Face of America

At some level, I think, it all comes down to which guy you want to be looking at on TV for the next four years at least and if that’s the key, then there ought not to be any question whatsoever who won the debate and who ought to be our next President.

On the one hand, you’ve got John McCain, who looks more and more to me like something that crawls out from under a rotting log when the sun goes down; and on the other, Barack Obama, who reminds me more and more of Abraham Lincoln every time I see him.

Plus, when you throw in their wives, the aesthetic divide becomes even more pronounced; the McCains strike me as a pair you’d see having a drunken red-faced argument at the table next to you in dining room of the country club; the Obamas, by contrast, have the kind of classy aura that makes them sneakily invisible; you couldn’t help noticing them at the nightclub, but you’d never stare, even though you might want to.

And to the extent that the President is, in many ways, the official spokesperson for the United States of America, isn’t it time we elected somebody who looks a lot more like a lot more of the people he is supposed to be speaking for? I mean, I’m a aging white guy, after all, but god help me if I resemble McCain more than Obama.

And if I ever think it’s a good look to comb over my last few strands of white hair and plaster them down to my scalp, go ahead and just hold a pillow over my face until I stop struggling; then shave my head, okay?

I went to a pizza place last night for a debate watch party with members of my teachers’ union; we all cheered when Obama talked about funding education; and somehow we even managed to eat when McCain come on screen.