So fine, smartass: If we’re not supposed to declare the election over already, what are campaign journalists to spend their time doing over the next week? Well there’s always the “Candidates’ favorite [pop-culture item here]” story! Men’s Vogue has taken a crack at it, this time about TV. If you follow both TV and politics the way I do, most of McCain and Obama’s preferences here are not new, although I hadn’t heard about Obama watching Mad Men on his campaign plane.
Writer Ned Martel also notes that both McCain and Obama have expressed a liking for The Wire:
The HBO series’ five seasons are hardly populist-focus-group fare — it demands as much of its devotees as it rewards — but this shared enthusiasm suggests that the two men see past the artifice of campaign bunting and bluster; it also proves that there’s at least one thing smart, serious, and complex about which they can agree.
No argument there, but isn’t there also a real political point to make? Namely: there are Republicans who love The Wire? No, obviously I know that there are, but there seems something—well, maverick-y—about a GOP candidate acknowledging it. The Wire was one of the most liberal/progressive shows on TV, and not just because of David Simon’s personal politics. (He described himself to me as a European-style “social Democrat.” Not that the show ever took a position on stem-cell research.)
Rather the series’ whole weltanschaung is traditionally liberal, at least in the sense that it focused mainly on social systems and how they affected and determined individual behavior, explicitly arguing that the gutting of public systems and programs led to cycles of violence and personal collapses that people can’t bootstrap themselves out of. You might even say it argues for the redistribution of wealth. On the other hand, the show also focused heavily on corruption, which might appeal to a reformer-styled candidate.
Or maybe McCain just thinks that Omar was a total badass. We can all agree on that, right?