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Barack and Sarah: Yes, We Kenya!
Related to country: Kenya

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Big Oil. Trial Lawyers. The NRA. Lobbyists. I'm not really concerned about any of them. What I do find striking is the unprecedented influence of Kenya in this year's presidential election.

Readers of this blog know that I have long been fascinated by the East African nation and former British colony.

It was Kenya, of course, that the young Princess Elizabeth was visiting in 1952 when her father King George VI died in London. Elizabeth was staying at the famed Treetops Hotel (essentially a five-star treehouse) when she received the news that her beloved father had passed on, making her Queen. Indeed it was said she "went up a princess and came down a Queen."

I oftentimes imagine myself as a bellhop at the Treetops hotel, on duty at the time of Elizabeth's visit and tasked by the hotel's manager with delivering the news. (It's not the kind of information you convey with a call from the Front Desk.) Would I climb the tree and pin a note to the branch outside her window? Or would I clear my throat from the bottom of the Queen's tree to get her attention, then discreetly deliver the news? Perhaps I would blow into a conch?

Of course the news was a double whammy: her father had died, yes, but she was now Queen. So maybe this called for the classic "I've-got-some-good-news-and-some-bad-news" approach:

"Bad news first, Princess. Your father is dead. I'm deeply deeply sorry." (Wait a beat.) "But on the bright side, you now get to be Queen!"

As a child I used to gaze at the pictures of a cosmopolitan Nairobi in the 1974 World Book encyclopedia. (My mother still has the set in the house where I grew up. I feel badly for kids that don't have the giant set of encyclopedia spanning the shelf in their family room.) Everyone was impossibly chic, long lithe figures sashaying down the left side of the city's main thoroughfare. Drenched in sunlight but never breaking a sweat.

I did wonder why Kenya had so many long distance runners but so few world-class sprinters. (Conversely I've always understood why Jamaica, Kenya's track-and-field opposite, has so many great sprinters: Jamaica is simply too small and densely populated for long distance running. One would become nauseated constantly running in tiny circles.)

Suffice it to say, Kenya existed primarily in my dream-life. But now Kenya has become a reality. A campaign '08 reality.

First there's the conspicuous absence of Barack Obama's father, the globe-trotting grad school student Barack Obama, Sr. That very absence, the candidate has said, shaped and strengthened him.

(How can I put this delicately? That the candidate's Kenyan father is "unavailable" for comment might not be such a bad thing for the Obama campaign. It's not just the questions over the father's religious beliefs – questions which have unfairly cast a shadow over the son. For Barack Sr., "study abroad" apparently meant "study a broad" – or was it "studly abroad"? -- traveling from continent to continent on scholarship and fathering his own Model UN along the way. Grad school is a dreary slog for most people. Not for Barack, Sr.)

His father's restlessness aside, Kenya has loomed large in Barack Jr.'s political identity. The candidate describes himself as a "citizen of the world." No doubt Barack's late mother, the intrepid Ann Dunham, was the main influence. But his Kenyan relatives, including his irrepressible Granny Sarah, are key.

And now comes word – and YouTube evidence – of Sarah Palin's consultation with wacky witchdoctor and Kenyan Thomas Muthee, only months before she filed to run for governor of Alaska:

The most controversial line of the video: Muthee's prayer to "make her way my God. Bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of Jesus. ... Use her to turn this nation the other way around."

Naturally the soliciting of campaign contributions in Jesus' name raises all sorts of thorny issues:

Did Palin list Jesus as a donor? Under Federal election law, this is mandated.
If so, did Jesus observe the $2300 hard money limit established by McCain-Feingold? Or did He contribute through a PAC, in which case the limit would be $5000? A violation of either limit would be ironic, considering the law's co-sponsor!

(Of course Jesus could create a 527 and give unlimited money for the production of issue ads. Those ads may not endorse a specific candidate, though they may criticize an opponent. Hence the legality of the swift boat ads in 2004.)

So what do you think of Kenya's role in the 2008 election? Is it troubling? Or cool and refreshing?!

September 29, 2008 | 4:43 AM Comments  2 comments

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clarita clarita zarate
September 29, 2008 | 5:14 AM
I read your article
Good article. I feel that Kenya has a strong message. I have a series of pictures waiting approval for my new tig Obama art exhibit. You might want to check every now and then to see if they are there. I think you will like the art.
Seanamo Sean Amos
September 29, 2008 | 5:48 AM

Clarita thanks for the thoughtful comments...I will keep on checking for the art-work.
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