McCain, Joe the Plumber TV Ad

Has anyone seen this new TV ad from the McCain campaign? It makes a simple point and makes it clearly. Several people in the ad say, "I'm Joe the Plumber," and every one of them look the same (they are all white Americans). Now this is not about racism to me at all. This is about a failure to understand the makeup of America today, which is crucial to understanding the issues that challenge ALL Americans. America is White, Black, Asian, Latino, African, and all of these categories break down 20 times or more... including Arab... America is also Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, etc.

A fundamental problem with "McPalin" is that they don't speak to all Americans. Palin makes this clear when she differentiates true Americans from other Americans. Even if they acknowledged this only superficially as a strategic trajectory, at least they would be demonstrating intelligence and awareness. Perhaps "Tito the Builder" is a perfunctory attempt to do this?

I'm reading "Dreams of My Father" this week, and I have a greater sense of Obama's perspective. As a transnational, biracial, socio economic status straddling, class climbing, spiritual journeyman, American who has lived in places where his national origin and ethnic ambiguity has always been a cause for deep personal reflection on issues that many Americans are afraid and often don't know how to talk about, he is in many ways the very epitome of America.