I've been suffering from the same weird hope/exhaustion fatigue that I'm sure you are all feeling, and I am finished with the Obama campaign. Not finished as in "oh, I was a volunteer and all my duties are done" or finished as in "Blah, I hate him, we must elect McCain to office with all due haste" but finished with the campaign itself. I have never seen a bunch of pushier people in my entire life. And they are
polite-pushy, because they know that the other guy has cornered the obnoxious asshole segment of the campaign so they need be upstanding, decent, very sympathetic and helpful, and they won't leave me the fuck alone.
My inbox is saturated. Every five minutes there's someone advocating for Obama who's telling me that it's end-game and they need me. They need my time, they need my financial resources, they need my vote.* I don't know how they got my email but, hey, that's the Internet for you.
I have
no idea how they got my private cell phone number. We're aware that I'm a little insane when it comes to personal privacy, yes? Same thing with politics. I'm a registered Independent and I go to great lengths to keep that stuff off of the rosters of either major political party. Still, I've been called every Sunday night for the past three weeks by the Obama campaign. Every week I bless them out something brutal on the phone: every week they promise to take my number off of the list and, so far, my name has made its way back on the list the following Sunday. And they've started calling at unreal hours - who wants to discuss politics at eleven at night on a Sunday?
I was not gentle this last time, and I'm the kind of person who takes it easy on telemarketers because I know they're just doing their jobs. I was bitching about this to Brown, who is a registered Democrat and hasn't gotten a single phone call from the Obama campaign. He said that they probably got my phone number from the voter registry and since North Carolina is a battleground state, they want my vote (so I wondered aloud why the McCain people hadn't called me, to which he replied, "Honey, they had to make
one smart move during their campaign.").
The last straw was Obama's infomercial. I watched the whole thing front to back and for what it's worth it was actually a decent little piece. Nate at
Fivethiryeight.com compared its content to Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention, which was really just excellent political showmanship (no matter what happens on Tuesday, it will be wonderful to once again have a president who is capable of public speaking). Since Obama's original speech was instantly overshadowed in the news cycle by the Princess Palin Pageant, there was a definite logic in getting it out there again for anyone who missed it. They also took the opportunity to sprinkle in some visual aids and the mandatory tugs on the heartstrings. And it needs to be said that there's nothing wrong with using your overflowing war chest to pay for television time to drive that message home during the eleventh hour.
Even with all this in mind, I am so done with them. They want this so badly - hell, we
all want this so badly! - and I've cut them slack for months. But I keep thinking about that old quote that goes something like:
If you dislike someone, the way he holds his spoon offends you. If you like someone, he can turn his dinner over in your lap and you won't mind.I can't remember the exact phrasing or who said it, but that's the general gist. I like Obama. I honestly do. Palin was my dealbreaker (what. the. fuck. was McCain thinking?) but I'd vote for Obama over McCain without her. Obama has blown some life into my cold, dead, cynical bitch-heart... there's no fire there, yet, but at least the ember is flickering. The fact that any politician can do that after eight years of the Bush Administration makes me want -
need - to give him my vote.
Back to the dinner-in-the-lap bit... The only reason I've been okay with the incessant begging emails, the late-night phone calls, and the constant stream of advertising is because I actually want Obama as my president. I don't personally dislike McCain, but if McCain was as pushy as Obama, I'd hate him. Simple as that. I'd
loathe that sonofa. If McCain has saturated me with the same amount of campaign propaganda that Obama has been pushing my way, I'd go freaky-angry. And if, after all of that, I heard that McCain and Palin had put together an infomercial to be aired during prime time and delivered content that wasn't even new, I'd go ape. It'd easy to consider the worst I'd heard about McCain. That he was a terrorist, that he was a a socialist, that he was working to overthrow the country by inciting a covert race-related uprising. Oh, it wouldn't stick, but because I dislike the guy it gets better traction in my brain.
I wonder if all of this last-minute campaigning is doing Obama any good or is serving to rally McCain's base. Aren't there, like, six informed, intelligent would-be voters who are still undecided? Someone said that professional women are the most likely to make up their minds at the last minute, since they are so busy that they ignore the campaign until that nth-hour, but as a busy working woman I personally find that to be horsehocky.
Anyhow, how far off-base am I about this?
*I did early voting this past Monday and I strongly recommend it if the option is available in your state. I went early in the day and was a little astonished... Monday morning, more than a week before the election, and a rough head count put the crowd around 150 fine citizens upholding their democratic (little-d) duty. Show up early and be counted, because election day is going to be a zoo.