To make a political TV commercial about Christmas, if you are running for president, that is.
As I was going about my chores here at the office last week, listening to the drone from my favorite taxpayer supported radio station, National Public Radio, I began to pay attention as a media pundit held forth about the various candidates and their holiday TV ad efforts.
Of course by now, everyone must surely know about Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s “floating cross” ad, where what looked to me like a window pane, but was evidently in reality a bookcase, occupied the background behind Huckabee as he delivered season’s greetings, looking a lot like a cross.
Well.
I can’t say that I was particularly impressed, offended, or otherwise affected at all by that ad, but I was surprised by all the hoopla it engendered in the media trade.
Was it intentional? Was it a secret (or not so secret) message to evangelicals? Surely it was no accident that what looked like a sacred religious symbol showed up in a TV ad right?
The commentary went on for days, and if I heard it right as I half listened to the NPR interview, the pundit’s conclusion was that all the candidates’ holiday messages probably count for naught in the grand scheme of things political.
What a relief. Seems like it actually is okay to wish folks a Merry Christmas at Christmas time, even if it won’t win you a whole bunch of votes.
Hey perhaps some of the candidates actually meant to relax the mood and wish a happy holiday season to the voters, rather than use the season in a cynical fashion to shore up their chances of winning the coveted presidential nomination.
One thing is for sure, as we get older, we learn that even the high and the mighty are human, and although they may labor under the burden of great ambition, or perhaps, could it be, a sense of duty to offer their services to the country, they are at bottom the same as you and me.
Just human beings with virtues and faults, just like you and me. With families, life stories with ups and downs, skeletons in each closet no doubt
No perfect ones out there, for sure.
So Merry Christmas to them all.
One will be president. We better wish them luck.
