jackconaty's Blog

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stay with me on this one if you will.  with a little more than 48 hours to go until we get the results in new hampshire...a new rasmussen poll gives barack obama a sizeable lead and shows john mccain in a tighter race with mitt romney on the republican side. there's still another debate on the fox news channel tonight...and that promises more fireworks.  but what mccain and obama seem to be selling so well at this point is a sense of "authenticity." mccain slipped to the back of the pack when voters began to sense he had lost it...and barely resembled the maverick who once rode the "straight talk express" in new hampshire back in 2000.  and obama has been saying throughout his campaign that he promises to tell you "not what you want to hear but what you need to know."  "the wire" is a gritty and ruthlessly honest cop drama about life on the streets of baltimore...but it could resemble any major american city.  i'm no tv critic but i think it's probably some of the best writing i've ever seen or heard about the complicated interactions that start on a street corner and weave their way into the politics of city hall.  what intrigues me about the connection between the wire and the presidential race is that sense of "authenticty."  politics and hollywood have many similarties, but the most obvious is both have an unyeilding desperation to please.  use polls, research, focus groups or anything else that will give one the sense of what the american people want...and then give it to them.  and time and again, whether on the airwaves or in political debates, we get material someone has "vetted" for likeability...the suggestion if not the insistence that there will be an easy answer, a quick solution and a happy ending.  but this political year, i sense a different hunger from voters i talked with.  they're beyond that now.  they want someone to tell them it is very complicated and our only way out may be good, sound judgment and a basic sense of decency.  the creator of the "the wire", former newspaper reporter david simon, has managed to capture that with a tv series that stays away from "black and white" and "good guys and bad guys."  in simon's series we're all in this together whether we like it or not.  good guys don't always win and black guys don't always lose.  and racial groups are neither perpetual victims nor constant perpetrators.  when obama talks about change and hope he's tapping into a nerve among many voters, people tired of anesthetics and slogans.  when mccain tells voters that dangers in the middle east will only worsen if america "cuts and runs", you're tempted to use that old slogan from barry goldwater in 1964, "in your heart you know he's right."  it's an old axiom in the media business that "jornalists don't shape public opinion...they merely reflect it." the world depicted on "the wire" is one of diminished expectations but a desperate sense that hard work on seemingly insoluble problems can still make a difference...that the only real bad guys are the ones who suggest it can't.  barack obama and john mccain may or may not win on tuesday and that may or may not lead one or both of them to the nominations of their individual parties.  but in their own way and in their own style both are telling americans that this is not the political year for commercials that talk about "morning in america."  it is in fact getting late...and the response their "tough love" talk is getting on the campaign trail suggests many voters know it. my sense is the results we get out of new hampshire on tuesday will make that clear.