America: 19th century country in a 21st century world.

Recently, Obama and McCain have been interviewed by Rick Warren. He asked them hard hitting stuff like "when does life begin?" Because, as we all know, if a woman is in control of her sexual organs, Baby Jesus will cry. As usual, McCain said that life begins at fertilisation ("cells are people, too!!") whilst Obama did his best to worm around the issue, desperately trying to grab as many votes from the Left and Right moderates as possible. But what scare me sh*tless is that this has to happen. That in America, the biggest issues for Average Joe Citizen isn't the Iraq War, or eroding civil liberties, or that George "Super-Christian" Bush has taken a giant dump over the Geneva Conventions when it comes to torture. Instead, the issues that matter to Mr. A. J. Citizen is whether Obama is a closet Muslim*, or how much of a Bible-thumper each candidate is, or who can repeat "family values" with an American flag waving in the background in TV ads as many times as possible during the Super Bowel. But also because, hidden in Article 2 Section 1, is the unspoken law that one absolutely has to be a Christian to gain any political ground.

In other words, the actual issues that the candidates stand for is overwhelmed and crushed underfoot by who can craft the best image for themselves. The Age makes this point clear:

Almost 80% of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track, mired in an unpopular war and burdened with a failing economy. Yet the conventional wisdom of the presidential campaign now is that it will be a referendum on Barack Obama, not a judgement on the past eight years of Republican administration.

Score this round to the Republicans, for setting the agenda.

Polls consistently show a much tighter personal contest between Senator Obama and Senator McCain than they do between the Democratic and Republican parties.

"It's the right question to ask: why doesn't Obama have a much larger lead?" University of Maryland politics professor James Gimpel said yesterday. "I think the race thing is there. It has to be."

(my emphasis)

I don't know now much of a factor race plays in the 08 election. What I think matters is the total stranglehold the Republican Party has over America. A. J. Citizen may resent the Iraq War and the failing economy, Gitmo and legalised torture, but will be lured to the Republicans by a shameless smear campaign against Obama, hitting him below the belt with everything; unpatriotism, celebrity status-you name it, they're doing it. In response, Obama has no choice but to play the "Christ Christ Christ, ra ra ra!!" card to lure the centre right "values voter" Christians. And he has to keep doing it to suck a little more oxygen from McCain's smears.

And, if that doesn't work, then he will simply lower his standards.

And America continues to remain hooked to it.

As Brian of Bay of Fundie said,

"It is nothing less than an “intellectual emergency”, in the words of Sam Harris, that in the 21st century, after having set foot on the moon, discovered and mapped the human genome, and being close to probing the instant of the universe’s birth at the LHC in Europe, we still insist on screening our candidates for what is perhaps the most important job in the word through the absurd and preposterous filter of religion. Not only must our president believe in a capricious and insecure monster in the sky in order to make sound decisions, it must be the Christian version of that abomination he or she must bow in subservience to. How much more fucked up can THAT get?"

Truer words never spoken.

*IT WOULDN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH OBAMA BEING BLACK, NOW WOULD IT? Of course not. America, land of opportunity, land of the free, is beyond all that.