Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Plus ca Change: Politician in the Buckeye State

I'm enjoying hearing an account of Biden invoking Catholic phrasing ("Bless me father for I have sinned...", McCain having a "political, not a policy, epiphany") in one of my childhood neighborhoods of Wooster, Ohio. The high school band strikes up, there's a parade, there's the drawling political talk -- as the commentator says, it's all rather timeless. One could be cynical, but since as a preacher's kid I respond with amusement and wry recognition to these religious catch phrases, the effect on me is positive -- not that I'm observant, but that I enjoy the rhetorical allusions. And, I must say, it's a bit reassuring. This is more entertaining to me than Palin addressing an Ohio crowd the other day as "guys and gals" and talking to them like they were a roomful of third graders. As one onlooker and fan put it, "He's not a flashy pick but he tells us the way it is, and that's what we need to hear." Well, I'm not sure anybody knows "the way it is" right now, but I'd rather have a sly and soulful rhetorical approach than a dumbed-down bit of condescension. Later Biden's going to Canton, my actual hometown, which is in almost as bad a state as Flint. Ahh...America.

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