Switchfoot confuses the pundits

Over on the Daily Vault, I’ve blogged several times in recent weeks about the various musical artists who have complained to and/or sued the McCain/Palin campaign over their appropriation of songs for use in campaign events and propaganda. Meanwhile numerous major acts (Bruce Springsteen & Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi, James Taylor and the list goes on) have performed benefit concerts or hosted fundraising events for the Obama/Biden campaign. It seems safe to say that, as a class, the majority of popular musicians prefer the Democratic ticket.

Unfortunately, it also seems safe to say that lazy stereotyping remains rampant all along the political spectrum, from Fox News on the right to MSNBC on the left. Today’s transgressor is uber-glib MSNBC.com columnist Dave White, who in the context of suggesting alternative music for the McCain/Palin campaign to use, indulged in blatant stereotyping to come up with this assertion: “There are some easy ‘gets’ though. Kid Rock’s ‘American Badass,’ or Toby Keith’s ‘Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue’ are probably fair game without consequence. And I’m guessing Reba McEntire, Switchfoot, Daddy Yankee and Trace Adkins are open to having their music co-opted.”

Toby Keith yes, that’s a no-brainer, and I can’t speak for most of the others because I don’t know their music or whether they’ve endorsed a candidate. But Switchfoot? The only plausible reason I can think of for White “guessing” they would support the McCain/Palin ticket is that they are a band that is both nationally popular and openly Christian.

And there’s your stereotype – oh, they’re a Christian band, they must be for the conservative Republican candidates. Let’s deconstruct the fallacy here.

First, Switchfoot has never publicly associated itself with any specific candidate or party. Look it up. The only overtly political song they have ever produced criticizes “Politicians” as a class without differentiating between left and right and promotes an anti-nationalist viewpoint (“I pledge allegiance to a country without borders, without politicians”) that seems way out of sync with the Limbaugh-loving, U.N.-hating crowd’s ideology.

Second, Switchfoot’s fans come to the group from all across the political spectrum, as evidenced by this lively presidential race discussion thread on the Switchfoot.com forum.

Third, Switchfoot’s political philosophy, to the extent it has ever expressed one, is distinctly anti-materialist:

“When success is equated with excess
When we’re fighting for the Beamer, the Lexus
As the heart and soul breathe in the company goals
Where success is equated with excess

I want out of this machine
It doesn’t feel like freedom

This ain’t my American dream
I want to live and die for bigger things
I’m tired of fighting for just me
This ain't my American dream

’Cause baby’s always talkin’ ‘bout a ring
And talk has always been the cheapest thing
Is it true would you do what I want you to
If I show up with the right amount of bling?

Like a puppet on a monetary string
Maybe we’ve been caught singing
Red, white, blue, and green
But that ain’t my America,
That ain’t my American dream”

The only thing you can really say for sure about Switchfoot’s political beliefs is that they clearly don’t believe that the materialism and greed that characterizes unfettered free market capitalism is the answer to our nation’s problems. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say they have some distinctly socialist leanings -- but then, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say the same about Jesus Christ himself.

Christian does not equal conservative, nor does it equal Republican. Some of the most politically liberal people I have ever known have been deeply committed Christians. The world is not black and white, but filled with shades of grey. The only way to see them all is to remove the glasses that render everything in easy stereotypes.

The new McCarthyism

The last couple of weeks have been a little dizzying, both for me personally and out on the campaign trail. Granted, it has to be tough when your core beliefs are being challenged by a wide swath of the American public, not to mention the global eonomy, but you can also tell a lot about people, both as individuals and as leaders, by the way they react under stress. And the reaction of some Republican candidates and public officials to their party's sagging poll numbers has been nothing short of alarming.

The gist of the response is "Real Americans agree with us." So where does that leave, say, the 56 percent of likely voters in California who plan to vote for Barack Obama? Do these Republican leaders really mean to say that anyone who doesn't share their views and/or vote for them is anti-American? It sure seems like they do. Which puts these folks in bed with Senator Joseph McCarthy and every other ideological fanatic who's ever proclaimed "you either believe everything I do, or you're evil."

