Two Americas — one of the past, one of the future?
Todd Gitlin has an interesting take on the presidential race, seeing it in part in a conflict of archetypes about America past and some as yet ill-defined America future:
Part of what makes this year’s race so volatile — and so absorbing — is the range of archetypes it has mobilized. Sen. John McCain is relatively familiar. He is the leathery man of the West, of exactly the sort who has entranced the Republican Party for almost half a century now. It is the role that Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush played before him.
McCain himself invokes Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Rider who, despite his New York origins, ranched in South Dakota and hunted throughout the West. Those who admire McCain tend to believe that it was men of this sort — rugged individualists, plain-spoken, straight-talking, self-sufficient men at home in nature (not in our effete cities) — who settled the West on their own. The myth discounts the immense role of the federal government in conquering the natives, seeing that the railroads were built, adjudicating disputes, arranging for water. No matter: Print the legend. In this image of the Old West, history belongs to the man who takes charge, the warrior in command who knows how to shoot and how to lead others to shoot as well…
the Democrats this year are pioneering, and a bit scrambled, in their mythic significance. Obama is the quintessential outsider — a “sojourner,” the New York Times’ David Brooks has called him. He hails from exotic Hawaii, alien Indonesia, elegant Harvard and down-and-dirty Chicago, all at the same time. To his devotees, he is part city-slicker, part man of the world; to his enemies, precisely this combination makes him suspect. Like the Lone Ranger, he rides into town to serve a community in need, but in a surprising twist, this Lone Ranger is closer to the color of Tonto.
Mythically, therefore, Obama is elusive, Protean, a shape-shifter who, when not beloved, arouses suspicion. Perhaps he is that object of envy and derision, a “celebrity,” as the McCain campaign suggested, but he’s also an egghead. He’s the professor — but one who can sink the shot from beyond the three-point circle. He too has a sidekick, but, if you judge by their resumes, it is as if Robin has chosen Batman. One thing is clear: He is not a man of the ranch…
In 2000, 101 million Americans voted for the D or R candidate for president and 105 million voted in total. In 2004, the totals were much higher: 122 million Americans voted. Turnout in 2004 was 13% higher than in 2000. John Kerry won the largest counties by a wide margin, and George Bush won the fastest growing counties by a wide margin. The underrated Kerry campaign got 8 million more votes than Al Gore, and its GOTV effort in Ohio nearly won him the presidency. If the Gore campaign had turned out votes like the Kerry campaign did, we’d perhaps now be at the end of a two term Democratic administration.
We haven’t a clue what will happen in this election, though the generational issue suggested by Professor Gitlin is worth thinking about. So much depends on who actually turns out to vote. If the ratings numbers from the first debate are an indication (they are apparently 12% lower than 2004), then might we have a cliffhanger as in 2000?