Pondering Barack, Part 3

Political campaigns are not unlike dating.

Since all genders run for office and all genders vote, we could say that all politicians are, metaphorically, bisexual sluts since they don't care who votes for them as long as they get the votes, no disrespect to bisexual sluts.  The similarity between campaigning and dating is that the candidate will often say whatever s/he needs to say to get elected in much the same way as some joker in a bar will say whatever he thinks will work to get laid.  When somebody wants your vote so that s/he can be elected to serve for four years, there's more at stake than simply getting laid.  It's more like there's a ring involved.  S/he wants a commitment, and once the commitment is made - you're stuck with each other for four years.

It's very rare that a politician will be as transparent during a campaign as the character in this video because voters want to be seduced.  Plenty of people in bars don't mind skipping the small talk.



Maybe bar flies want to be seduced, too, but again - there's a difference between a random hook-up and a Committed Relationship.

Further, there is a big difference between someone who has been polished by Madison Avenue and a random bar fly. When you're voting for somebody you mostly know through campaign advertisements and scripted speeches at arranged events, you're buying an image just like you are when you into a convenience store and choose Coke or Pepsi.  Just like there are differences between Coke and Pepsi just like there are differences between Democrats and Republicans, but they are minor. It's all carbonated chemicals in a can with a logo.

In the land of advertisements, it doesn't matter whether a person is buying a beverage, a political candidate or sporting goods.  The image is key.   When the stakes are high, corporations choose spokespeople whose accomplishments have already established an image which the company then packages to enhance the image of their product in the eyes of the public.

In presidential campaigns, the stakes are high, images are carefully groomed, and the point is still to get people to buy something - namely the candidate.

Now, I don't know what Tiger Woods said to Elin Nordegren to get her to marry him.  Maybe she was foaming at the mouth to marry him - what do I know?  But I do know that once you get married, you're expected to give up dating in general, and you're especially not supposed to be jumping into bed with porn stars even when there's an iron clad pre-nup.  When you start jumping into bed with cocktail waitresses after you're married, your spouse will feel betrayed - just like Americans who were committed to Barack Obama felt betrayed when he moved his banker buddies into the White House.

Geithner and Summers

The Health Care bill, while certainly an improvement, didn't go nearly as far as Barack himself had promised - and we see today what's happening with the budget bullshit.  I fully acknowledge that there's only so much Barack Obama can do about Congress, it's just that during this whole process, his own corporate sponsors have been revealed.  We haven't even needed Toto to pull back the curtain to expose a fumbling, little man. He has been there all along in plain sight despite the progressive language.

It's much easier to understand Barack Obama now that I've realized he's not a bit like Martin Luther King - except the he was a black man giving a big speech on the mall in DC in January.  You expect great things from a man like Martin Luther King.  From Tiger Woods, you expect a good golf game and that's about it since he's a golfer who became a corporate spokesperson.  Barack Obama may have been a great senator before he became a fully sponsored corporate spokesperson.  He has certainly demonstrated that he has mastered congressional procedures.  Even still he's just Barack Obama, a corporate spokesperson like Tiger Woods who found himself compromised.