From The New Yorker To The Rocky Mountain West



Obama's electoral map. (image via strangemaps)

No Democrat Presidential campaign can begin in earnest until at least one high-profile media crucifixion takes place. It says volumes politically about the Dukakis campaign that he was unable to pull off such a media murder in the alotted time between his clinching the nomination and election day. Remember Sista Soljah, sacrificed, in so sanguinary a fashion, on the altar of Bill Clinton's moist ambitions (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment)?

One of the outcomes of the infamous Annie Liebowitz-Miley Cyrus cover contretemps inside the court of Conde Nast (think: Editors in ermine robes) is the credo that controversy sells magazines. The Eastern elites in The Chattering Classes roundly believe, between cocktails on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, that the Miley Cyrus cover was an editorial success as opposed to those in the fly-over states who have moral problems with the whole idea of a child posing suggestively for deacdent late-Empire cocktail party patter (Averted Gaze). And therein lies the political context.

Obama is in danger of being portrayed -- as Karl Rove puts it -- "the (guy at the) country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." Can you say radioactive to the Rocky Moubntain West? Senator Obama clealry wants to avoid this mischaracterization before he is tarred by the Republican 527s. Enter: David Remnick's New Yorker cover, stumbling, clumsily, right into the line of fire between McCain and Obama on the subject of Eastern elite arugula munchers.

Senator Obama's electoral map is not unlike Saul Steinberg's famous map of the world vis-a-vis New York which originally appeared, ironically, in The New Yorker. Even though anyone with an IQ beyond the double digits knows Remnick meant the cover with satire, it gives Obama a "teachable moment," as they say. Obama can say to those who are irony-resistant that: a) He is not a Muslim, and b) The Chattering Classes are somewhat crass. The former point is important as in the flyover states there are a significant number who go in for that sort of rumor. The latter argument is important because it allows the Obama campaign to spryly leapfrog the mischaracterization of Obama as in the mold of Kerry-Gore, ivy headed pointyheads. Also, it gives him an opportunity to attack the left on the culture wars, a theme that inured him to the right and dovetails nicely into his post-culture wars critiques on fatherhood in the African-American community and violent video games and minors.

This is all part of Obama's pivot to the center. David Remnick was just in the wrong place at the wrong time (Or, the right place, considering the coverage, the renewed cultural relevance and the newsstand sales this issue brings). Nothing personal, it's just politics.