Tuesday, January 08, 2008

What If Change Becomes the New Black?

I got to thinking today watching the 7/24 CNN coverage of the second official mini-poll in the race to replace the W. It came when I did as I often do - take something to an extreme to see where it would end up. I'm not into moderation. It also came after I looked at Applebaum's nice story in the Washington Post.

What if the American people jump onto Barack Obama's theme of "Change". What if Change became the new mantra for Americans? The new "Where's the Beef?"

Clinton and Edwards on the Dem side are all over the Change meme, taking credit for every time they've changed their socks (though not for every time they changed their position on Iraq). Mitt is trying to snuggle up to this on the GOP side so he'll look a little different, but the rest of the Repubs do what they usually do - try to stay away from change the way Hillary's husband did in response to her demands to clean up his act.

The average age of the 100 US Senators is 62. 26 are over 70 and 6 over 80. All born during or before the Great Depression, with all the associated embedded psychological trauma and the effect this has had on America.

If Change becomes trendy, then watch out. I see no fear in Obama. If he's the Democratic nominee, what if (a long line of if's here) he demanded change for America. He demanded that Americans look hard and long at their elected representatives and ask themselves what has this man done for me and my country lately?

A huge number of Americans think the US is totally FUBAR (despite it still being the most civilized and well-to-do nation in the world). What if about 20 million Americans said, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore?" What if a lot of them decided that they would vote for anyone who isn't like the one that was there before?

What if they elected a black man as President and a dozen or twenty black senators and a hundred or so black congressmen. What if the average age of the senate goes down to fifty?

Then again, maybe I should stay away from those four absinthe lunches.

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