Obama-Palooza, by Martha Thomases
The major political parties’ conventions this week and next follow the Olympics like night follows day. Just as the quadrennial sports event serves as a ceremonial battleground with ornate rules and rituals, so do the Democratic and Republican conventions to choose the party leaders and figureheads.
Just as the Olympics represent combat in a peaceful way, the political conventions represent democracy. Our elected representatives assemble to choose candidates for the highest office in the land.
It’s a charming system, but hopelessly out of date. Sure, in the past, before mass media, before telephones, it made a certain amount of sense for people to congregate and make these decisions. There was a time when there most states didn’t have primaries, and so the question of whom to nominate was left to the party bosses.
Before then, political conventions were an excuse to party, a time for the regional bosses to convene – in the stereotypical smoke-filled room – and personally select the candidates.
This system, while not democracy, was not always bad. Through it, we had candidates like Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt. With it, we get candidates like George W. Bush and … well, I think my point is made right there.
When I was first voting, all that changed. The debacle that was the Democratic convention in 1968 demonstrated that the system was a farce. Since then, the trend has been more towards the appearance of including the wishes of the voters in the selection process.
Nothing in this world is that simple. The influence of money, bias, and corporate media make it all but impossible for the average citizen to determine what the real issues are, and where the candidates stand. It serves the interests of the power structure to distract us with foolish questions such as which candidate we’d prefer to hang out with in a bar, which candidate can bowl, which can Google, and what kinds of cookies the wives bake.
Politics is so much simpler in comics, where tradition favors painting everything in black or white, good or evil. When Lex Luthor runs for office, we know he’s corrupt. It’s rare to find a creative team that depicts a more complicated system, such as Warren Ellis’ and Darick Robertson’s brilliant Transmetropolitan.
In reality, politics is hard work, especially in a democracy like ours. Things only work to the extent that the voters are involved and educated. The United States can boast neither. Our turnout rate is among the lowest in the world.
This year, we may see this change. The candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton excited a lot of people, encouraging an enormous increase in voter registration and turn-out. Millions of new voters will vote for the first time in November.
Unless they don’t. Unless the conventions make everything look conventional.
I suggest we follow the example of the Legion of Superheroes. Let’s act like a team, working side by side to accomplish a mission, instead of a nation of self-centered single issue voters. Instead of a roll-call vote, let’s give the delegates those desks with the buttons that light up for “Yes” or “No.” Let’s have the vice-presidential candidates try-out for the Legion of Substitute Presidents. Will we find someone with a goofy but effective power like Matter-Eater Lad, or will we get stuck with Barber Boy?
Whatever results these methods may produce, we can’t possibly end up with a worse candidate than Joe Lieberman.
Martha Thomases, before she was ComicMix’s Media Goddess, ran as an alternate delegate for George McGovern in Ohio. Her son is co-creator of Barber Boy.
Whatever results these methods may produce, we can’t possibly end up with a worse candidate than Joe Lieberman. Or Dan Quayle!
The fact that Andrea Boccelli was Lieberman's favorite singer should have disqualified him from ever holding public office. I'm betting if he were a comics fan he would have found DC's Countdown compelling story telling.Frank the other Miller
You'll always be THE Frank Miller to me. At least when I'm discussing film historians.
You know, I'd feel a lot better about the Democratic party if SuperObama hadn't picked Boring Lad as his VP choice.
Amen to that.Too safe a choice.It was really anti-climactic.An the MTV texting stunt.THAT sure played to the older, working American.Next week oughtta be fun.SDCC the next generation.
I like a candidate who takes public transportation. Especially when it's to take care of his own kids.
When I did the weekly commute to Richmond for work I used to see Biden on Amtrak.That left an impression on me on me, too.
This campaign is not about entertainment. This is not Pappy O'Daniel and the Light Crust Doughboys. Suck it up and get serious till November. Think the bad guys gave a poop that Dick Cheney looks like ten miles of bad road and can't tell a joke or dance the merengue?
Isn't Biden the one who dropped his bid for the presidency back in the 80's because of a plagiarism incident back in his college days.My son, who'll turn 20 in December, is finally interested in getting his driver's license (don't worry, it'll connect up at the end). He drives pretty well, certainly has all the basics down – and I've told him that.What I've also said is that what's really convinced me he's going to be a good driver has been when he has made a mistake – and has recovered from it. It's how things go when they aren't going perfect that really proves how well you'll drive.Similarly, learning from our past mistakes is more important in the long run than whether we made them or not. Of all the reasons to drop out of an election, to me, this was the silliest. The man showed bad judgment in college. If that disqualified people from holding public office, who'd be qualified?On the flip side, during his first term, I was inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. What finally convinced me that he was not someone I could possibly support in the presidency was when, in the lead-up to the 2004 election, he was asked about mistakes he'd made in office – and he couldn't think of any. Mistakes you don't recognize or admit to are mistakes you can't learn from.
At least he wasn't stealing from Wikipedia.
No, the "plagiarism," so-called, had to do with a campaign speech that was rhetorically like a speech the UK Labor Party leader had delivered. Seems a quaint little pecadillo lumped up against our murderous regime.
You know, putting a photo of Barber Boy on the post doesn't make it about comics.
No, but comparing our elections to those of the Legion of Super-Heroes does.
Barber Boy's costume should have had that red and white barber pole motif thing going on.
I for one would watch the candidates sit around a table as one of them gets whalloped by a small model planet as part of the selection process.I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure that smoeone (and whether it's someone for or against Hillary will be the netertaining bit) but someone will start picking apart Hill's speech looking for secret messages. Little digs against Obama, understated comments that should be been glowing praise, all intended to give the impression that she's not "really" for him. A lot of her followers are not going to vote, or will vote for McCain. Short-sighted, the lot of them.