The Race to the Bottom - St. Paul and the Road to Damascus

Many years ago, Richard Hofstadter, one of the great American historians of the 20th century, wrote a book about the strong current of anti-intellectualism in American politics and culture. For Hofstadter, anti-intellectualism emerged from egalitarian, populist, and anti-elitist responses to both European cosmopolitanism and our frontier habitation. Waves of emotional appeals crested at predictable intervals in our nation's history as a result of evangelical fervor, populist political oratory, and the emergence of a consumer-driven economy. The consequence has been a prevalent suspicion of education; intellectual "elites" and abstract ideas; and a rough-hewn, trust in the "common man", "gut" instinct, and "common sense".

The current carnival at the Republican Convention reflects this "race to the bottom". Down the rabbit hole we have plunged. In an Alice in Wonderland alternate universe, we learned from Sarah Palin last night how being unqualified is evidence of being qualified; how education and an interest in ideas and literacy and eloquence are prima facie disqualifications for leadership; how right-wing traditionalists have seized the feminist label and made teenage pregnancy a virtue. It is truly bizarre.

Numerous ironies accompany this latest twist to what has already been one of the most dramatic and significant political campaigns in our nation's history.

First, race remains a subtext to the campaign. The delegate population in St. Paul is lily-white. We can be sure that if one of Barack Obama's daughters were pregnant, barbed remarks about the promiscuity of black folks would replace the disingenuous bromides about how "life happens" that have greeted the news about the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter.

Nonetheless, it is striking - and quite remarkable - how race has disappeared so quickly as an election theme. This may be partly because Barack Obama's mixed-race heritage positions him perfectly to transcend the thorns and brambles of our racial past, which one can hardly avoid regarding as our nation's heaviest burden and original sin. Some of the humor and jibes about Obama's messianic stature may result - almost literally - from the grace with which his candidacy has allowed America an opportunity to rise above and finally move beyond the darkest stains of its past.

Second, what has replaced race at the center of electoral discourse is gender. Charges of sexism are now leveled like howitzer blasts at anyone who criticizes Sarah Palin for a lack of experience, a checkered record, a provincial outlook, and a frightening, Gothic worldview. Hillary Clinton's legacy may, ironically, be the opening she provided the Christian right to claim the mantle of feminism that has historically belonged to the Democratic party and to the political left in the United States. Members of the Christian Republican Party base who until recently derided "feminists" as a motley collection of lesbians and aggressive, family-hating careerists now proudly carry the feminist flag on behalf of "working mothers" across the nation.

Whether this holds water remains to be seen. I am struck by the studied grace and restraint of the Democratic leadership in their response to the invective hurling their way from St. Paul (pun intended, regarding righteous Christians hurling thunderbolts from their own feminist road to Damascus).

I also am truly impressed by Obama's unflappability. He has refused to take the bait and lash out at those attacking him because he attended Harvard, possesses the basic literary skills required to write two books, and truly cares about ideas.

Perhaps we should call him "Ocalma." Since the Republican leadership has explicitly indicated that personality and not issues will govern the outcome of the election, I might point out that Obama's apparent serenity and self-control are personal qualities that we would want any president to possess.

The 2008 election may be the most important presidential election in the nation since 1860. In his determined focus on unification and transcendence, Obama reminds me more of Lincoln than any presidential candidate since 1860. The irony is that while Obama may have viewed unification and transcendence in terms of race - and his mixed-race heritage uniquely positions him to breach this divide - healing between men and women may prove to be his toughest domestic challenge.