Tuesday, May 20, 2008
obamaybe or not
(pseudo live-blogging tonight's Kentucky / Oregon Democratic Primary)
I just finished watching Obama's non-declarative victory speech live from Des Moines, Iowa.
I must tell you this one thing, right now, and without a moment's hesitation.
It was the whitest crowd I've seen at a presidential candidate speech all campaign season. This, my dear reader, if you are cynically inclined may lead you to suspect some campaign media tweaking shenanigans, especially since Obama got trounced so hard by the hillbillies in West Virginia and Kentucky.
Let me reassure you, my dear reader, lest you fear racial manipulation of the crowd for the sake of the television cameras, it's just Iowa.
Please don't be shocked and I urge thee to take no offense, but I only half joked to a dear college friend from an ethnically and culturally diverse background that until I moved to The Sprawl I thought people of color were a Hollywood special effect.
And as you may or may not be aware, my dear reader, Iowa is the land of my birth, the land where my ancestors tilled, plowed, played, and prayed while eaking out a living in the windswept fields of the grassy plains. It is the land where I was born and raised and taught what it means to be a citizen in one of the states of the great totality that is the United States.
(Cripes, I am so sorry about that flowery rhetorical shit. Le'me just come clean now and admit that I'm on my third double gin and tonic since I started watching the news coverage an hour or so ago.)
I do think it quite interesting that in all the bombastic yet guarded talk about issues of race and gender there is an 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one seems willing to address or even acknowledge. Not even Pat Buchanan, and we all know he is as crazy as a loon and just hope someone drives him home in time to take his meds.
(To Pat Buchanan, the Abe Simpson of presidential campaign political coverage!)
Back to the topic at hand. . .
In all this talk about black and white for some reason nobody is mentioning the brown. What happened to the brown? Has Lou Dobbs suddenly achieved total victory? Problem solved? Game over?
I think this is most interesting given that one week ago, scarcely 100 miles from where Obama stood by way the corn stealing crows fly, ICE conducted the largest raid in the history of the state.
So why no mention? I guarandamntee there was not one person in attendance at tonight's non-victory celebration who didn't know about it or hasn't recently discussed it over pie and coffee or a coupla cold ones with their friends, neighbors and half the danged town.
I could be cynical and suggest that it is a no-win for the aspiring if not yet officially declared Democratic Party nominee. But as I have "hope" and I desire "change" I will not give into my cynicism. No, not tonight.
Hmm. . .
So anyways.
In all honesty, I rather proudly do have an idealized and somewhat romanticized memory of my youth in that fair state. They were my "Evel Knievel" days, they were my "Tom Sawyer" days.
This might be the gin talking, but it would not be unfair to say that my almost mythologized feelings towards Iowa are not unlike what many have speculated as Tolkien's creation of The Shire to describe his feelings towards the English.
Given that. . .
Please tell my my dear reader, how come when I saw Obama walk out through the adoring crowd towards the podium I had a terrifying visceral flash that made me feel for all the world like Sam looking in the Mirror of Galadriel?
|
I just finished watching Obama's non-declarative victory speech live from Des Moines, Iowa.
I must tell you this one thing, right now, and without a moment's hesitation.
It was the whitest crowd I've seen at a presidential candidate speech all campaign season. This, my dear reader, if you are cynically inclined may lead you to suspect some campaign media tweaking shenanigans, especially since Obama got trounced so hard by the hillbillies in West Virginia and Kentucky.
Let me reassure you, my dear reader, lest you fear racial manipulation of the crowd for the sake of the television cameras, it's just Iowa.
Please don't be shocked and I urge thee to take no offense, but I only half joked to a dear college friend from an ethnically and culturally diverse background that until I moved to The Sprawl I thought people of color were a Hollywood special effect.
And as you may or may not be aware, my dear reader, Iowa is the land of my birth, the land where my ancestors tilled, plowed, played, and prayed while eaking out a living in the windswept fields of the grassy plains. It is the land where I was born and raised and taught what it means to be a citizen in one of the states of the great totality that is the United States.
(Cripes, I am so sorry about that flowery rhetorical shit. Le'me just come clean now and admit that I'm on my third double gin and tonic since I started watching the news coverage an hour or so ago.)
I do think it quite interesting that in all the bombastic yet guarded talk about issues of race and gender there is an 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one seems willing to address or even acknowledge. Not even Pat Buchanan, and we all know he is as crazy as a loon and just hope someone drives him home in time to take his meds.
(To Pat Buchanan, the Abe Simpson of presidential campaign political coverage!)
Back to the topic at hand. . .
In all this talk about black and white for some reason nobody is mentioning the brown. What happened to the brown? Has Lou Dobbs suddenly achieved total victory? Problem solved? Game over?
I think this is most interesting given that one week ago, scarcely 100 miles from where Obama stood by way the corn stealing crows fly, ICE conducted the largest raid in the history of the state.
So why no mention? I guarandamntee there was not one person in attendance at tonight's non-victory celebration who didn't know about it or hasn't recently discussed it over pie and coffee or a coupla cold ones with their friends, neighbors and half the danged town.
I could be cynical and suggest that it is a no-win for the aspiring if not yet officially declared Democratic Party nominee. But as I have "hope" and I desire "change" I will not give into my cynicism. No, not tonight.
Hmm. . .
So anyways.
In all honesty, I rather proudly do have an idealized and somewhat romanticized memory of my youth in that fair state. They were my "Evel Knievel" days, they were my "Tom Sawyer" days.
This might be the gin talking, but it would not be unfair to say that my almost mythologized feelings towards Iowa are not unlike what many have speculated as Tolkien's creation of The Shire to describe his feelings towards the English.
Given that. . .
Please tell my my dear reader, how come when I saw Obama walk out through the adoring crowd towards the podium I had a terrifying visceral flash that made me feel for all the world like Sam looking in the Mirror of Galadriel?
|
Comments:
Post a Comment
