If you're like me and you watch and read the "news" every day, it's quite possible to lose all perspective on what issues, statements and 'controversies' matter in this presidential election cycle. One of the main reasons for this is that while many may try to compare this election to those of the past, in reality, our current campaign and its coverage resemble very little anything from previous American elections. We have a longer campaign, more coverage, more sources of information, more polls, more pundits, more money and more partisan media sources. To make this system work, there needs to be continuous 'news' to cover, even when there is little in day to day politics that is important to a voter looking to make a truly informed choice.
For this reason, it is easy to see one comment or position by Senators McCain or Obama that will make or break the election. It is easy to be disheartened or overly confident by one or a series of polls. It is easy to think that the "corporate media" is controlling the ability of voters to see the truth about each candidate. And it is easy to be constantly outraged by the day to day actions of the candidate you oppose (and sometimes the candidate you support).
All of this works to diminish the impact of the statements and policies that actually do matter to the voter and to the future of our country. The culprit here is what I call 'faux outrage.' Faux outrage drives the cable news cycle and has led the media to spend more and more time talking 'politics,' and less talking about what's actually happening in the world. Probably the best recent example of faux outrage was the response to General Wesley Clark's comments about how John McCain's POW experience doesn't necessarily make him ready to be president. The cable news beast pounced because it was an easy story to cover, lacking any need for thought, while simultaneously, in theory, touching on some of the most important issues of the election. In reality, it was a contrived story that just gave pundits a reason to keep talking, which is all they're looking for. Make no mistake about it though, the left is just as quick as the right to jump on a story like this, if it looks like it will give them a few hours, days or even a week of decent coverage.
Yet, this approach to news has left most of us lost in the forest of electoral politics. These stories are acorns. There have been hundreds of them in this election cycle and will be hundreds more. From a perspective on the ground, an acorn looks vastly important. It could dramatically affect the area around it, growing larger and blocking the sun from everything in its vicinity. The reality is that the vast majority of acorns don't grow, as they are blocked out by the branches of the trees who both grew them and simultaneously ensured they would get no sun.
For example, our situation in Iraq is a large grove in the woods of this electoral season. It is a story that virtually every voter has followed to some extent for years and recognizes as a valid and important part of deciding the next president. It's a grove that has grown and developed long enough that a few acorns here and there will have little affect on its overall condition. This is why even with reports of violence down in Iraq and the "success" of the surge, public opinion has changed very little as a result. From the perspective of a group of trees, an acorn rightly seems insignificant.
Yet there are areas of the woods that are younger, less developed and more influenced by the individual acorn. These are the politics and policies in which voters are less informed and therefore lacking the larger perspective. For example, Senator Obama's faith is something that the American voter has just recently (relatively) learned about and formed an opinion on. Most voters are just beginning to form their own map of how this fits into his personal and political narrative. Their perspective has not yet grown from ground level and can, therefore, be dramatically affected by an acorn here or there; ie stories about his pastor, slander about his religious background, or, conversely, stories about how he found religion and has reconciled it with his life and background. Eventually, if the right acorns are cultivated in the right way in this younger area of our political forest, this grove will gain the same continuity and definition as the oldest areas of the wilderness.
It is also important to remember that trees fall down, and large areas of forest can be virtually destroyed by numerous causes. The insurgency in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 completely changed most Americans' perspective on the war, altering an entire portion of the political landscape. The housing and credit crisis dramatically transformed people's views on the direction of our economy. And, of course, when trees are knocked down, there is an opportunity for an acorn to grow.
This metaphor is commonly used to describe politics, and yet the conclusion is usually: get some perspective and see the whole forest. While I agree with that in part, what I take away is that we should work to find this larger perspective so that we can see with greater clarity which acorns may grow, and which are destined for a short life in the shade. The more we maintain faux outrage over an inconsequential story, the less likely we are to be heard when that acorn falls that can change the entire landscape.
Cross posted at Fitz on Politics and Talking Points Memo