Is PEOTUS Obama THAT Smart?

What I see as one of the brilliant and remarkable accomplishments of Republicans, picking up momentum with Ronald Reagan and extending at least through the election of George W. Bush and a Republican dominated legislature in 2004 and the continued reddening of a swath of the deep south in the 2008 election, is persuading an enormous sector of the electorate to, demonstrably, vote against their own interests.

Republicans did this in many ways including standard outright misrepresentation of their policies (lying), but I would suggest also primarily by methodically establishing a misleading (a charitable assessment) kneejerk association between a series of social icons and symbols and their party and candidates. In essence, many Republican candidates were campaigning with an invisible twin (e.g., the white baby Jesus driving a 4WD pickup truck loaded with stacks of tax-free cash, swaddled in the American flag, cradling a handgun in His lap, and reciting the pledge of allegiance – you get the idea). In the voting booth, it was the twin for whom the lever was pulled (now that’s an anachronistic metaphor, eh?).

How does one change this situation in which much of the electorate has become comfortable with and habituated to voting against their own interests, in which this type of voting has become structural? The evidence of the past 30 years unfortunately and perversely strongly suggests that it cannot be addressed effectively by simply developing, articulating, and running on a platform that is in the interest of the majority of the electorate. I think it is an enormous understatement to say that PEOTUS Obama is very smart, but in the face of the unprecedented array of converging long-term crises and disasters that the Bush administration is bequeathing him, a big part of his job has to be to convince a majority of the electorate to vote in their own interests over the short term while these crises and disasters play out. As obvious as this sounds, those structural iconic and symbolic associations by much of the electorate will make it extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

Enter the current brouhaha over PEOTUS Obama’s selection of Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. Now as a lifelong devout agnostic I admit I have a visceral negative reaction to Pastor Warren and his noxious brand of evangelism. And many others also have very good reason to find Pastor Warren an appalling choice for this role. I suspect that you’ll now see where I am going with this: what I wonder is whether that very smart PEOTUS Obama is cleverly and strategically working to coopt some of that iconic and symbolic association, to put it into the service of having the electorate vote in their own interests again. Is he THAT smart?