I have two questions today. One has been posed by the media for months now, the other is my own.
Question #1: the media question. "With George W. Bush so unpopular, and with the 'Republican brand' in so much trouble, why isn't Barack Obama 15 points ahead of John McCain in the polls?"
There is always a covert message in a question like this, and the message here is that there must be something wrong with Barack Obama because he isn't running away with the election.
I propose three other possibilities that, of course, the media will never bring up.
One is that fully one half of the electorate are ignorant, ill informed, and highly susceptible to the negative attacks of John McCain's hit squad, and also haven't yet figured out what miserable failures (and unethical human beings) Republican politicians are and how devastating the conservative ideology is to the nation.
Another is that too many Americans still are either overt or covert racists who somehow see the election of a black man as a) not acceptable because blacks are inferior and should know their place; b) frightening because blacks will favor blacks and punish whites; or c) there's just something too different, too out of the norm, about the president of the United States being black.
A final possibility is that the race really isn't as tight as the media would have us believe, but it is in their interests (keeps people interested, sells ads, improves ratings) to portraty the race as close. Since most of the pollsters are hired by the media and funded by large corporations who have an investment in keeping the pro-corporate policies of Republicans, it isn't too much of a stretch to believe they could instruct their polling companies to work the numbers a bit. (By the way, if the race were really that close, I don't think McCain would have gotten down in the gutter so early to try to smear Obama.)
Question #2: My question. "Just what do some people find so frightening about electing a black man to the presidency?" will be addressed in the next post.
