This post is one in an ongoing series of audio postcards intended to document the characters we might consider minor in the larger picture of these conventions, but who I still find extremely interesting.
I hesitated to blog this because I can't immedietely find this guy's card in my bag; he does say his name at the beginning of the audio clip, but including in writing at least a first and a last is a journalistic tenet I happen to subscribe to.
Moving along -- Kurt and I were heading into the stadium for the Obama Nomination Event and this man was eager to make eye contact while carrying on about an Obama/McCain ticket. It was impossible not to stop, but I'd certainly imagined then that it wouldn't be for longer than a few seconds before I'd be repelled by the absurd agenda of the kind of loony a festival like this is bound to attract.
One sticky spaghetti strand stuck to my wall, though: plausibility aside, the idea of having a joint, cross-party ticket could potentially make a profound leadership statement to warring political camps around the globe. The refreshing notion that power can be shared -- recently exemplified by Republican hat-tip political ads and Democratic assurances of non-partisanship within speeches -- isn't entirely new. & Though not a merging of the two front-runners (how would that even work?), it was only last century that presidential candidates invited opposing party officials to a VP perch.
Diplomatic gestures these days, though -- authentic as they may seem -- seem less likely to go much further beyond rhetoric, and inarguably exist at least as subtle jabs in an arsenal of methodical punches designed for nothing else than political obliteration of the opposition.
I couldn't help but acknowledge the guy's idea, however impossible. & If we're asking Shi'a and Sunni to settle their complex differences, wouldn't it be neat to somehow lead by example?
