Published: August 22, 2008 11:13 am            

KISSEL: Was Obama ‘tiki cursed’ in Hawaii?

As any student of the epic Brady Bunch Hawaii Episodes knows, bad things can happen in gorgeous settings even to beautiful people.

Last week, while Russia furrowed many a brow with its advance into Georgia and subsequent fist shaking — with rising oil prices on the worry — regarding the U.S.-Poland missile defense deal, the Obama Bunch found itself in an odd position wearing grass skirts when this major foreign policy issue erupted.

Some would have said, take the 4 a.m. call and leave the family in Hawaii. Show us the green machine is ready to lead America through these next — and most likely very challenging — four years; forget the bodysurfing.

But then Obama would have been criticized for acting the president before he’s elected.

Which lately, seems to be a coin flip, adding the inevitable ... if you believe the polls.

I do-ish, and in fact, I’d wager to say McCain has the moment’s momentum.

While much depends on the drama or non-excitement of the respective upcoming conventions, Obama needs to do something or face sinking in quicksand.

Some pundits are saying “Bite Back!” and “Get Angry!”

But at this point — barring an Impossible Dream VP announcement at the Democratic convention — I foresee little excitement there. (Frankly, Joe Biden and his male-pattern baldness was not the change I was looking for.)

Now, if the McCain forces were thinking deviously — and I think they do — they’d orchestrate passage of the 18-year-old drinking age Nov. 3.

There goes the youth vote!

Which, of course, has been horribly unreliable — and at times numerically scanty — during the past.

Will the youth wing of Obama Nation really deliver?

And is the Obama campaign really in trouble?

They’re not “panicking” — yet — was one how observer put it.

It’s amazing at all that McCain has a shot, let alone could be leading after the Republican convention.

(The longer independents stay that way, IMO, the better for McCain and a final-second lever pull in his direction.)

But don’t we want CHANGE?

I’ll argue most people prefer the status quo.

However, the “Echo Boom” generation and their older iPhone-toting brethren are riding the crest of a wave of change that’s as inevitable the pounding surf of Hawaii or anything else.

I hate to be falling for the McCain campaign’s “celebrity critique” of Barack, but what I think many of his followers are hungering for is some new national programming, a fresh talk-show host.

My somewhat jaded view, whether McCain or Obama, is it’s still the same network — a Washington Matrix if you will — and it will remain the same. But only one candidate’s donors will be first in line come inauguration time.

And that’s the way they become the Beltway Bunch.



Joseph Kissel covers Grand Island for the Record.

        

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