Tom Hanks endorses Obama
Tom Hanks, in this video shows how to do it, if you MUST and only if you absolutely MUST endorse a presidential candidate as a celebrity: with humility, self deprecating humor, candor, and sincerity not wild eyed passion.
The only misstep I didn’t care for was his line about the country considering people of his skin color only 3/5ths of a human. Phrasing it that way is to imply that ALL people of color had that worth legally atattched to them. I’ve heard others in the media distort the history on this (none intentionally I believe) and its important to correct that the United States never said that all black people were 3 fifths of a human being. That designation was applied only to slaves, and even in 1776, not all people in America with dark skin were slaves. Michael Medved, who is a big American History afficionado (as is Tom Hanks) made an interesting point about this the other day when he said the 3 fifths designation was actually more than anti-slavery activists at the time wanted because its only purpose was Congressional designation. So in other words, if you hated slavery then you wanted slaves to be counted as 0% of a person because they weren’t allowed to vote. Counting them as 3 fifths of a person only served to seat more congressmen.
Although it’s disappointing that Hanks’ endorsement comes down to it being all about race (isn’t Obama supposed to be the ultimate non-divider?), the delivery is pleasant and not at all obnoxious, which is something other politically active celebrities could take a cue from.
Exit question: was it the best idea to hand over the subliminal metaphor of Obama’s possible campaign result in that sinking ship picture over his shoulder?