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Not a political endorsement or argument by me in any manner, just pointing out something interesting.

I've just read through an great essay by my favorite author, David Foster Wallace. He's a post-modern type who's written lots of short stories, non-fiction, and one totally over the top novel called Infinite Jest. His main skill is bogging his literature down with meaningless details only to hit you with simple but seemingly revalatory facts (probably only revalatory based on the general mediocrity of what came before.) Despite that, I still love reading anything he writes. Guess I like the pain :stick:.

So in 2000, Rolling Stone contacted him to join a media tour for a candidate of his choosing. He chose McCain, despite being a hard leftist himself. His essay submitted to Rolling Stone was over 100 pages, something that had to be cut in a very short time due to the McCain meltdown after a brief NH primary surge.

Most of the essay deals with mundane inner workings of the press while touring with a major candidate. Interesting stuff but here are a few excerpts that I found especially interesting:

"It's hard to get good answers to why most Young Voters are so uninterested in politics. This is probably because it's next to impossible to get someone to think hard about why he's not interested in something. The boredom itself preempts inquiry; the fact of the feeling's not enough. Surely one reason though, is that politics is not cool. Or say rather that cool, interesting, alive people do not seem to be the ones who are drawn to the Political Process. Think back to the sort of kids in high school or college who were running for student office: dweeby, overgroomed, obsequious to authority, ambitious in a sad way. Eager to play the Game. The kind of kids other kids would want to beat up if it didn't seem so pointless and dull. An now consider some of 2000's adult versions of these very same kids: Al Gore, best described by CNN sound tech Mark A. as "amazingly lifelike"; Steve Forbes with his wet forehead and loony giggle; G. Bush2's patrician smirk and mangled cant; even Clinton himself with his big red fake-friendly face and "I feel your pain." Men who aren't enough like human beings to even dislike--what one feels when they loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is so often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact, the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us deep down in ways that are hard even to name, much less talk about. It's way easier to roll your eyes and not give a shit. You probably don't want to hear about this, even."

Further On

"One reason a lot of the media on the Trail like John McCain is simply that he's a cool guy... As one national pencil told Rolling Stone and another nonpro... "It's that he acts somewhat in the ballpark of the way a real human being would act." And the grateful press on the Trail transmit--maybe even exxagerate--McCain's humanity to their huge audience, the electorate, which electoracte in turn seems so paroxysmically thankful for a presidential candidate somewhat in the ballpark of a real human being that it has to make you stop and think about how starved voters are for just some minimal level of genuineness in the men who want to "lead" and "inspire" them."

...

"There's another thing John McCain always says. He always pauses a second for effect and then says: "I'm going to tell you something. I may have said some things here today that maybe you don't agree with. But I will always. Tell you. The truth." This is McCain's closer, his last big reverb on the six-string as it were. An the frenzied standing-O it always gets from his audience is something to see. But you have to wonder: why to these crowds from Detroit to Charleston cheer so wildly at a simple promise not to lie?"

Here the author goes into how we've been lied to, predictable stuff.

"Well it's obvious why. When McCain says it, the people are cheering not for him so much as for how good it feels to believe him... Who wouldn't cheer, hearing stuff like this, especially from a guy we know chose to sit in a dark box for four years instead of violate a Code? Even in A.D. 2000, who among us is so cynical that he doesn't have some good old corny American hope way down deep in his heart, lying dormant like a spinster's ardor, not dead but just waiting for the Right Guy to give it to? That John S. McCain III oppposed making Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday in AZ, or that he thinks clear-cut logging is good for America, or that he feels our present gun laws are not clinically insane--this stuff counts for nothing with these Town Hall crowds, all on their feet, cheering their own ability to finally really fucking cheer."

Any typos above are due to the fact that I typed that out from a DRM'd PDF file (wanted to send some of these quotes to a few friends, didn't do it all for you people :laugh:). If you want to read the whole messy thing and learn about what people eat and drink on the campaign trail, you can get the whole thing at Ebookmall for $5. http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/title/up-simba-wallace-ebooks.htm

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