Finally Seeing Clearly

My wife gave me some great advice this week. She reminded me that it is never a good idea to have a narrow focus on anything for too long. She emphasized that politics is no exception. That advice makes good sense after moving through twenty-one months of a presidential campaign. I suspect that it is not just me who developed that peculiar kind of tunnel vision that develops anytime we focus too closely on any tiny part of the huge world around us.

Every time Terri gives me advice, she bolsters that advice by reminding me of some past event that is always instructional. Here is a memory that came to mind that day I was advised to take a break from political clutter.

In the Catalonia region of Spain, there is a museum that was built by Salvador Dali. A canvas hangs at the entranceway of that museum. The canvas is covered with a rainbow of paints in shapes of squares, cubes and dots. Each shape seems to contradict the other. Hidden in that canvas is the portrait of Abraham Lincoln, but it is difficult to see that image. The museum guide will tell you that only half of the museum visitors see the hidden portrait. I stood in front of that Dali and did my share of squinting and head tilting before I could see our sixteenth president. The museum guide told me that people who never actually see Lincoln usually stare at the canvas too long; or with too much intensity. He believes that most people's minds are too cluttered and their focus is too narrow to uncover Dali's misdirection. His theory is that all the different shapes and colors become so cluttered on the canvas that our mind fails to process Dali's artistic image. There are too many bold contradictions.

In the last twenty-one months, politicians have cluttered our minds with 5.3 billion dollars worth of political advertising.

During this cycle, there have been 90 different national presidential campaign TV ads that have blasted their way into our minds. Political handlers created 90 different ways to scare us, threaten us, and shame us with overwhelming contradictions. The media threw 1,400 presidential race polls at us. Those polls gave us cluttered details about whether voters thought our candidate was too smart, too dull, too old, too young, too mean, or too nice. In fact, one new poll was released every 11 hours for a solid twenty-one months.

All that contradictory information and all those contrasting messages can become just like that jumble of dots, squares, cubes and colors on Dali's painting. It makes sense to step away from the confusing pitches about our new too black or too white Christian, possibly Muslim, socialist, elitist, average guy, Ayers-connected, possibly communist, maybe anti-Christ president. We need to stop analyzing irreconcilable stories about a too old, too unhealthy, erratic, unpredictable, energetic warmongering patriotic decorated war hero. And let that savvy, unread, unworldly, high achieving, rube, bumpkin, only female governor in Alaskan history leave our thoughts for a while. With luck, the clutter will disappear and by Inauguration Day, a clearer image of our 44th President will begin to take shape.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Comments

[SamEllison]

You should see my inbox, oy!

[dadw5boys]

YES.

[beantowner]

If Sarah Palin would just retreat back to the wilds of Alaska, I'd have a much easier time of forgetting about her and the nasty republican campaign she helped to wage. But, for the first time in a long time, I'm thrilled with the election result and am happy about the potential of our future. As a result, I'm in a much better mood and am sleeping better.

Smart wife you've got there. ;-)

[dadw5boys]

52% of the people can't sand her now. She should keep talking so the others can catch up.

[beantowner]

If only that would happen. Unfortunately, I believe the people who love her ("She's just like me!") are as uninformed and willfully ignorant as the candidate, herself. They'll never "catch up." They feed on tainted red meat, and they're more than satisfied with whoever throws it to them.