The Island of Doubt

It wasn't easy keeping my 18-month-old son out of trouble in the crowd that had gathered yesterday to hear Hillary Clinton speak. But it was worth it, if for no other reason than the opportunities to hear presidential candidates deliver their message unfiltered and unedited are rare out here in western North Carolina. Of course, I was disappointed with what I heard on Hendersonville's Main Street. But the little guy didn't do any damage to himself or anyone else, or anyone else's dog, and I did come away with something to think about.

I was disappointed because I'm one of those tree-hugging environmental moon bats who agrees with the editors of the journal Nature that the changing climate presents "the most daunting challenge humanity has ever sought to meet with a united front." I keep holding out hope (does that make me an Obama man?) that someone is going to slip a reference to the subject into their stump speeches. I'm not expecting any detailed and revolutionary plans, just a quick recognition of the threat. No such luck Friday. The closest Clinton came was a throwaway mention of "solar panels" as part of her nebulous strategy to get us off foreign oil by embracing clean alternatives.

In the hours following the speech, which was delivered before a pair of the largest flags I have every seen draped across the width of Main Street, I got more and more depressed. Not only did Clinton's speech avoid anything remotely resembling a respect for the challenges and contributions that science poses and offers society, but she seemed to go out of her way to appeal to an anti-intellectual strain that her advisers must have told her holds sway in the largely Republican county in which she found herself.

First there was the repetition of her support for a gas tax holiday, which, as Jake has ably pointed out at Pure Pendantry, is perhaps the stupidest idea yet mooted in this campaign. How she squares this with her not-quite-a-plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2050 is beyond me. Or anyone else, I would think.

Such an idea is, as an educated friend of mine who very much wants to support Clinton told me as we waited for Clinton to arrive, an insult to her intelligence. But then, there was Clinton, insulting the intelligence of her audience every chance she got. The only common theme to emerge from the 30-minute ramble was an attack on our enemies. China is the enemy for selling us lead-contaminated toys and poison pet food. The Saudis are the enemy for exploiting our addiction to oil. The rest of OPEC, too. And worst of all are those evil, parasitic "middlemen" who pop up in every corner of the economy, ready to take a cut and give back nothing.

Only ordinary Americans, and, because this Clinton campaign stop was in a rural corner of the state, only small-town Americans, can be trusted to do what's right. It's sad, really. Not only is everyone else the enemy, but intelligence itself is suspect. What we need, she seemed to be saying between the lines, is someone at the top who's just a simple yokel. More of the last eight years, in other words.

To be fair, this is what all politicians are expected to do these days, what with the reported failure of intellectual elitism to propel the last Democratic nominee to the White House. Appeal to our baser fears, instead. One might argue that Obama's decision to make his campaign one of hope is a sign that he really does do things differently. And, if you will forgive the expression, I hope so. His speech last night at the Jefferson-Jackson Democratic dinner last night in Raleigh was at least somewhat inspiring, for example. But his recent failure to reject the vaccine-autism connection shows even he is not above taking advantage of fear. And earlier in the day he felt the need to reject the label of "elitist pointy headed intellectual."

For me, an embrace of the scientific method, and a recognition of the role intelligence and science plays and can play in changing the disastrous course on which we are headed, would be the clearest sign that a candidate has rejected the politics of fear.