Listening to Conservative Talk radio this morning on the way to work....Oreilly, Limbaugh, Dobbs I am often floored on how I let myself be surprised by the American people. Once again, I am caught off guard on how many people are just giddy about Palin. They refuse to look beyond the surface. They have no depth. They are circumference people. They say things like "I just like her." "She really seems tough and can get things done." They see an attractive woman, a "hockey Mom", a fighter and she seems to talk tough and know things. Whether or not she does or if the things she states so forcefully are true doesn't really matter because none of them will ever research or try to dig with any depth. They don't want to. We love short staccato black and white answers. As much as the right complains about Hollywood they love movies and they love their tough guy stars like Charlton Heston, Chuck Norris and Ronald Reagan. These guys were not actual cowboys or tough guys....they just played one on TV and movies. No matter, because reality is irrelevant to appearances.
We are the country that produces all the hot shot big budget kick ass hero movies. We like swagger. Palin is no different than Bush when he arrived on the scene. People paid very little attention to his substance and instead embraced his "tough guy cowboy" persona. The Kerry - Bush campaign was a perfect example: we had one candidate who ACTUALLY was a war hero and another who pretended to be one. We all know who the American people voted for. We prefer what lies on the circumference than what lies inside, we prefer surface to depth, we prefer bold flashy talk instead of substantive, we prefer scathing nasty ads instead of honest ones....we say we don't but we do. We are surrounded by these circumference people and you and I are stuck but we have a chance but only if we understand this. For now we have to play their game. We have to fight nasty. If they are running on character than we attack their character (glenn greenwald has a great article on this). If they are running on surface issues we attack those same surface issues because that is what the American people respond to. I wish it was different, truly I do. I would love a debate, a really knock down drag down debate about serious issues. Yes we live in serious times but there is a large group of us who are not serious people and this election is too important for us to once again let them beat up on us over BS surface issues "obama is unpatriotic" "obama is a muslim" "Obama is an elitist" "obama is weak and wants to hold hands with terrorists" and on it goes. The thing is we don’t have to lie like the right. Their record is abysmal without us fabricating it. We now just need to speak the language of the circumference people and drive it home. Until we attack the surface, the circumference people, you and I will remain stuck in the middle.
Update/comment
I think another thing that is interesting is that even in the face of what they believe in they chose style over substance. They say they believe in fiscal conservativissm and yet Bush runs up the debt and the excuse it becuase they "want to have beer with him." They believe in less government but Bush increases the size of government and attacks on civil liberties but he looks good in a flight suit. They are ultra pro-family and yet Palin has a 4 month old child that needs extra attention but it is ok for her to be on the road away from this child because she hunts moose.