My friend Guillaume from Paris says he would like to have John Edwards be the Democratic candidate because he's the hottest of the possibilities. Of course my first reaction is to be appalled at the idea of picking candidates based on looks, but then I realize that he kind of has a point. What's the difference, really? It doesn't seem like any of the candidates are willing to say anything really different or actually stand up for something at the risk of turning off some of the voters, so you might as well vote based on whose face you want to see over and over and over in the media for the next ten months.
It's interesting that a presidential race between old white men is about values, background and political history, but a presidential race involving Clinton and Obama is about race and gender. And having race and gender be an issue in this one seems to be doing them just as much good as harm. Roommate Shannon said that while she was home in Chicago she got the impression that a lot of women were voting for Clinton because she is a woman and they would feel like a traitor if they didn't. Voting based on nothing but gender. And I would imagine something similar is going on among African-Americans and possibly other racial minorities at the moment regarding voting for Obama.
Not to mention the people who will vote for the candidate who they think has the best chance of winning the presidential election. Which is to say that they want to put forward a candidate not who represents them and their values but rather someone who might be able to charm and side-step their way into a wide enough base to be able to beat the Republican candidate. This is why people didn't vote for Nader or Edwards in past elections; they thought neither of these candidates could win because they pissed off some people by being vocal about their values and ideas for the country rather than smooth-talking and side-stepping the issues.
This is exactly why I try to stay out of politics; I hate the politics of it. Drives me absolutely nuts. People don't ever seem to vote for candidates based on who will do the best job; it's about who we think might do the least damange (obviously not in the case of G. W., but I don't even want to start down that road) or who has the smoothest talk or who has the least dirt stuck to them once the mud-slinging is over. In politics there aren't good choices, just choices that aren't as bad as others. Whole thing makes me nauseous.
Not that voting is guaranteed to make a difference anyway, as was made perfectly evident in the Gore vs. Bush election in '96. When the will of the majority is overridden, I don't call that democracy.
I heard that Obama ain't that popular amongst Afro-Americans, since he's not such a typical Afro-American himself. His father immigrated from Kenya quite recently I think, so he's not descended from slavery. I even heard that some people blame him for being too white, or not black enough, in terms of his political views, and he's actually really popular amongst women, for some reason.
ReplyDeleteAbout Edwards, well, he's definitely more attractive than Mitt Romney to me, that's true, but I also endorsed him because of his ideas. But he's so gonna lose, I know. I totally agree with you though, politics don't change everything and one should never expect too much about it, but although the whole campaign does seem like a big joke and trivial criteria such as hotness might therefore be taken into consideration by voters, I still agree with Churchill who once said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Another detail about John Edwards really quick, and no I'm not obsessed with him, haha, but according to recent polls, he would actually beat any Republican candidate at the election, contrary to other Democrats. That still doesn't make him the favorite though.
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