Joe Biden's Sympathetic Nodding

I only got to see thirty minutes of the debate last night as I had school. But DU had the debates on in the Moot Court classroom, so I stopped in there between classes. Honestly, I was hoping for good entertainment. Poor Governor Palin, so hopelessly average, can't put two sentences together. And then there's Our Guy, Senator Biden and his plagiaristic past (embarrassing) and his plainly stupid present. He recently said that when the stock market crashed in 1929, President Roosevelt got on T.V. and calmed the nation. (More embarrassing).

What I saw were two very rehearsed, professional-looking people doing their best not to screw it all up. The Senator was keeping his foot out of his mouth and the Governor was doing her best to remember what she'd memorized earlier this week.

So I watched the interaction between them. I was particularly interested in seeing what Senator Biden was going to do in light of the fact that his opponent is a woman. Ordinarily, I don't see why it would matter that she is a woman. The Speaker of the House is a woman, for goodness sakes. But there has been this weird use of the word "sexist" lately. I am perplexed as to why it has been suggested that Senator Biden had to be careful not to look sexist when debating Governor Palin. It was suggested that he might be too aggressive. I don't get that. Isn't it sexist to suggest that Governor Palin is too delicate to be debating a man? Should she worry that he is going to be mean? Is he going to reach over and tug on her hair?

Now, don't get me wrong. I think there has been some misogyny in the campaign, but particularly in reference to Senator Clinton being like a school marm or a shrew. Governor Palin has been lucky that her serious lack of substance makes her a mockery, so no one has had to make ad hominim attacks on her womanhood.

Governor Palin is many things, but she certainly isn't delicate. And when she's scripted she's a pretty good public speaker. Add to that that as a high school debate coach, I see boys and girls in deathmatches against each other all the time. The girls expect no favors for being female, and the boys certainly don't hold back on their attacks. Debate is about winning.

So it interested me that Senator Biden, in his effort to show respect to Governor Palin, listened intently as she spoke and even added nods. You know those nods -- the ones that men are supposed to use when listening to women, to show that they have sympathy, that they "understand," and that they are "there for" them? Clearly, he had been coached. Some one on his campaign has read Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.

The nodding was artificial. Why do the American people expect sympathy and "understanding" in a presidential debate? Nodding in deference to your opponent's gender in a debate is demeaning to your opponent, not respectful. If one of my boy debaters did that in a round against a girl, I'd bench him.

Zeitgeist

We've been watching a lot of The West Wing on DVD lately and now we're into the 7th and last season. It aired originally in 2005-2006. The main story line is about the election for the president who will succeed President Bartlet, and the two competitors for the office are respectively, a Democrat who wants to talk to the voters like they are intelligent and capable of understanding the complexities of political policy, and a Republican with a long history in the Senate who is not loved by the right-wing of his party. Did I mention that the Democrat is also a member of an ethnic minority who eschews the idea of being the "minority candidate?"

I am not the first to notice that this election looks a lot like the election we are having now.* However, I am wondering if the resemblance between this fictional election and our real one is not entirely coincidental. I am not proposing that this is a conspiracy, with plot lines written by Hollywood screenwriters, nor am I suggesting that life imitates art. Instead, I am wondering if this similarity is a product of the spirit of the time. I am wondering if this election is not about two men with ambitions to lead the country, but is really about a nation and its need to see its long-felt desires given form and played out in a national drama.

Now, you may be thinking, isn't this what an election really is? A set of narratives about a particular country that compete for prominence? And aren't the main characters, who are both the protagonists and the antagonists depending on the narrative, supposed to be well-drawn and their arguments multi-layered and nuanced? And isn't it the one who understands us, our contradictions, and what we strive for the best the one who should triumph in the end? Isn't this what happens in all elections?

Perhaps, but never before the 2008 election did it feel like this for me. Perhaps, back in 1992 it felt a little like this, but that election was really just a challenge to what had been incumbent for 12 years. The 2008 election isn't like that. We have to go back to a time before I was born to see an election in which at least one challenger was not a part of the previous or incumbent administration. What that means is that in some way, for the last two generations, we were always voting to oppose the previous rulers. Now, we have two new guys with two new ways of seeing things. We are being given something wholly different than we've been given before, and that is exciting because it means that we are in the midst of a real shift. The campaigns are right: whatever we choose next, it is going to be a change. What is completely amazing, is that The West Wing articulated everything we wanted well before the campaign began.

*If you Google The West Wing, you will come across this idea very quickly. It just proves exactly the observation that my friend Herm once made -- you have this really amazing idea that you think is entirely original, and then you read about it a week later in the "Picks and Pans" section of People.