I was watching the CBS Evening News tonight when I heard one of the political analysts say that in order to reduce Barack Obama’s growing lead in the polls, John McCain's campaign needs to push the public to question the extent to which Obama’s values are America’s values. Specifically, the commentator says, the McCain campaign needs to tie Obama to the values of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Just before this newscast, I’d heard two of the Obama campaign’s current ads, both of which, I think, are superb. The campaign has resumed its ads here in the Atlanta market after a brief hiatus. These new, post-debate ads are crisp and to the point. They’re about issues, not about John McCain, and they pose workable solutions instead of personal attacks. So I’m very glad to see them, and I wonder, thinking about the analyst’s advice, why the values expressed in these ads wouldn’t be America’s values. And that thought got me to wondering, not for the first time, just what America’s values are these days.
I like it!
A couple of weeks ago, I was so distressed by the declining quality of presidential campaign ads on both sides that I fired off an angry response to the most recent Obama e-mail solicitation saying how tired and disgusted and disappointed I was with the personal attack ad strategy. I’d just made a donation to the campaign but I declined to support the particular ad for which funds were being solicited at the time. This was shortly after Obama had commented that the presidential campaign had entered the "silly" phase that politics inevitably sinks to (not an exact quote). I couldn’t have agreed with him more, so I wasn’t all that disappointed when the campaign suspended its ads in my market (Atlanta).
For now, though, with the first presidential debate of 2008 still echoing in my ears, I just want to savor the moment and throw out a few random thoughts while getting more substantial ones together.
Are you reading or have you read Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope? If so and if you're a Baby Boomer, Barack’s confession that he’d "always felt a curious relationship to the sixties" (p. 29) must have brought a smile to your face. It certainly made me, a person who entered high school in 1960, smile–not just smile, but actually grin. And sit up a little straighter. And read a little more attentively..
