so good inside afterwards, you feel like anything is possible, that they truly believe in us and are on our side.
And when McPalin was gaining on us, and people urged Obama to attack, to fight back, what did he do? What did his campaign do? Keep talking about the issues that matter, to answer accusations thrown but keeping a cool head. He kept talking to and with the American public like adults with real concerns. McPalin, on the other hand, treats the American people like pawns in their political game, cynical to the core. To them, we are the means to an end, and if the way is by stoking fear and hatred, so be it. They'll just toss 'Joe Six Pack" and "Hockey Mom" to the side when they are done with them.
I am so pleased and yes, proud to see that this fear/hate mongering is finding little audience among most Americans. Americans who are sick and tired of being drowned in the ocean of fear, who realize that fear and hate are not going to pay the bills, keep a roof over their heads, or secure a better tomorrow for their children. That the road of fear leads only to emptiness and despair.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden understand that it is by appealing to our best selves, the best of the human spirit, that we are motivated to work together for a better tomorrow. That while we are different, there is no time to let those differences divide us, because at the end of the day, we share the same hopes and dreams, doubts and fears. They understand that being for something, instead of against, leads of positive and sustaining chance that benefit all of us.