Letter from America

Whatever you think of America, you can’t deny that its Presidential elections this year are fascinating.

There’s Barack Obama — first African-American candidate for the White House. Now there’s Sarah Palin — first female candidate for Vice-President. And, in between, there’s…what’s his name again?...oh, yes, John McCain.

Interesting man

McCain is an interesting man in his own right. It takes some chutzpah to voluntarily refuse early release from a Vietnam prisoner of war camp on the basis that other detainees would not be allowed out so soon. McCain has (if you can forgive me for quoting John Wayne) a certain splattering of ‘True Grit’. He stuck to his guns, to use another unfortunate metaphor, about Iraq. Yes, he voted for the war. No, he wasn’t going to apologise for it. He thought he was right. He still did. Only a few months ago, in what seems like a different political age, that decision not to flip-flop on The War appeared to consign him to an early political grave. Then ‘the surge’, the increase in troops to Iraq (which McCain also advocated) began to make some inroads, according to all but the most partisan of observers. And suddenly McCain’s campaign was back on track.

Obama’s candidacy has that unstoppable feel about it. Barack Obama has the Midas touch when it comes to rhetoric. It would certainly make a change from listening to George W. Bush, who, whatever else his faults, has never lacked the ability to give speeches that are a good old-fashioned cure for insomnia. He was young. He was vibrant. He even beat the Clinton machine in the form of Hilary. What could stop him?

Neck and neck

But actually, at this point, Obama and McCain are pretty much neck and neck in the polls. Some put them at a statistical dead heat. The reasons for this are hard to exactly fathom, but it is not difficult to make an educated guess. Obama has more of that elite feel. McCain has that blue collar, ‘when the going gets tough the tough get going’ feel. And then there were those ‘attack ads’. People dispute whether they were successful or not, but Obama was depicted by the McCain camp as a vacuous ‘celebrity’, on a par with Britney Spears. Suddenly Obama’s greatest strength — his ability to speak compellingly to tens of thousands of people — was portrayed as about as important as Posh Spice being able to sell out Wembley Arena.

So this Presidential season is definitely fascinating. Now, with Obama on one side, and Sarah Palin VP on the other, whoever gets in it will have the flavour of being a historic choice. It can’t have missed the attention of the Republicans either that disenchanted female supporters of Hilary Clinton might be persuaded to go across the barricades and vote for a female Vice President.

Let’s pray

As Christians, we are called upon to pray for those in authority (1 Timothy 2.1), which surely must include praying for the person to occupy the world’s most powerful elected office. And we may thank God that in Christ we have a true solution to the diversity problems of our world, so that ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3.28).

Josh Moody,
Connecticut

© Evangelicals Now - October 2008
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