Photograph courtesy of Flickr user jmtimages

Funny how often you hear talk of the “Great American Novel”, as though the only national identity worth having is one that can be embodied in a book. In the latest much-publicised G.A.N. contender, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland (a terrific piece of work notwithstanding the hype), America is not so much a melting pot as a big recycling bank, defined by its ability to make a neat space for the unwanted, the dispossessed, the junk of Europe. This year, Americans face a choice between two rather less subtle Great American narratives.

Until recently, this election appeared to be above all else a chapter in the Barack Obama Story. More or less, it’s the plot of Monty Python’s Life of Brian (eight years down the line someone will be saying: “he’s not the Messiah — he’s a very naughty boy!”). But Obama, if he wins, will not just live the American Dream. He’ll do it while overcoming the greatest historical barrier in American culture.

And yet, suddenly, somehow, he has a rival. The Sarah Palin Story tells of a woman living a different dream: the dream of the frontier. A dream of independence (from Washington and Europe), evangelism and the right to bear arms (and bearskins). And, to cap it all, she’s vaulting an historical barrier of her own. The story is so extraordinary that McCain faces a “Palin comparison” problem — he pales in comparison. Literally, if the convention photos are anything to go by.

It’s not the best way to appoint a candidate to a job. Were this a rational election, Americans would be choosing between Clinton/Biden and McCain/Lieberman. But this is how the American people find out who they really are. This is how they learn what their Dream really is.

Filed under: barackobama, election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on September 8th, 2008