Our Time

The latest New Yorker magazine has an article profiling Keith Olbermann, of whom I wrote briefly in an earlier blog. The article was neutral and objective, and I've yet to hear Keith respond on the air, so he was not likely offended by its revelations of some of his personal peccadilloes and apparently arrogant persona. (Again, for the record, my only meeting with him indicated he was reflexively courteous, though I'm sure he can be difficult). Nonetheless, he has become a hero of sorts to a large swath of the population, a sounding board for the articulate and righteous left wing, the yin to Bill O'Reilly's bumptious yang.

One of the interesting tidbits regarding Olbermann's ubiquitous MSNBC show "Countdown" is that its mean demographic is the comfortable liberal of approximately 59 years of age. Well! No wonder I've become somewhat addicted to his program. I am the absolute precise target of his conscientious diatribes, and just like the right-wing lemmings who salivate over the Fox News calumnies (terrorist fist bump, my ass) I eat up practically everything that he and his compatriot journalists say as the gospel. I also end to overrate the importance of some of the issues which he propagates on his program, such as when it appeared several months ago that the FBI was peeking into the private travel affairs of Obama. Keith made this sound like a Constitutional crisis that could diminish Watergate. It turned out they were investigating all the remaining candidates, so what appeared a scandal was really a non-issue, except of course for how it reflected the governmental paranoia of the post-9/11 landscape.

Olbermann's ratings have shot up this year. This is in part to his higher profile, and the diatribes he has spewed out at Bush, Rumsfeld, Clinton and McCain. There is also a heightened excitement of the public and the cable audience regarding this extraordinary political year. But it's also a reflection, simply, of our numbers. By "Our" I mean the Boomers who have finally come into full power, our greatest influence, even beyond the fact that the last two Presidents are now 62. For one of the rare times I feel a part of the Majority, and not the silent one. We rule!

It is interesting that one of Obama's major mantra's is that it's "Our Time.'" By this, of course, he is being cleverly ambiguous, implying not just a "new beginning" for the American people, but of course including himself in an Imperial "we" sort of way that self-important people tend to assume. I'm sure many campaign consultants ruled on the inclusiveness of the "Our" pronoun in the slogans. In this case they have done a better job than in past campaigns, some of which were crippled by the inanity of the catch phrases. The worst of these was 2004's "Hope is on the way," which clearly did not help Kerry get elected, nor make any sense, since hope should be a present condition, not something to look forward to. Granted, Clinton benefited by "The Man from Hope" sobriquet, though one could argue that he owed a lot more to the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot and the 19% of the popular vote he stole from George I.

I did think "It's the economy, stupid" was a strong motivating slogan in 1992, but moreso to focus the Clinton campaign than to unite the country. Of course this year the Economy is an even bigger problem, and the Democrats only need to drop the word "economy" into any discussion and nod toward McCain's admission that he knows little about economic theory to help sway some of the Independents in Ohio and Florida. They are also going to be repeating the phrase "Bush's third term" as much as is feasible, not to mention the "100 years in Iraq" quote that may in itself be enough to topple poor McCain.

For all the ammunition the Republicans have given the Dems this year, I'd like to see Obama and friends pull back a bit on the "Time for a change" mantra, which is boring and amorphous, and can be conscripted by a "maverick" Republican just as easily. I think, with the war continuing, the price of gas so ludicrously high that people are moving out of the suburbs, refusing to drive, and grumbling at the endlessly trivial airline add-on fees, the public is fed up enough not to need a cliche like "time for a change" to goad them to to the polls.

What we need are voters. People in our generation, the big fat one going through the snake, who will make themselves heard. And the Gen Xers and Yers as well, who will start to feel the social excitement of this era like we Baby Boomers did in the 60s. Let's all share the sense of something novel, something historic, and engage all the generations in a mass movement for optimism and a rejection of the reactionary road down which we have been guided so catastrophically by the ignorant the the fear-ridden.