Batman and Rush: Why McCain will win

In this entertaining essay from the American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord discusses how Americans really choose the POTUS: gut instinct (or the reptilian brain):

This election has already been decided. It's over. The winner is John McCain.

Citing the popularity of Batman: The Dark Knight and Rush Limbaugh, Lord says the American public has a track record of selecting the "cowboy," the risk-taker, the man of action. Not the "thinker."

Why is Batman so popular? Why is Rush so popular? And what in the world does the popularity of either have to do with asserting as fact that Senator McCain has already won the presidential election over Senator Obama?

The answer is: you. "You" defined as a cultural American.

Batman is the cinematic (and comic book) personification of the way Americans like to see themselves.

Rush Limbaugh is the Batman of the airwaves.

While other cultures put a premium on thinking (the French) or order (the Germans), Americans want our presidents to respond just as we do in our culture -- with their gut.

A roll call of winners perceived by the voters of their day (in direct comparison to their opponents) as action oriented, candidates who fearlessly went with their gut, include Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, Wilson, Truman, Ike, JFK, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush. The sharper the image of a candidate as a serious thinker, a man who hesitates or who is perceived more as a talker than a doer, the more certain his defeat -- as with a John Quincy Adams, a Thomas E. Dewey, an Adlai Stevenson, a McGovern, Dole, Dukakis, Gore, or Kerry.

And, my bet is, Obama.

Indeed. Read the entire article here.(h/t The Muslim Question)