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Not So Super Monday

You can wedge a day between Super Sunday and Super Tuesday, but that does not guarantee it will be anything but another Monday.

Just the same, that was quite a game last night. Especially if you skipped the first three quarters of it. In a way, it reminded me of the NBA ... there’s often no real reason to watch until the last few minutes. But I have to say, in the NFL’s “Memorable Moments,” Eli Manning’s scramble and throw followed by Tyree’s “helmet catch” for 32 yards ranks up there with Franco Harris’ Miracle Catch. One I’m glad I did not miss (YouTube Video, in case you did miss it).

But no one today is talking about my favorite commercial of the night: The Audi R8 commercial that spoofed “The Godfather,” with Moe Green waking up in bed, covered in motor oil and anti-freeze, with the decapitated grille of his Rolls Royce lying at the foot of the bed. Outside, an Audi R8 starts up, and we see the tag line … “Old Luxury just got put on notice.” Priceless.

Enough about Super Sunday. This week features another day that is a near Super Hero … Super Tuesday. And though I normally don’t quote so much from one article, this one moves me to do so:

The point of Obama’s candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy.

Since I started talking and writing about Obama I have come to see that this ruling fear, and nothing else, lies at the back of every objection or reservation people raise or harbor regarding the man and his candidacy.

But the most pitiable fear of all is the fear of disappointment, of having our hearts broken and our hopes dashed by this radiant, humane politician who seems not just with his words but with every step he takes, simply by the fact of his running at all, to promise so much for our country, for our future and for the eventual state of our national soul. I say “pitiable” because this fear of disappointment, which I hear underlying so many of the doubts that people express to me, is ultimately a fear of finding out the truth about ourselves and the extent of the mess that we have gotten ourselves into. If we do fight for Obama, work for him, believe in him, vote for him, and the man goes down to defeat by the big-money machines and the merchants of fear, then what hope will we have left to hold on to?

Thus in the name of preserving hope do we disdain it. That is how a phobocracy maintains its grip on power.

To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant. We must allow ourselves to believe in Obama, not blindly or unquestioningly as we might believe in some demagogue or figurehead but as we believe in the comfort we take in our families, in the pleasure of good company, in the blessings of peace and liberty, in any thing that requires us to put our trust in the best part of ourselves and others. That kind of belief is a revolutionary act. It holds the power, in time, to overturn and repair all the damage that our fear has driven us to inflict on ourselves and the world.

Michael Chabon: Obama vs. the Phobocracy

Tomorrow, be fearless.

Finally, The NY Times has an article about families torn by their political choices: “In any election, members of the same families choose competing candidates. But while some primaries hinge on policy differences, this one also turns on the deep, perennial disagreements between parents and children, husbands and wives.”

Not in our home. This is the fourth Presidential election since I met my wife in 1995, yet this is the first time we are voting for the same candidate: Obama.