Enough of my little rant, though... Jon Stewart does it so much better. [Usual warning here about adult language, content, etc. Jon does not pull punches. You've been warned.]

The David Palmer Factor

I wrote back in January ("Where reality and fiction blur") about the possibility -- which even I regarded with some skepticism -- that Dennis Haysbert's four-year run on the television drama 24 playing a strong, courageous African-American president might have laid some of the cultural groundwork necessary for the success of Barack Obama's run for president. As it turns out, Haysbert agrees.

The part that's a little scary, though, is where Haysbert talks about all the people who still to this day come up to him -- the actor who played the president -- and urge him to run. Maybe on a ticket with Harrison Ford...?

The Bush Administration's war crimes

I admit, I have been known to roll my eyes when friends on the left begin frothing at the mouth at all that has been wrought by the dastardly Bush Administration. Yes, it's been a horrible eight years. Yes, the country is crying out for change. But no, verbal bomb-throwing is not going to get us anywhere. The more spittle that apoplectic liberals spray in the general direction of the nation's moderate swing voters in this country, the more likely we are to be watching John McCain's inauguration next January. The best thing we can do, folks, is simply to remain calm and keep pointing out the facts.

There are two reasons for this. One is that yelling and screaming and name-calling doesn't get you anywhere. The other is that it's so unnecessary. One more left-wing flamethrower calling George Bush a war criminal is not news -- hell, at this point, it's practically satire. What's news is when one of Bush's own generals accuses his Administration of war crimes. Now we're getting somewhere!

Cell phone nation

The fact that Obama leads McCain 47-41 in the national popular vote in latest post-primary polling is mildly interesting to me at best. After all, it’s five months until the election and we don’t even elect presidents by popular vote. In our system, which awards electoral votes on a state-by-state, winner-take-all basis with just a couple of exceptions (Maine and Nebraska award them according to the winner of the vote in each congressional district), the state polls are the ones the campaigns will be watching.

What I found fascinating about this Mark Blumenthal column about the latest polling is the emergence of a new phenomenon in the polling world – the cell-phone-only household. Pollsters have historically used the phone book to reach prospective voters, but “(a)s of late 2007, one in six American households had wireless service only (no landline) and would thus be missing from traditional telephone samples.” That’s right, more than 16% of American households today don't bother with a standard wired telephone, and the number is growing.

"It ain't over 'til.. " well, Saturday

I met Congressman Charlie Rangel many years ago in Washington D.C. He's a friendly, plain-spoken man of strong beliefs and loyalties who doesn't hesitate to tell it like it is. You've gotta love it when someone inside the Beltway breaks through the haze of rhetoric and spin and offers a dash of uncensored truth:

Mrs. Clinton had initially said she wanted to wait before making any decision, but her aides said that in conversations, some of her closest supporters said it was urgent that she step aside... "We pledged to support her to the end,” said Representative Charles W. Rangel, a New York Democrat who has been a patron of Mrs. Clinton since she first ran for the Senate. “Our problem is not being able to determine when the hell the end is.”

The end, Senator Clinton and her backers now agree, is Saturday, when she will formally suspend her campaign a la Mitt Romney. Not giving up those delegates just yet, but no longer pretending she can do anything but harm her own party by continuing to campaign. Thanks for doing the right thing, Senator.

Obama: "America, this is our moment"

Ted Williams and his speechwriter had a heck of a night last night.

As someone who's written a few speeches in my time, I have a keen appreciation for the fine art of it. It might look easy to some on the outside, but it's not. You have to not just cover the subject matter in a comprehensive, detailed and imaginative way, but also capture the voice and character and cadence of the speaker in such a way that the speech comes out of their mouth as naturally as if the entire thing had been delivered spontaneously.

Barack Obama's whiz-kid head speechwriter Jon Favreau -- who earlier this year described his job as like being “Ted Williams’s batting coach” -- and his candidate hit a home run last night. If you didn't see the speech, it's well worth reading the text here, or watching the video here. It was gracious, statesmanlike, visionary, inspiring, powerful and the adjectives go on and on.

