Déjà Vu

By John Clayton

Originally published in the Monocacy Monocle, Volume V, Number 11, September 26, 2008.

Poolesville Day was a welcome relief from trying to write something about the presidential race, which will please at least one person I spoke to that day. She was a fan of the paper, but preferred our more upbeat moments and thought we could leave the political stuff to the others. It is a point we have heard before, and I promise we won’t turn into nattering nabobs of negativism. We will remain nattering nabobs of positivism.

I took a day or two off from the campaign to worry about the economy, and when I looked up the Republican candidate was screaming for more government regulation of the markets, and the Democrats were fine tuning their plan for offshore drilling. I guess if you wait long enough, everyone will meet in the middle. The other item I have noticed is that the Republican vice presidential candidate is the only national candidate in my memory to totally hide from the press and avoid direct questions. I thought only sitting presidents could do that; she really is blazing a new trail. I’m not sure how much longer she can get away with this; I suspect not long. Conversely, the Democratic vice presidential candidate is quite the opposite. If the campaign goes beyond November 4, the press might start hiding from him.

I watched some of the 60 Minutes interviews with the two main candidates: Sarah Palin and Barack Obama—ha—fooled you, didn’t I? No, it was John McCain and Obama. I thought Senator McCain really hit his stride when he spoke of his considerable personal trials and repeated brushes with death throughout his military career, but I thought Obama was more impressive on the issues. Well, of course I did. Isn’t the Democrat always more impressive on the issues? McCain generally responded with little platitudes that summed up the issues (the economic crisis, primarily) in simple black and white terms which led to suggestions of logical but not totally clear solutions. Obama was more analytical and walked confidently through the sources of the problems, showing a clear command of the scope and context of the issues and arrived at logical but not totally clear solutions. This is familiar turf. We Democrats love the fact that we are invariably supporting the smarter and more erudite candidate. This phenomenon recalls any number of elections that have led to crashing Election Day defeats for the smarter guy.

Perhaps I should return to Poolesville Day. The Republicans clearly and decisively won the battle of the yard signs. Several times, I saw an Obama shirt or sticker walk by, and maybe a couple of signs, but I kid you not, you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting someone carrying a McCain-Palin yard sign, and in many cases, two signs. The Monocle booth was directly across from the Rural Republican Women’s Club, and they were assembling and distributing McCain-Palin yard signs like they were going out of style—and apparently they are not going out of style, at least not in the UpCounty.