If you have ever traveled Interstate 90 across South Dakota, you are dreadfully aware of Wall Drug. Located in the little town of Wall, SD, Wall Drug epitomizes the art of self-promotion. From Chicago to Coeur d’Alene, an un-ending string of road signs tell you just how far it is to that free drink of ice water at Wall Drug. By the time you reach Wall, you just absolutely have to stop to see what all that hoopla was about. In the end, Wall Drug is a place that you go to simply say you were at Wall Drug. It is a tourist trap that excites you into stopping, and attempts to relieve you from some of your hard-earned coin. It created something out of nothing, even if that something is really still nothing. And, it is that nothing that makes it something. It is marketing brilliance.
That, my friends, is Barack Obama.
Barack Obama is a nothing who knows how to market himself as a something.
I don’t write this to disparage Wall Drug. Wall Drug can be a nice stop for the weary traveler. It offers a gift store, cafe, restrooms, and museum. But you can get all of those things at the near-by Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The difference, however, is that Mt. Rushmore is a place with true grandeur. A souvenir from Mt. Rushmore says that you have been to a place that has meaning and is a source of national pride; a souvenir from Wall Drug says that you have been to Wall Drug. It is an interesting commentary on our society that from Miami to Seattle, and from Boston to San Diego, I have seen many more bumper stickers from Wall Drug than I have from Mt. Rushmore.
Barack Obama is the person to whom the bumper stickers and yard signs point. But, like Wall Drug, he is an end only to himself. He has no history of leadership, his ideas are not unique, he cannot communicate well without his teleprompter, and his political associations show us that he is really no different than any other partisan, self-centered, power hungry, special-interest pandering politician of our time. He epitomizes the art of self-promotion and is a marketing genius. But he is not the grand savior that his disciples are looking for. If you think that Bush is a puppet, you haven’t begun to see the strings that will be pulled by Obama’s radical handlers.
I understand that many people like the idea that Barack Obama represents: a youthful leader, fit, articulate (with notes, anyway), progressive, clean (per Joe Biden), minority, and not overly rich (or so he’d have us believe). But if Barack Obama is elected, people will soon discover that the person of Barack Obama cannot hold a candle to the representation and idea that is now Barack Obama. I know Barack Obama, and Barack Obama [the man] is no Barack Obama [the idea].
Just as people walk out of Wall Drug scratching their heads and asking, “Why did I stop here?”, people will be scratching their heads and asking, “Why did I vote for him?” That, my friends, is why Barack Obama is the Wall Drug of politics.
Originally Posted by Seabecker at Soundpolitics.com on August 27, 2008
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