We're a Lot More Together Than TV Thinks

There is a lot of talk about the so-called Bradley Effect, wherein white people can't make themselves vote for a black man. This talk is making Plotnik sick to his stomach. Plotnik's mailbag has been filled with notes from friends and family who feel the same way he does. Watching the wonderful Donna Brazile video that Grandma Joy sent today is the icing on the cake. ( Here it is.)

Plotnik wonders why people talk endlessly about mindless divisiveness, but we don't hear about common sense, about the way we all live in the real world?

Sure, there are plenty of people who live only amongst others who look and talk and believe exactly as they do, but most of us live in the 21st Century. This is America. We're the ultimate mixed up mongrel nation.

That doesn't mean everybody has to get along. But most of us do. Right? Why? Because it's easier that way, for God's sake. It's more fun. It's better.

Now, when you stick your nose into someone else's culture, you see stuff you don't like too. In every culture, there is closed-minded hateful behavior. Nobody has a monopoly on fear. In every family there is an Uncle Vern.

Uncle Vern seems to be the object of both Obama and McCain. They have convinced themselves that their faithful will vote for them anyway, so they've set their task to reach the last noncommitted group: idiots. And, more specifically, white, blue collar men. Uncle Vern.

But guess what? White, blue collar men are not idiots. 99% made up their minds a long time ago. And they had good reasons. So here's the question:

When will we hear one of these two candidates talk about the power of getting together with others? How about burying the discussion of how white people are secretly planning to vote for McCain because they 'just can't pull the handle for a black man' and instead talking, like Donna Brazile, about how we have all come a long way, as a nation, yes, but more importantly as individual people?

There are white people who will vote against Obama because of color and black people who will vote for him because of color. If color is the reason you vote for President, this election is really a simple one for you.

But for those of us who are old enough to remember the ways things used to be, and who have known people a generation or two before us who were the ones who blazed the trails, we refuse to go back to the old ways. The Good Old Days were not all that good.

The Great Plotnik grew up with attitudes about people that made sense to his grandparents but did not match the world he lived in. Those beliefs are repugnant to him. Plotnik's strong feeling is that there are more people out there like him than there are those who want to go back to their grandparents' day, with black people in menial boxes, Jews being called Christ Killers and women having no value except to breed.

Our job is to find the best in every culture and move in with it. Avoid the crud, expect resistance, but embrace the beauty. Perhaps our leaders will get the negative garbage out of their mouths and start the dialog that will help move the nation to the place where most of us already live.

So News Flash: Plottie is an elitist. He has a birthday coming up. He doesn't have time for idiots.