McCain and Obama Tell All (or at least something)

I completed my requisite citizen viewing last night of this election cycle's pep rallies, otherwise known as Democratic and Republican conventions. There were many, many things said and many promised as well. I understand that much of this frenzy of wordplay is a form of sophisticated salesmanship, but my goal in listening is always to decipher statements and comments of weight and meaning. I ask myself, "What, if anything, are these people saying."

I believe there actually were accurate disclosures of personal motivation and worldview made by several of the speakers, most notably the presidential candidates. Both Obama and McCain, in my estimation, communicated their perspectives of the world and the logic from which their actions originate. And the two men could not seem to see things much more differently.

Obama seems to see a world of nuance, commonality and connection. He also seems to be a true believer in the concepts of good and evil, seeing both as pervasive through culture and community. More than black and white thinking, however, Obama communicates a further belief in the existence of a spectrum between the two and the effect of conditions upon the expression of both. His work in the poor and decompensating communities in Chicago where jobs were withdrawn and despair and fear filled that vacuum likely gave him an education in the opportunistic nature of evil.

Where feelings of hope and well being are not, love and respect are under enormous pressure. When a man or woman feels the fear that comes when a knowing of real vulnerability for self and children sets in, life can seem not unlike a POW camp. People are in a place where dignity and purpose of work is absent, violence everywhere, predictability is gone, and a sense of an utter lack of real options persists. Although people outside the community would tell them to just leave, there is no car in the garage if a garage exists, no gas if there is a car, and most critically, a mindset that cannot IMAGINE life can be different than this.

Obama seems to understand that it is the latter affliction that makes the ever-expanding ranks of impoverished communities across the nation an immanent threat to the survival of democracy. For democracy to survive, a growing number of politicians are beginning to realize, the people must have a mentality of freedom. And only through the availability of jobs, health care, and social security for the sick and elderly can a belief in real freedom endure. Obama and many of his supporters seem to get this.

From an utterly different direction came McCain. He seemed to communicate that he is a man of endurance with an unparalleled ability to persist. It may be his most defining characteristic to me. Persistence was the underlying theme in the story he told at the convention of his time in a POW camp. Even a cursory review of his political record sees him persisting through the enormously humiliating "Keating Five" scandal. The man just keeps going and he does so, apparently, by "fighting." He used this word repeatedly in his acceptance speech and I believe it is the key to unlock what is honest in what he said.

He communicates a worldview that strongly promotes the ideas of "other" and fear of this other. He experienced horrendous mental and physical torture at the hands of the Vietcong. He was a warrior in this conflict, not an educated diplomat. The language, habits and mentality of the Vietcong were utterly foreign to him, and he had to fight mentally to survive the horror of what these "different" people were inflicting.

I have often wondered if McCain, while in that camp, experienced a phenomenon common to survivors of abuse called "splitting." When a person mentally "splits" the mind puts the world into two harsh opposites of "all good" and "all bad." In order to stay sane, the person identifies with the "all good" and all else that is threatening is "all bad."

McCain seems to see himself as the true fighter and the only one who understands the innumerable and imminent threats to our nation. In fact, in order to maintain the world view of being a "fighter" for the good, one necessarily must have an enemy. And McCain seems good at finding them, in the case of the Iraq war, where there was no enemy of immanent threat. But a fighter likes to fight, in fact, needs to fight to maintain a feeling of relevance and mastery in his world. My concern with him as president is how effective he may be at finding a fight and then funding a fight.

My caveat to this assessment is that McCain has also demonstrated an ability to tune into another part of himself that is capable of compromise. It may be that the close, grueling nature of this campaigning season has put him back into survival mode where one fights to persist. It is not his physical life he seeks to preserve now, but his political dreams. And it looks as though he will do whatever it takes to keep those alive.

Perhaps if he makes it to the White House, he will be able to shift into his other identity, one where allegiances are a matter of emotional connection other than political expediency. I doubt much would get done, but perhaps he could avoid that most horrendous of the mistakes of the Bush administration and quietly enjoy his golden years sitting in the biggest chair there is. Finally, a perfect mastery of his situation would have been achieved.

We, as Americans, finally have two choices, not one fudged option, as in many past elections. We have a nuance or all-or-nothing. We have fighting or understanding. We have hope at home or fear of the world. We have relationship or "us and them." We have the past revisited or the present reevaluated.

Our nation could pull another one out of the hat and awe many in the world with our unique ability to spontaneously adapt, or we will further constrict as a national mentality and go the way of Rome. We'll still be around as a nation but considered an excellent place to vacation to see history, not a place to look for new inspiration about what's possible.