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Political Rally Groupthink

I went to my first rally of this political season last night, put on the Asian Americans and Pacific Islandars for Obama group in San Francisco. Kelly Hu (actress from X2, etc) headlined the event delivering an uninspiring speech on why she supports Obama. Actually, a bunch of the speakers before her (mostly from the SF School Board) gave much more impassioned deliveries on the virtues and merits of voting for Obama.

While I’m an ardent Obama supporter, rallys always seem to pray on groupthink. Since the first time I think in 2000 (or was it 1996?) when I started attending political events, it’s always struck me as interesting how people who have never met a candidate can stand up in front of an audience and profess the candidates undying love and devotion to causes we care about.

Last night as speaker after speaker got up to talk, it continued as it always did, to seem a bit phony and groupthink-esque. I can only believe so much that having never met a candidate, that somebody can legitimately stand up in front of an audience and say “This candidate is going to make America better, going to change your life and blah blah”. I’d feel they would be a lot more honest if they said or started with “I believe that…” instead of abusing the podium.