Mavericks For Obama

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a "maverick" is an "unbranded range animal," so named because a certain Samuel A. Maverick was a nineteenth century American pioneer "who did not brand his calves." (Apparently, this garnered him considerable attention, at least in the eyes of American frontier history.) The second definition provided by the dictionary shows how the word's modern meaning has altered and simplified from the first definition: "nonconformist."

Okay, so there we have it--"maverick" now means "nonconformist." I had to look it up because it's been used as political leverage so incessantly often by the McCain/Palin campaign that its meaning has become so diffuse as to be rendered meaningless. (The only interesting thing about the word at present is how Governor Palin pronounces it. When she uses the term in her speeches--which happens so often that if I didn't know better I would tend to think she is trying to make the term into a stodgy parody of itself--she seems to be saying "MAAAHV-rack." I'm not making fun of her pronounciation, but rather fascinated by it.)

About a decade ago, a local Twin Cities school district tried to raise tax funds for a new high school building (the original one was overcrowded and creaking because of it), and they promoted the effort with the term "Levy For Learning." It's a cute slogan but it failed the first time voters went to the polls because its spokespeople made the odd decision to use it in what seemed to be over fifty percent of their alarmingly generic sentences when the issue was debated throughout the district. For instance, a pro-funds spokesperson would typically say, "This is a levy for learning. I want folks to understand that. When we talk about raising tax dollars, we're talking about creating a levy for learning, which is a levy that promotes learning...." Hence, the term lost any semblance of actual specific meaning in a manner directly related to its acquiring rapidly parody status.

That's what seems to have long since happened to the term "maverick" as applied to Senator John McCain. It simply lacks any concrete meaning anymore. In fact, it's so worn out by now that nearly every single context in which it has been used of late--whether or not it is used in a serious manner--strikes me as farcical in nature. (You know the word "maverick" has been oversaturated when one finds oneself reacting the same way to the term when Tiny Fey uses it to skewer Governor Palin and, by extention, Senator McCain on "Saturday Night Live" as when Governor Palin uses it on the campaign trail.)

And it's not difficult to see how we got here. After all, when Senator McCain occasionally argues against his party's platform(s) he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." Conversely, when he wishes to double-down on the Bush tax strategies (which have been supported broadly by his party's more conservative politicians) he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." When he tries to attach such simplistic and misleading words as "surrender" to those who disagree with his future Iraq policies he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." When he chose a female running mate (for whom I feel sorry in the sense that it is her role at present to work the word "maverick" into at least half of the sentences she uses to describe Senator McCain) he was described by his campaign as a "maverick." From when he sounds like a staunch foreign policy conservative, using words like "naieve" to describe Senator Obama, to when he says that "change is coming" to the (presently conservative) office of the presidency, he is described by his campaign as a "maverick."

At present, it doesn't look as though the McCain campaign's use of the term "maverick" will evaporate (or even ease up a bit) until after November 4. That being the case, I have decided to take the following mindset regarding this term: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em...or, rather, if you can't beat 'em, use their own term against 'em. To that end, I have decided that I will create my own "Mavericks For Obama" sign and display it in my window in the two or so weeks prior to the election. I'm serious about this.

After all, Senator Obama was a nonconformist in the sense that he applied his Ivy League education towards helping folks in struggling Chicago neighborhoods in a number of proactive manners, whereas many people in his position would have tried to use such an educational background to acquire far more lucrative careers. He was also a nonconformist in that he argued against the ill-conceived but (at the time) somewhat popular invasion of Iraq, suggesting that the real central front in the war against terror was and remains the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region; in retrospect, he has been proven largely correct about these issues. Furthermore, Senator Obama is a nonconformist, at least in comparison to the viewpoints espoused by President Bush and Senator McCain, in that he is willing to speak to our adversaries and listen to what they have to say in order to work out certain points of contention. (Let's remember that he does not suggest that we will always or even often agree with our adversaries, and that a lot of these discussions will focus on "tough talk" and not feel-good happy thoughts.) And he has run his campaign in a nonconformist manner in the sense that he has refrained from criticizing Senator McCain's apparently knee-jerk choice of Governor Palin to be his running mate (and Senator Obama's own running mate has largely followed his lead on this issue), preferring to focus on policy issues rather than getting into a nasty debate about her qualifications. My goodness, this might even suggest that Senator Obama trusts the American people to decide whether or not Governor Palin is qualified for the vice presidency, which, as far as presidential election strategies are concerned, is a mighty maverick move indeed.

There you have it. I am and will remain annoyed with the overuse of the term "maverick" from now until election day, but I realize that it isn't going away anytime soon. So I have decided to use it to support my candidate of choice. If this election hinges on the votes of those who consider themselves mavericks (or hockey moms, or any other diverse group of voters), I for one think that the Obama/Biden ticket will win. We'll see.