Normal People Know About Rusted Floorboards

Like many Americans I listened to Barack and Michelle Obama being interviewed on 60 Minutes Sunday night. Of all the things that struck me, the one which most warmed my heart was their description of his old beater of a car with rusted out floorboards and a clear view of the road passing below. I had a car like that myself, and when he claimed they were the most normal people ever to occupy the White House, it sounded like the truth to me.

The Democrats’ last two presidential nominees rose from more aristocratic backgrounds and were defeated by a fellow aristocrat in George W. I don’t want to craft a complete study from two cases, but it seems when the masses feel the need for someone to truly represent their interests, they turn to someone who might understand them. Bill Clinton, the last Dem to reach the White House, was raised in circumstances even more “normal” than Barack’s.

Of course, one doesn’t have to come from working class folk to be an agent of change or to champion common interests in demanding times. Abe Lincoln was a self-taught, poor frontier boy, but FDR was a child of privilege. Others have come from backgrounds somewhere in between.

The record is similar for God’s prophets. Jeremiah was a born aristocrat, Isaiah not, and Moses the child of slaves who was raised in Egypt’s royal family. The Buddha was a child of great wealth, which he gave up, while Jesus never owned anything to give up -- other than his life. It just goes to show, it’s not who you are but what you do. It’s not where you start that counts, but where you finish.

Still, it was comforting to know that Barack owned that car with the rusted out floorboards. I can picture him and Michelle driving on the streets of Chicago, cold air blowing up through the floor, both of them laughing, just happy to be alive in this great country with an opportunity to make it even better.

The story of Barack’s childhood is pretty well known but I see Michelle’s as more typical of the nation as a whole. Her story is America’s story. Her father held one of those good-paying blue collar jobs -- yes, a union job -- that allowed him to imagine a better life for his children. Because his job provided a decent wage and benefits, he and his family were not overwhelmed by the fearful burdens of poverty and were able to look upward with hope for the next generation. Success was no given and required ambition and hard work. Michelle wasn’t handed a legacy that would make her comfortable no matter what she did. She had to achieve for herself or it all would have slipped away, but at least she had a chance.

We Americans, maybe all humans, love heroic myth making. Ultra-conservatives like former senator Phil Gramm are struggling right now with the failure of their mythology. Most of them may never admit they were wrong. But most Americans have learned our lesson again: unbridled capitalism doesn’t automatically lift all boats. The altars at which we worshipped the cult of the individual have proven once again to be altars to a false God.

What surprises me is the easy way Christians can be persuaded to worship at those altars. Most of us own a Bible, some of us two or three. If we’d spend less time searching for passages on homosexuality -- or sex in general -- and more time digesting the full message we’d see that God has a bias for the poor and underprivileged. In fact, God is the original architect of upward mobility and must be smiling to know that this winter two of his humble children won’t be feeling the chill Chicago air blowing up through rusty floorboards.