Monday, July 21, 2008 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 15 CHRIS KOSLOWSKI OUT TOASURE E-MAIL KOSLOWSKI AT CSKOSLOW@UMICH.EDU Trail-weary So what do you think of that - . Medicare il? tgms foot me once.,shame ° on.-shame on you.YE E E E OW whng o m e from.., You cant get fooed gan LO* Attac fte'hag. ns t's not even November yet, and I'm already tired of hearing about John McCain and Barack Obama. Every little thing these guys and their friends, fam- ily or acquain- tances do (or don't do, like wear American flag lapel pins) is headlined on GARY GRACA Come September, when the political party con- ventions commence, presumptive Republican nominee John. McCain will take to the podium in St. Paul with an audience of three-piece RYAN suits, oil execs KARTJE and any other good ol' boy with a.VIP pass. About one thousand miles away in Denver, presumptive Demo- cratic nominee Barack Obama will be making a similar accep- tance speech, except his will lack the gas-guzzling SUVs,. National Rifle Association _ officials and padded seats. Instead, he'll speak to 60,000 screaming fans decked in Obama apparel from head to toe - red, white and blue mem- bers of the "change" fan club. When Obama came to Flint's Kettering University last month, I sought out Obama supporters after his rally. I say "sought," but in truth, I was mobbed by sup- porters, each echoing the same message of "change" Obama had used throughout his speech. At times, dedication to this mes- sage was more devout than it was logical. One enamored woman assured me that her 17-year-old son will vote for change in 2012 as well. But assuming Obama wins, voting for change in 2012 means voting for someone else. As expected, the post-McCain rally scene wasn't quite as enthu- siastic. Supporters there flocked in my direction, too - but only because I was standing in the des- ignated smoking area. Their mellower attitude toward the media was a welcome change from the same old sentiment I heard from excited Obama-ites. "Barack Obama is not a politi- cian," each of his followers par- roted. "That's why we love him." And they're backing up that love with some serious cash, donat- ing more than $52 million in June alone. Here's my question: where is the red, white and blue Kool- Aid these Obama fanatics have all been drinking? Barack Obama is a politician. In fact, he's a great politician just for convincing people that he isn't one. Take a look at his recent vot- ing record. Similar to every presi- dential candidate for years and years, Obama has drifted toward the middle, flip-flopping on the Washington D.C. handgun issue, supporting Bush's right to invade Americans' privacy, and forgo- ing public funding after coming out in favor of it. So why, then, is Obama so untouchable? Because he's done exactly what he set out to do: unify the passionate, Washington-hating Americans.Gung-ho, anti-politics Americans aren't used to hear- ing the words "president" and "unity" in the same sentence like that. He's unifying Americans so well that it's frightening. His supporters have become a political cult of "change-lings", a new breed of political machine complete with "Yes We Can" but- tons and graffiti-laden Obama T-shirts. Those stationed in the Obama camp have put on blind- ers, preventing themselves from seeing anything wrong with their gracious leader. For the Obama die-hards, it's not really about the issues any- more. It's about the man. It's about the future. It's about - you guessed it - change. He's become the new American rock- star, enjoying pop-star-like status - except this rock star has a message, and he's riding it to the White House. That's what scares me about America's idolatry of Obama. As the past presidency demon- strates, blind allegiance is the poison of democracy (see war in Iraq). A strong leader is impor- tant, but the last time I checked, actual change requires a majority vote in Congress. Don't get me wrong; it's not the man himself who concerns me. It's his minions. Obama's message is one that could save a suffering America as we know it. Howev- er, his "change-lings" and other Americans alike should under- stand that a great smile, a great speech and a great slogan don't make a great president. It's Obama's ability to get Americans off their couches for their country, not his ability to produce a soundbite that will make him a great president. Blind allegiance is the poison of democracy. So if you're in the crowd at Invesco Field during the Demo- cratic National Convention in August and you're offered a free glass of red, white and blue Kool- Aid, politely deny it and continue to enjoy the music. I hear the Dave Matthews Band might be playing. Ryan Kartje can be reached at rkartje@umich.edu. every newspaper in the country, blown out of proportion on every cable news channel and analyzed by every "expert" who has slith- ered out of the woodwork and onto the Internet. I now know more about these two idiots than I know about my own mother. Case in point, I don't even know what arugula is, but I know that Barry (a nickname Obama dropped after high school) likes to eat it. And he especially likes the kind sold at Whole Foods. I need an election vacation. Butyou can't evenleave the coun- try to avoid hearing about every McCain-Obama back-and-forth about who would rid the world of terrorists quicker, so that's prob- ably not possible. It could happen if McCain and Obama both go on a vacation of their own - to Antarc- tica. (It's necessary to go there if you want to formulate good envi- ronmental policy.) I'm not hopeful that will happen, though. So instead of whining (which McCain surrogate and former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm would definitely not appreciate), there is a simple solution-- one that these candidates could actually accom- plish, unlike all of their promises on gas prices, Iraq, health care and taxes. Both McCain and Obama could finally get their respective parties' national committees to reform the current nominating system that needlessly kicks off in January. They could do it before they even get elected, too - at the con- ventions next month. People have already proposed tons of different fixes for the pri- mary system in the last few years. There's the rotating regional pri- mary system, which breaks the country into regions that each vote on the same day and take turns going first. And there's the Ameri- can Plan, which starts with small states and ends with big states in only 10 days of voting. Basically, all you have to do is break up our 50 states in some logical way and then set a sched- ule for when each group gets to vote. Pretty simple. The common denominator is that the Demo- cratic and Republican National Committees get to choose when this nonsense begins each year. Imagine what a perfect world we could live in if only the first pri- mary started in April and the last one ended in June. But since perfecting the world wouldn't be a strong enough argument to make either McCain or Obama take their parties to task on this issue, there are polit- ically expedient reasons for them to jump on the reform-the-pri- mary-system bandwagon before next month, too. Candidates are key to ending long races. For McCain, shaving down the campaign season would limit campaign spending in a way that the McCain-Feingold Act could have only dreamed of doing. When presidential campaigns start after midterm elections two years before the general election ever comes around, it's no won- der that this year's presidential election will cost an estimated $1 billion. And it's no wonder that candidates do every shady thing possible to get that kind of money. For Obama, this would be the perfect chance for him to actual- ly reform something in American politics (because no one believes that ditching the public cam- paign finance system was any- thing more than smart strategic maneuvering). What better a way to shut up the naysayers. The truth is I don't want an election that only lasts a few months - that wouldn't give peo- ple enough time to get to know the candidates or at least have candidates' messages drilled into their heads. But I don't want an election that goes on for years either. And I don't care if John McCain wears boxers or briefs. Gary Graca is the summer managing editor. He can be reached at gmgraca@umich.edu.