The Pendulum
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 / Page 7
Opinions
POLITICS:
Media focused too much on scandals,
not enough on substantive issues
Morgan Little
Columnist
Walk through a cluster of street peddlers, carts
set up, and endure their exasperated offers, their
accolades for their own wares and the haughty
condemnation of the competition. Perhaps you’ll
succumb to one offer, perhaps one particularly
shiny item dangling off the display’s side draws
your attention.
The moment you show interest,
the vendor leaps out from behind
his products and takes you by
the shoulder, forcefully showing
you everything else vaguely
connected to your brief interest.
Congratulations, you’ve just gone
through the presidential race,
|Which has finally begun with Sen.
illary Clinton’s withdrawal.
In a bizarre twist, the two
candidates, both of whom have
rather strong personalities (one
driven by charisma and the other by a mix of self
depreciation and rage) haven't actually been leading
their own campaigns. Instead, all momentum
and every development has originated from that
newfangled Internet thing or shockingly, old-school
media.
So far, it’s come out that Sen. Barack Obama
sends secret terrorist hand signals to his followers,
his wife is a “baby mama,” if he wins, the White
House will have to be aptly renamed and he still
hates America (all of this courtesy of FOXNews, the
Texas Republican Convention and every Republican
respectively).
As for Sen. John McCain, he once called his
wife - who at one time was a drug addict who stole
painkillers from her own charity - the “C” word in
front of reporters and he’s backpedaled on nearly
every major issue with a grace that brings tears
to John Kerry’s eyes (and all of this is courtesy of
either McCain or his wife).
Scandal has become so typical nowadays
that when a candidate actually does something
intelligent or likeable, a double-take is in order,
which leaves us desensitized to issues that should
be raised higher in the public consciousness.
The noise from the street peddlers has reached
the point of white noise, a raucous, belligerent whine
that plays over everything significant. They promise
us videos of Michelle Obama slandering ‘whitey’
that don’t exist or documentation of McCain’s senior
moments, which if the Internet is to be believed, are
so common that videos of McCain correctly naming
world leaders should be shocking news.
The semi-scandal that holds the strongest
implication is the issue of McCain’s complete lack of
understanding of the information revolution. During
the Republican primary, McCain freely admitted that
he doesn’t know how to work a computer, chuckling
while he said that Cindy McCain takes care of such
things. At first glace, it doesn’t seem so bad. Old
guy can’t use a computer - it’s like a tired joke in a
family sitcom, nothing major.
But thinking in such a manner undermines the
massive changes that have taken place thanks to the
computer age.
It’s not merely an issue of knowing gigabytes
from megabytes, it’s a matter of philosophy. The
way the American mind works and the way the
mind receives information has been altered, and
without first-hand experience, McCain can’t hope to
understand what’s going on around him.
Already, his lack of understanding in this field
has nearly crippled two important elements of
his campaign: his fundraising and the straight-
talk express. As Obama proved during his own
fundraising, the Internet is full of people willing
to toss their money at candidates (remember how
much money Ron Paul raised?) and it was because
of his massive Internet infrastructure that he was
swimming in cash while Hillary, who relied on
tried-and-true fundraising methods early in her
campaign, was around $30 million in debt. McCain,
despite his Republican ties, is having ridiculous
difficulty raising money, in part due to his lack of
Scandal has become so typical
nowadays that when a candi
date actually does something
intelligent or likeable, a dou-
ble-take is in order...
understanding of the importance of Internet donors.
The derailing of the straight-talk express ties
back into that maddening street marketplace.
For years, McCain has wooed the media through
carefully constructed admissions that were safe
enough to make reporters happy and fill their
notepads, leaving them with no want to dig further
into McCain's bone yard and closet.
But with traditional media increasingly in the
backseat of election coverage, online sources who
aren’t won over by McCain’s sly public confessions
or his readiness to befriend and assist reporters in
order to placate them, are relentlessly exposing his
dirty dealings. The difference between television
coverage of McCain and Internet coverage is
dramatic, with the Internet becoming increasingly
critical of his every move, while the networks are
still swooning over the ‘maverick’ who was robbed
of his chance in 2000.
Call it a changing of the guard, a battle between
the baby boomers and those perpetually connected
youngsters, what have you. Like it or not, this
election will be defined not by press conferences
and photo-ops with carefully chosen ‘average
Americans.’ Instead, the hard-nosed and sometimes
extremist Internet news junkies will dictate its
course. For better or for worse, that crowded and
irritating market is what we have to look forward to
come November.
