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ON OHIO.
I've been struggling with how to write this post encouraging folks to read George Packer's deeply moving, deeply sad article on the personal struggles facing undecided Ohioan voters. The problem is that it's a bit hard to describe. Most articles about voters are actually about politics, politicians, and elections. The voters exist as a manifestation of the subject. Packer's article is rather the opposite: It's actually about the voters, and though the election is the ostensible topic, it's really a deep exploration of the struggle a certain number of people are having as they try to navigate the fear of change experienced by all folks who have already lost too much with the need for change felt by those who know the status quo isn't working for them. And Packer simply lets them talk. At length. These aren't folks who are generally heard at length. The result is very powerful -- an article that will be relevant long after the election is over.
And then there's the racial angle. I found this vignette particularly affecting:
“Barack’s father was from where? Kenya?” a seventy-one-year-old woman named Karla Cominsky suddenly asked. “Would that be any part of the world that was part of slavery?”And this explanation of the challenge facing Obama is particularly well stated:Gwinn explained that Obama had grown up mainly in Hawaii.
“My great-great-grandfather and grandmother came here from Morgan County,” Cominsky continued. “And guess who they brought with them? A little slave girl named Dinah. She was buried in the family plot. They felt she was one of the family.”
A campaign intern from Ohio University, in the nearby town of Athens, explained, “Most slaves came from western Africa, where the ships could just take them and go. Kenya’s from the eastern part.”
There was an awkward silence: the point of the woman’s story had not been immediately clear. Afterward, it occurred to me that this was how people in towns like Glouster were accustoming themselves to the thought of a black President.
During the first Presidential debate, Obama spoke directly to “middle-class” economic anxieties several times, and he later attacked McCain for never even using the word. But Obama’s middle class has no face, no name, no story. Even as he becomes more specific on policy, partly in response to criticism, he still has trouble making a human connection. Bill Clinton could always employ the drawl and roguish charm of Bubba to let the working class know he was one of them, but Obama’s life story is based on upward mobility, on transcending his complex origins. There’s no readily apparent cultural identity he can fall back on—no folksy or streetwise manner he can assume—that won’t threaten more white voters than it attracts.I'm going to stop quoting now. You should just read the whole thing.
COMMENTS (5)
I was at an Obama rally a couple of weeks ago. Obama reiterated his plan to give middle class Americans a tax cut and the $250,000-per-year threshold, and a man in the front of the audience shouted "That's me getting that tax cut!". Obama pointed at him and said "Say that's you, huh? I hear you! I hear you!" It was a pretty amazing moment to me, a real genuine, unscripted moment that connected. Seemed to me that a big part of the crowd felt the same way.
Posted by: Palin Loves Her Some Federal Pork | October 9, 2008 11:18 AM
thank you for linking to that article.
everyone has a story.
yesterday, i was talking to someone i have known for a long time.
her husband just had a serious operation, but they have excellent medical coverage.
she said she would not vote for obama because she doesnt want her stock in abbott labs to go down and if obama got in with his "socialism" she could "kiss her stock in abbott labs good-bye."
another person i know, whose family is voting for mccain, just received delivery of a four thousand dollar drug. four thousand dollars.
i could only think of the people without medical care, who cant get that drug and wont be alive for very much longer,without it.
and yet, the thought that other people cant get this care....the thought that other people dont have this right to the care....simply doesnt enter into their equation.
i have actually overheard people in what was supposed to be a holy place ,STILL, still saying they wont vote for the "shvartsah.' these are people with advanced college degrees and professional careers.
just as my neighbor, loves palin....and says she is a true reformer and will get things done in washington.
after many discussions, i realized months ago, there was no point in trying to convince them. it eventually leads to bitter arguments and the iron door of prejudice, self-preservation and fear of change slams shut.
it can turn neighbor against neighbor...family member against family member.
and somehow, that is an even deeper defeat, when the conversation ends and good will is lost.
when one person's evil is another one's goodness, and vice versa...
comes the realization that everyone has their own truth, as if living in different universes.
one of the larger, stranger questions, is how goodness is compartmentalized. how a person can be a good and charitable person in their life, and still say such cruel things or feel that if others dont have good health care, or are suffering,it somehow doesnt affect their lives or give them bad dreams.
just as this article illustrated, on deep levels, this election has revealed so much.... about the candidates and politicians....and about people's feelings for and about one another.
a thought on the day of atonement
Posted by: jacqueline | October 9, 2008 11:41 AM
When I saw the documentary _Spellbound_, about spelling bee contestants from all over the country, my main impression was that I could not believe that people with such radically different lives could all be from the same country.
That's how I felt reading that article. I have a lot of sympathy for them, believe they're in a rough position. But I simply cannot make their lives match what I know. It isn't just that I'm on the safe side of middle class. It is also that poverty and racism look different here on the west coast. (Not better, although maybe some better, but definitely different.) Anyway, that article was a very helpful look at something outside my experience. Props to the author.
Posted by: Megan | October 9, 2008 12:52 PM
"no folksy or streetwise manner he can assume."
indeed that may make Obama's route to gaining the trust of some Americans more difficult, but his inability to fall back on a cultural crutch (much less use that crutch as a weapon, like Dubya has) could well turn out to be the best thing to happen to the country since Harry Truman. Welcome to the 21st century, America.
Posted by: along | October 9, 2008 2:04 PM
That was a great piece.
The lady who was running around campaigning on Obama's behalf is amazing. She has a lot of lose by placing so much hope on someone who is, after all that is said and done, a politician.
He better not let her down.
Posted by: TC | October 10, 2008 7:22 AM