The Elitist Menace and other campaign fictions

I have avoided the entire subject of the presidential election for weeks now due to campaign fatigue on my part. What? The numbers haven't changed? Obama still has an insurmountable delegate lead? McCain is still a smug warmonger? Clinton is still clawing after the nomination like a wolverine on crack?

Ah, but then someone comes along and puts it all in perspective. Thank you, Tom Tomorrow. You're my hero....

Him again??

Yes, more Obama. I honestly didn't mean for this to become either a political blog or an Obama fan site -- and rest assured baseball season is right around the corner, so subject matter will be diversifying again soon -- but two separate Obama-related articles caught my attention today.

First, the Pensito Review analyzes one of the secrets to Obama's success -- which, interestingly, parallels his principal similarity to Ronald Reagan. Both men are/were propelled by deeply held values and beliefs, and even those who might disagree with the way those values and beliefs translate into policy tend to admire the sincerity and conviction with which these two men express them. There's no real way to quantify things like integrity or inspiration, but they are exactly the elements that can turn a swell into a tidal wave.

Second and equally compelling, Newsweek profiles the anti-Hillary, the original, down-to-earth, and indelibly real Michelle Obama.

Whether or not these two turn out to be the next First Couple, they are both amazing and fascinating people.

The end of orthodoxy

It’s been amusing recently watching ideologues in both major parties twist themselves into a rage while invoking the name of Ronald Reagan.

For the Dems, the issue was Barack Obama’s candid assessment of Reagan:

“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it… he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Horrors! You mean Obama didn’t just stick to the Democratic orthodoxy of Reagan as the progenitor of all that is wrong in modern America? No, he didn’t. He spoke a broader truth about Reagan, one which party warhorses may not care to hear, especially coming from the mouth of one of their own, but which is nonetheless true. I might have disagreed with Ronald Reagan on just about every policy issue he ever touched, but there is no denying that he connected with the American people in a way no president has since. His innate optimism inspired people, even people (the so-called “Reagan Democrats”) who really should have been paying closer attention to his views before voting for him.

On the Republican side, John McCain has been raked over the coals -- and compared unfavorably to Reagan -- for his repeated failure over the years to bow to certain orthodoxies of the conservative movement. He believes global warming requires immediate attention and that our campaign financing rules are in dire need of reform. He wouldn't necessarily condemn either gays or illegal immigrants to being second-class citizens of the country in which they live. Et cetera.

What Obama and McCain have in common -- beside momentum in their respective primary contests -- is that they have both declined to bow down to the hardcore ideologues within their own party. In the process, they have each made small but important steps toward breaking free of party orthodoxies and charting a new path that attempts to bridge the bitter divide between the conservative and liberal extremes in America. The fact that these two figures are each ascendant in their respective parties speaks volumes about the voters’ desire for (here comes that word) change – as in, candidates who don’t just parrot the same old rigid party dogma, but actually think independently and speak their minds sincerely about the issues of the day.

Reagan once famously declared it morning in America. If the fall contest turns out to be Obama vs. McCain, it will indeed be a brand new day for American politics – and citizens of all philosophical stripes should welcome that.

Just do it.

Yesterday was my first day at a new job. Which means this morning I'm busy, tired, distracted and slightly overwhelmed. So what am I going to do?

Vote.

When you think about it, the democratic system that gives us so much -- freedom, opportunity, assistance, protection -- demands very little from us in return. I'm happy to listen to anyone's complaints about how things are going in America, regardless of their political views, just as long as they've made that one little bit of personal effort to make a difference, to make their voice heard -- to make a change.

Just do it. Vote.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy

There is one principal reason that, despite being a Political Science major and dedicated/opinionated follower of current events, I would not recommend politics as an avocation to anyone I care about: it's a dirty, dirty, dirty game. Just ask John McCain and Barack Obama.

