Better Than Fair

I was listening to a critique about some of the would-be presidential proclamations. There are many. This is a tough campaign. Aside from the usual buzz words – and a couple of new twists – one of the labels placed on the Democratic ticket is a desire to be "fair." John McCain defined such a promise as "spreading the wealth." That is one of the hottest of buttons linking his opponent to near socialist practices.

Perhaps it is the result of the type of education many of us have experienced. I can recall a comedy sketch where the coach of a girl's soccer team had to find ridiculous reasons to give every child on the team a trophy. As with all good comedy there is more than a kernel of truth. The system we have chosen, still the best system out there, is based on a representative republic. Without turning this into a civics class, that means that some will have a greater say than others. Historically many groups were marginalized by design. This country has never been fair. I will take it one step further; this country cannot be totally fair. No workable society can. It's been tried and it has never worked.

What is fair, and what we can claim as one of our best features is the opportunity to succeed. Nothing is more illustrative of this than this election season.

This Sunday Gen. Colin Powell went on Meet the Press and announced that he would vote for Barak Obama. Powell is still a Republican and his appearance was just as much an indictment of the McCain campaign – while correctly praising the Arizona Senator. He mentioned the tone of the campaign and the often misleading characterizations used to frame Obama as a Muslim, or even an associate terrorist. What struck me were two things; firstly the importance of this announcement on the campaign itself; secondly how far we have come in real opportunity.

A few blogs ago I wrote how more men on death row look like me. This Sunday I was struck by the notion that both General Powell and the presidential nominee also look like me. It's something that most of you might take for granted. But for women and minorities in America it is a nagging little reality that all American presidents have come from fundamentally one group. And thanks to the selection of Gov. Palin, this last inequity is about to crumble no matter who wins.

Spreading the wealth as represented by a guy named Joe will be at the center of the McCain campaign for the next two weeks. General Powell's comments will be repeated hundreds of times by the Obama campaign. We will get sick of it, if we aren't already. But one thing lost in the process might be this: the fact that Obama, Powell and Palin have come this is a prime example, not of spreading wealth, but of one thing all Americans should take pride in: spreading opportunity.

That is more than, better than fair.