Like most people, I have a secret wish. It burns deep within my being like some clandestine fiery madness; it gnaws at my soul. It is the wish that someone will in my lifetime take footage from the 2008 presidential nominations race and narrate it in Kentucky Derby-commentator style.
I think that if I sauntered into YouTube on one of those fine springtime afternoons best spent lollygaging on the Internet and was to hear, "Mike Huckabee losing ground after a strong start, Mitt Romney coming up fast on the inside track. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton tied for a three-length lead over John Edwards, oh! Clinton's jockey just slammed Obama with his whip. Hey Joe, isn't that the same whip Bill Clinton's jockey used when he won the race all those years ago? Looks like it's gotten a bit frayed since then, but look at her ride that little filly! Are those fangs under her bridle, Joe? And Thompson's gone down, Thompson has jumped the rail, ladies and gentleman!" I would lose my fear of death by monster.
The great thing about the Kentucky Derby is that thousands of newspaper articles are written about it each year, all of which sum up to say the exact same thing: Nobody knows who'll win, but it's sure going to be a great race; back to you, Bob.
The same might be said about the 2008 race for the presidency; unfortunately, we must remember that only one of those events is a horse race with results that can be flipped over by rain or a bad piece of corn in someone's bucket. The other one is a contest to see who will control the world's reigning superpower. Can you spot which is which?
Election-watching has unofficially surpassed both reality television and plushophilia as America's national pastime. Although its players are less prone to downright nastiness than those of its mother (the age of the man who put the D+ in "Decider"), the 2008 race for the nominations has proved to be such a gripping event that one must assume it was based on a novel that no one's ever heard of.
Just when it seems that the audience has got the characters all figured out, a new political issue appears on the forefront that suddenly transforms them all into different, though strikingly identical people. As the newest curtain falls, we see McCain pulling tax cuts out of a hat. A bell tolls, and Hillary is transformed from the Corporate Cutlass to the Commander In Chief "¦ of Change.
Sometimes I think that show business is to politics as a labradoodle is to a mutt; they can seem like the exact same thing some of the time, but that's only because they are the exact same thing almost all of the time. Players enter either business as human beings and depart as brand names. Fame takes the most disagreeable picture of the player that it can get its hands on and engraves that picture on the minds and wallets of every human with a television. Fortunately or unfortunately for the players, America's ADD emits corrosive acid that rots away these pictures in favor of who was voted off the island the day before.
By America's vote, the 2008 candidates have undergone this celebrity treatment. They are no longer what they do or say; they are now characters in a bad first novel by an English teacher who really believed that she could make it big in writing. Perhaps it would be easier if America let them stay as they were in singular roles: the warhorse, the peacemaker, $400 Haircut Man (now appearing in universities near you). Unfortunately, breaking headlines allow everyone to slather the candidates' original characters with sticky notes, most of which are hard to swallow and badly spelled. Goodness is not interesting. Bravery and honesty aren't show-stoppers; taking charity law cases doesn't earn the online news editors their bread and butter. Mud is the new black, and all of the candidates are throwing the latest wardrobe at each other like monkeys in a cheesy simile gone censored.
The election has been turned into a three-ring circus. In the center ring, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reign over the battle as black rights activists and feminists hurl stones and historical anecdotes at each other in a fight to the White House. To your left, John McCain and Mitt Romney are performing a re-enactment of the Butter Battle Book; for every increase in weapon size, each player may take a giant step to the right. Meanwhile, in the last ring, the Independent candidates are doing something, we're sure. They haven't all dropped dead of invisibility yet, have they? Send someone over to check. Send Ron Paul; that way he can't interfere with any of the important candidates.
What no one seems to realize is that the emerging candidates of both parties will have a 50-50 chance of becoming the president of the United States. This is not "American Idol." The viewers won't be able to forget the show half an hour after the winner's announced, and buying his or her album will be a mandatory ritual every day for the next four years. Electing a president is a lifetime commitment; by voting for someone, you sign a contract that swears you will cheer, honor and eventually hate that person (unless he's killed, in which case all of his sins will be forgiven and he will be a patron saint) until the four-year sentence is past. The character of the candidate does not matter. The race of the candidate does not matter. The gender of the candidate does not matter. Only one question has any importance at all: What is that person doing to DO if we give him or her the White House?
This is the one question that almost all of the candidates have done everything in their power to avoid. What little reference is given to this question is incredibly vague; McCain, for instance, claims that he is somehow going to move America forward by means and manners that seem to be nearly identical to the ones of infamous King Bush the 2nd. On the other side, Obama has preached from the beginning that he is change's sword. However, his movement to inspire a stagnant people is conspicuously lacking in one department: the department of actual planning. To this day, he has only publicized one definite plan of action for the White House, and that is a health-care plan that has been torn to shreds by the media. Perhaps the citizens themselves are the reason why the candidates prefer to stick to vague, pie-in-the-sky glint-blinds-your-eye ideals; people don't want to know that they'll have to actually experience change in order for change to occur. They would prefer their order of change to go, please, and neatly wrapped.
Every campaign needs a bit of
razzle-dazzle, but there's a time when the muddy seas of political warfare should subside to reveal what waits in the future to support the candidate's intentions, and that time is about a month past. Readers, please remember that every vote cast is for a world leader; gambling on the wrong horse could cost you the right to gamble at all.
Remember the future when you vote; catch the campaign butterflies and demand to know how they intend to honor their promises. If nothing else, remember "Chicago" (because all great wisdom can be found on Broadway) and be smarter if sadder for the dullness of the truth: how can you see with sequins in your eyes? How can you hear the truth above the roar?
Jessie Matus is a junior at Oneonta High School.
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