What else is there today?

"That's the problem with this country. Weather. All. Just hangs on too long."

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying.

 

Had enough? What's one more day of discussion in a campaign cycle that seemingly began at the tail end of the 2006 midterm Congressional elections? One day too many. Today, professional and amateur observers, political junkies, concerned citizens will focus on who carries which state in the sprint to 270 electoral votes. However, a small diversion is necessary to keep things into perspective on why the process has left the public with the choices it has. 

 

Recently, Sundance Channel reran the satirical Tanner '88 series. As the narrative plot of fictional presidential candidate Jack Tanner evolved, it suggested that a purely absurd candidacy, one whose purpose was to make fun of presidential politics, began to seem more legitimate, more earnest than the campaigns of even the candidates who eventually wound up being the last men standing for the Democrats and Republicans.

 

The 2008 campaigns have the tinge of the Tanner mockumentary where the substance feels fictitious though the manner and style of its presentation looks real. Unfortunately, both lack the cinematic fine touch of Robert Altman's genius. Both Obama and McCain campaigns feel simulated, as products of media polish rather than substantive extensions of a coherent platform to address problems. Both men have played their respective parts without either measuring well against the touchstone of authenticity. This concept, abstract as it is, still is a definable commodity. Each line, each sound byte is crafted to be the one that does not lose rather than be the potential game winning shot. Watching the two senators spar is akin to seeing two passive opponents in a game waiting for the official to make the call to decide the outcome. The tactics might be somewhat grubby, but the overall strategies amount to the political equivalent of kissing your sister. They both may want to win, but neither seems to want the ball in crunch time, and that brand of sport - mincing, tactically passive - feels a lot like European soccer. The GWB campaigns attracted so many devotees because he played red-blooded, American hard ball. Though the strategic message was all politics, all the time, Rove, however odious, did want the ball with the game on the line. He merely played dirty aggressive, but he always scored when it counted.

This campaign has not seen the scale of dirty pool the previous two contests have had, and the restraint on both sides is a welcome change to the rancor of 2000 and 2004. However, remove the Obama phenomenon, and this election, though taking place during a period of uncertainty over the future of the collective identity, is astonishingly lackluster. Electoral politics and sports have the same high stakes, and like all games, much of the decisions on how to play stem from how much long the game seems to go. Why should the game be a two year long test match if the consensus among strategists is that the final two weeks are critical to deciding a close contest? The 2008 election will have as much historical significance not only because Obama is the first mainstream candidate of color, but also structurally as campaigns cannot continue to be seemingly interminable.

 

Since America has a result-oriented, sporting culture, public disaffection with the candidates has as much to do with the lack of substance as it does with the liberties the two main contestants have taken with playing a clock-grinding style which is unfriendly to spectators, even to the purists in the lot. If the electoral process measures preferences, all parties cannot take for granted that free speech and the social significance of the contest supersede that which the public wants. Responsive government depends as much on the terms of trade as it does on the currency of the issues.

 

The strain of the late Warren Zevon's savage guitar chords fade out the last few notes of "Lawyers, Guns and Money."