What is the true nature of the choice on the ballot before us?
In these crazy final days before the presidential election, the campaigns are furiously trying to put it in stark contrast. They are piling on false comparisons: "It’s about hope versus fear," "experience versus danger," "ready for office versus learn as he goes," "more of the same versus change," and the list goes on. If these actually were our choices, then the polls wouldn't be so close.
And while all the juicy innuendo, fear-mongering, and character assassination make for good television, they tap something deeper in all of us: the need for the reassuringly familiar. While bipolar choices and mud-slinging may smell bad, they are at the same time a worn old blanket to comfort us in such uncertain times—we complain, we are indignant about it, but, my friends, we get it, and it feels kind of good. We're only human, and we need reassurance while the house of cards seems to be collapsing around us.
What's familiar to us is John McCain: the war hero, and a deeply-seasoned and sharp-edged Republican white man. Unknown to us in so many ways is Barack Obama, the even-keeled, sharp-minded young black Democrat who literally rocketed from community organizer to presidential contender in a minute. Forget the colorful political ad contrasts—in reality, voters are either driven by longing for the devil they know, or the need to reboot the system with a bet on the unknown.
Then there's economic craziness, the dog days of multiple wars, and potential presidential transition terrorism. These exaggerate the need for some sense of "normalcy," no matter how smelly it may be.
Is the familiar what is needed for the next four years? Many think so, and many others think not.
Albert Einstein said, "You can’t solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it." The great leaders challenge and move us to raise the bar on ourselves, which, for Election 2008, means waking up to the nature of the choice before us.
So let's not dumb it down to race, class or party. It's about the familiar versus the unknown, and our best guess—in the form of one person, one vote—about who's likelier to deliver what is needed right here, right now, for the common good.
Forewarned is forearmed: may you avoid a kneejerk decision, and cast your vote wide awake to the nature of your own choice.
