The New Yorker and Phil Gramm: Manna from Heaven for Barack Obama

Let's see, a 46 year old runs for President, starting out as a decided underdog. He has a controversial past, a very controversial wife who becomes a major campaign issue and a man named Bush as another issue. He has become accustomed to being the first of his kind, or the youngest, to achieve his status, an Ivy League law degree and is surrounded by tales of youthful drug abuse. He is not a veteran, has authored a book with "Hope" in the title, and speaks eloquently and constantly on the campaign trail of "Change".

He made the keynote speech at the Democratic convention four years before when he was a relative unknown, is considered the leader of a new generation of politicians and is surrounded by a motley crew of supposed "radicals". The man is running against a much older opponent, a man as lacking in charisma as much as this man possesses it. The opponent has much more experience but is regarded with distrust and disdain by the so-called "religious right". Iraq has been at the center of the news, the economy is in the doldrums, the country is drifting like a rudderless ship. I would be talking about Barack Obama, right? Sort of.

However, the man to which I refer is actually Bill Clinton in 1992. The Barack Obama of 2008 shares all those traits with the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton. As someone who lived in Arkansas then (and still does, by the way), the similarities of the two campaigns are uncanny. There are differences, of course. Barack Obama's keynote speech at the dems convention four years ago put Obama on the political map, while Bill Clinton's keynote speech for nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988 threatened to derail his promising career with delegates hooting and looking at their watches. The speech got it's greatest applause by far when Clinton ended with "in conclusion". Of course, I'm not sure anyone could make an interesting speech when the subject is Michael Dukakis, but Bill Clinton overcame the jeers to become, in the words of Toni Morrison and Chris Rock, "the first black President".

Now, of course, Barack Obama has the chance to actually become the first black President. And he will if John McCain isn't able to muzzle the likes of former Texas Senator Phil Gramm. I'm sure Senator Obama would like to take some of those campaign millions and put Gramm on the road stumping for McCain as often as possible. They say politics make for strange bedfellows, and not many are stranger then the New Yorker and Phil Gramm. With the New Yorker's satirical cartoon of Barack Obama in Al Qaeda garb and his wife Michelle Obama dressed as a black militant combined with Gramm's bone-headed comments, the result just may be a voter backlash that puts Mr. Obama in the White House in the fall.

Republican nominee John McCain wasted no time in trying to distance himself from Phil Gramm's ridiculous remarks in which Gramm stated that the recession was a mental recession in the minds of the media and that the U.S. has become a "nation of whiners". When you're a multi-millionaire as Phil Gramm most likely is, and most national pols are, of course, there's no recession. Try telling that to thousands of laid off workers or people whose job has been "outsourced" to another country. I dare Phil Gramm to go on the road, out among the "great unwashed" and promote his "nation of whiners" comments to those whose homes have been foreclosed or who have filed for bankruptcy, in part because because of out of touch dolts like Phil Gramm.

People who have adjustable rate mortgages, have credit cards that arbitrarily raised their rates suddenly and charge outrageous late fees would not likely be very receptive to the tin-earred Gramm and his "let them eat cake" compadres. Under the Republican Congress and the worst President of modern times, maybe all-time, Big Oil, the credit card companies and other "haves" have run roughshod over everyone else in our country in recent years.

Sen. Barack Obama represents a gamble with his lack of experience and vague talk of "change", but Mr. Obama has proposed some specific changes most of us can believe in, "Yes, we can", such as changes in the draconian bankruptcy laws that took effect in 2006. I don't yet know whether Barack Obama can convince enough voters to allow him to become President. However, with the help of such "over the top" satire such as The New Yorker cartoon, unless John McCain can keep the bungling Phil Gramm under wraps untiol November, the chances are looking better and better.