Are We Talking About Class?

In the last weeks I have become a political junkie, the grandma who reads several newspapers cover to cover. After lunch I stretch out on the couch with the dog and we read everything the New York Times has on the political season. I love the letters to the editor and some of the op ed pieces. I watched both conventions with great interest (I only napped through Mitt Romney.) I have gone from appalled to depressed as I have tried to understand this great umerican country of ours. Everyone has an opinion, and that's great.

I am appalled because the great mass of Americans, it seems, just smile and clap mindlessly as the candidates snidely deprecate each other. Is no one interested in real issues? Do they even know what the issues are? Has no one taken the time to check into each candidate's proposals on the economy, health care, the war, and the very important issue of climate change? There is so much prevarication.

Sarah Palin, many think, is electrifying. For me, she is on the opposite side of everything I value. John McCain has sold his values for a passel of drek. Yes, I know that campaigns are tough and lots may be said that will never, fortunately, be remembered. I think, though, that this concentration on the 'real' America, hockey moms, Walmart moms, is born of a deep envy and resentment of class. So, the republicans say that this election is about personalities. There is talk of the 'privileged elite', the insiders, and who wants lawyers (smirk) who went to Ivy League colleges, (smirk) and god forbid if they were gifted enough to make the Law Review? Come on!

I want my candidate to have 'class'. I want my candidate to take the high road. I want my candidate to be really really smart and thoughtful, as the best educational institutions can educate their graduates to be. I want my candidate to be idealistically American. I want my candidate to be respectful enough towards his family to say THEY ARE OFF LIMITS.

It was unconscionable for Sarah Palin to take her kids on the road, floppy baby and all. Where is that mother's tenderness for her children's privacy? They have been trashed for political expediency. (I speak from experience in having a brother with cerebral palsy and an unwed teenage mom in the family.) Yes. These things happen. But I want my candidate to soar above and lead our country when the issues are dire and new to us.

I whine. Why are we so celebrity driven? Why can't we think clearly about the issues? My neighbor is a one issue person; he loves guns. A teacher I know is a narrow issue person; she is opposed to reproductive choice and gay marriage. These people will vote only on their chosen issue and nothing will dissuade them. They have blinders on. They think not of health care, the environment, not the economy, not the world their grandchildren will inherit. These issues are about class, and we as a society must talk about it; it isn't something nasty. Hey, we got over sex and mostly over money. We can do this. I still believe.