Strange days indeed

Today's headlines feel like an episode of "News of the Weird," even when they aren't trying to be. First, for the geek squad we'll include the thinnest notebook ever. (Too thin for a CD drive? Hmm...) Then we move to the cops pepper-spraying and arresting unruly sports fans... at a tennis match. And of course we also had the Dems struggling to play nice, while the Reeps fell into complete disarray. Meanwhile, California voters may be grouchy about any number of things, but they still love their celebrity guv. In the Dept. of Strange Bedfellows, we find the ACLU leaping to the defense of Sen. Larry Craig. And finally, it seems the problems we are experiencing with health care for humans are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Ah, but then there's the news you really care about (if you live in my household, anyway). Unfortunately, Sam Warburg's terrific run at the Australian Open came to an end yesterday as he fell 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-2 in a hard-fought match with the impressive Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Regardless, Sam's four straight wins will give him a nice bump in next week's rankings and a nice check to take home. A great way to start 2008!

A long road ahead

Well, New Hampshire sure made things interesting on both sides of the presidential primary process. And the happiest people in the nation today? Thanks to our pay-to-play campaign system, that would be a dead heat between political fundraisers and television advertising salespeople.

Where reality and fiction blur

Time to address the biggest story of the new year so far (and no, I'm not talking about The Return Of Jon).

Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses and appears to have big mo in the upcoming New Hampshire primary. The reasons why are complex but fascinating. Yes, as an Illinois senator he had an advantage in Iowa. Yes, he put together a great ground game with highly disciplined field organizers. Yes, Clinton and Edwards each have significant deficits of one sort or another that handicap their ability to sustain momentum.

What seems to be driving the Obama surge, though, is something so unimaginable in postmodern, hyper-cynical, 24/7 ironic America that it has columnists as sage and grounded as Frank Rich and Bob Herbert sounding positively giddy.

Obama seems to inspire people.

Yes, he's young and less experienced than many of the other candidates. No, he doesn't have all the answers. But unlike his competition, he doesn't necessarily pretend to. He doesn't claim to be more than he is -- a man whose profile embodies the multiracial nation America has become, and whose vision seems grounded in genuine affection for and belief in its promise. And that, coupled with a flair for self-deprecating humor and his notable skills as a public speaker, seems to be generating a wave of affection and yes, inspiration with him at its center. People really are tired of slimy lowball negative politics, and Obama offers a breath of fresh air.

There are of course still plenty of doubters, but really, the question of experience seems to have more traction than the most obvious question Obama's candidacy has presented to America -- the question of race.

And here's where my train of thought takes a turn for the fantastic. I decry the dumbing-down of television-sedated middle America as much as anyone, but really, you discount the pervasive nature of pop culture at your peril. I believe Obama has more than just Oprah to thank, though, for the fact that his appeal is reaching middle American homes that might not have been open to the idea of a nonwhite president just ten years ago.

Back in 2001 the producers of the TV drama 24 were searching for an actor who could project real moral authority in the role of Senator David Palmer, who during season one was was running for president. They probably already knew he would win the race and become president in season two and beyond. And they couldn't have chosen a better actor for the role than Dennis Haysbert.

It's tempting to think a co-starring role in an over-the-top spy thriller TV serial couldn't possibly change that many minds. But can anyone really doubt the role Will & Grace played in acclimating middle America to the idea of gay men as three-dimensional human beings deserving of fair and equal treatment? In the case of 24, for four years one of television's highest-rated dramas featured, with virtually no self-consciousness, an upright, eloquent and often formidable African-American president as the show's conscience and moral center.

There's no way to measure the effect that portrayal had on the nation's consciousness. But as one who believes in the power of our society's storytellers to influence not just the imagination, but our collective reality, I think Obama owes the 24 team as big a debt as he does Oprah. As for Haysbert himself, now there's a celebrity endorsement that would be rich with layers of meaning...

Happy(-ish) New Year

It's a new year and so far all we have to show for it is:

• Polls showing it's still anyone's race in the Iowa Caucus, especially on the Dem side.
• David Letterman and Conan O'Brien wearing "strike beards." (With scary pictures.)
  
• Nick Hornby's great young adult novel Slam (yes I finished it and yes it's wonderful).
  
• And the worst news of all: the San Francisco Giants have accomplished virtually nothing in what was supposed to be a substantial offseason makeover. Sigh.