POLITICS:
Trust Obama? Recent decision suggests nominee makes empty promise
I was sitting down at the dinner
table, talking about politics with my
family when my mother told me that
I needed to be more “open-minded.”
Most of the time, my mother's advice
is reasonable, but in this case I took
offense. As a liberal, I consider
myself to be the definition of “open-
mindedness.”
After excusing myself from the
table, I started to think about it.
My ardent, outspoken support of
Hillary Clinton may have clouded my
judgment and objectivity.
So, I decided it was only fair to take
another look at Barack Obama. And
here's what I found:
On Thursday, June 19, Obama
formally announced that he would not
accept public financing for his general
campaign in the fall.
That decision was newsworthy, but
that’s not even the whole story.
Ever since the primary season
started, Obama has said that he
would accept public financing if the
Republican nominee did the same, and
repeated that pledge on a number of
occasions.
John McCain has accepted public
financing, true to his word.
Obama did nothing of the sort.
Instead, his campaign went into
spin-mode, and he released an
unconvincing video on his Web site
where he attempted to rationalize his
decision to forgo public financing — a
flip-flop of epic proportions.
Obama’s reasoning? The “public
financing of presidential elections... is
broken,” or so he says. Now, whether
that’s true is debatable.
Regardless, the pifblic l^ip5in(;ing,,
system didn’t break over night. If
When words are all you have to bring to the ta
ble, I put a lot of weight behind them. The way
I see it, Obama has broken his word out of greed
and has effectively sold himself out for money.
Derek Kiszely
Columnist
I
Obama really
believed it to
be broken all
this time, why
pledge to stand
by it from the
beginning?
Why make
promises if
you’re going to
break them?
But this isn’t
about public
financing.
It's about trust.
Now this election is about many
things, but I think trust is one of the
most important issues.
What worries me is that Obama
has made many promises that we —
perhaps naively? — trust him to keep.
His commitment to withdraw troops
from Iraq upon taking office comes to
mind.
This hesitation about Obama’s
ability to keep his promises ought
to be a red flag for his supporters. It
requires a little bit of blind faith to
support Obama, a move that I’ve come
to respect in some of my Democratic
friends for their steadfastness,
even if I’ve chided them for their
willingness to gamble with our future
so nonchalantly.
The American people don’t have
the kind of familiarity with Obama
that they’ve had with Clinton or
McCain. And while McCain benefits
from a long-established reputation as
a maverick who says what he believes,
many voters are still wary of Obama.
By opting out of the public
financing system that he supported in
the beginning of his campaign, Obama
risks permanent damage to a brand
he hasn't fully established with the
American electorate.
The fact that he displays himself
as someone who cannot be trusted
to keep his word erodes any benefit
of the doubt that I had half-heartedly
given him and his campaign after
Clinton’s concession.
When words are all you have to
bring to the table, I put a lot of weight
behind them. The way I see it, Obama
has broken his word out of greed and
has effectively sold himself out for
money.
Rather than being honest and
upfront with the American people
about his reasoning, Obama came up
with the lame excuse that “forgoing
more than $80 million in public
funds” somehow makes him a martyr.
He came to the conclusion that his was
a noble cause with a noble decision
that would “declare independence
from a broken system” and bring
about a better democracy. What Obama
conveniently forgot to mention in his
video is that he intends to raise and
spend upward of $200 million!
Do not be deluded. I’m confident
that he did it out of greed, not for
the high-minded ideals he claimed to
cherish as he threw them under the
bus.
It says a lot about the man Obama
really is. Just like most politicians
in America, Obama will say and do
anything it takes to get elected, true to
the dirty politics of Chicago - where
he rose to political power. And Chicago
politics makes Washington politics
look like a tennis match between old
ladies.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong
with being an old school politician,
unless of course you’ve tried to make
yourself out to be a candidate of
change. Then it makes you look like a
hypocrite.
If the American people are willing
to accept, without raising a fuss, a
politician who breaks his promise so
easily on such a petty issue, then we’re
opening the door for him to renege on
other issues of more importance.
As for me, I haven’t made up
my mind just yet as to whom I will
support in the general election. Maybe
I need to be more open-minded. Or
maybe it's the people who support
Obama who need to be open to the
possibility that their candidate might
not be the “agent of change” he made
himself out to be.
We asked for “hope" and “change”...
now let’s hope that Obama won’t
change his position on any more '
important issues. ^ '