The Life Story

Notwithstanding the discussions of what policies the two men wanted to foist on the American public, it seems to me that the election came down to the narratives cultivated and advanced by both Barack Obama and John McCain. It was these narratives as much as anything else helped to determine the outcome.

Obama presented himself as the well-spoken, academically-accomplished son of a Kenyan father raised in Indonesia and Hawai'i by a single mother and, later, grandmother. According to the narrative, Obama, through his own initiative, rose quickly through Illinois activist politics to become a post-partisan figure less interested in ideology and more interested in "getting things done".

As seen in his convention, McCain also relied much more heavily on his narrative than on specific policies; at least until the very end of his campaign when he started talking about taxes. McCain presented himself as the Vietnam era hero who had spent the last twenty-five bringing people together in the House and Senate to also "get things done". Like Obama, McCain asked us to vote for him rather than his ideology.

In the end, Obama won out in part because his narrative (whether true or not) is more relevant to a larger number of Americans. To his detriment, McCain's narrative focused on events regarded as ancient history to a growing number of Americans and on activities far from the day to day lives of most Americans - i.e. the inner workings of the Senate.