How tempting it is, this general election season, to succumb to the simplicity of elegant political prose. The never-ending jet stream of faux-"comeback" narratives and paltry predictions is enough to send shivers down the spines of even the most cynical of pundits, perhaps myself included. We've gasped at vociferous former pastors, gnawed our nails at romanticized Bosnian war stories, fallen for rhetorical self-platitudes about change and experience and cringed at every instance of the word "bitter" - all while deeming ourselves experts in identity and gender politics, despite never having used either term correctly in a sentence.
Don't expect much improvement over the course of the next three months. The casualty in postmodern feuding - what's more commonly known as the general election - is the absence of any substantive discussion. As the candidates' platforms wax irrelevant - the nuances that distinguish Democrat from Republican, if not Democrat from Democrat, blurring ever increasingly - all that's left to debate are anecdotes, ages, misstatements and campaign slogans, none of which help even the most bloodthirsty Obama supporter correctly answer the question, "So what is the Illinois senator's Israeli policy?" Of course, many of McCain's voters fare no better.
Beneath that cesspool of uncertainty, however, troublesome campaign myths are born. Some misconceptions are happenstance misunderstandings; others are the inescapable consequences of selective exposure. But most of the myths perpetuated throughout the presidential election cycle are the result of a news media industry that covers the horse race with conflict, not substantive content, in mind. Here are three of the most damning myths:
Hillary Clinton's old supporters are going to defect to the Republican Party.
Utterly untrue. Although the most recent polls suggest that Sen. Clinton's endorsement did not provide Obama the popularity boost he so desired, there's nothing to suggest her supporters, namely women, won't embrace the Illinois senator in due time. Not only do disgruntled Democrats renege on their narcissistic angst at least once every election cycle, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is largely unequipped to handle women's issues. Many of Clinton's supporters, who probably believed their veiled threats would assist the New Yorker's sagging campaign, will quickly reverse their decisions when they realize a McCain White House is less likely to protect their right to contraceptives, uphold Roe v. Wade and make significant advances in the sciences. The defection narrative is veritably wrong - or, at least, it will be come September.
John McCain is still the conductor of the Straight Talk Express.
Not since 2000, and a cursory gander at the "Mav's" voting record between his failed 2000 bid and today explains why. Moving ever so consistently right, McCain has stopped at nothing to regain the support of self-proclaimed disenfranchised evangelicals. According to Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan group that aggregates interest groups' candidate report cards, McCain has lost favor among many environmental, civil rights, social issue and political reform groups. And his ever-pliable stances on once landmark issues, namely torture, illustrate a glaring hypocrisy, one the "Straight Talk" label ineffectively hides. Yet, in lockstep precision, the media still report on McCain like it's 1999. Snippets of "comeback kid" nostalgia still creep unabashedly into election analyses, while the more substantive criticisms remain relegated to the deep Web (see The New York Times' Bush-McCain comparison, a buried gem, for a perfect example).
The incoming president is going to overhaul American politics.
At risk of provoking utmost scorn, the answer is, sadly, no. The bureaucratic nightmare better known as the American government exists for a reason; the highly stylized, incomprehensibly self-gratuitous system the U.S. has is the result of decades of institutionalization. The president lacks the power to overhaul every aspect of U.S. politics for a reason, and there's little to suggest that an Obama or McCain White House will convince voters that congressional elections matter - where the real change starts.
But regardless of whether the electoral system, among other historical facets of American democracy, should change, the commodification of the word is not going to make it so. The attention the media has showered it - questioning what classifies as an "insider" more than what he or she has accomplished during their eternity in office - wastes valuable discursive space and time. Voters can't expect healthcare overhaul unless they know what universal healthcare means, or Social Security reform if they can't find information about the "doughnut hole," or a reasonable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian feud without disambiguating the acronym AIPAC. And the list goes on ad nauseam.
The prose is convincing, riveting even, worthy of literary praise. But it's little more than a series of fictions, disguised as something a little more substantive, that promises to change nothing. Avoid the temptation to believe otherwise
Tony Romm is a senior in the School of Communication and the Special Projects Editor for The Eagle
