Mail & Guardian – Nov 13 2008

There’s an old Inuit saying: “You can put $150 000 worth of designer outfits on a caribou, but it’s still a caribou.” Today this saying can be heard murmured everywhere in Alaska; from Anchorage to that little island where you can see Russia from.

John McCain must be rueing the moment he decided a McCain/Palin partnership would be his golden ticket to the Oval Office. However, the term “fit for the job” never gained such a literal connotation as it did for the 2008 presidential election. And, with McCain, a man in a dubious state of health competing against Barack Obama, a man 25 years his junior who shoots hoops to keep fit, the issue of health and fitness was destined to play a role during this campaign. McCain must have considered it vital to choose an effervescent and vivacious running mate to counter concerns surrounding his health and to counterpunch the image of vitality that Obama and the Democrats created. Sarah Palin was the one deemed to best fit this criterion.

The Valentino-wearing governor with a penchant for shooting moose, Palin embodied such a versatility of image that she could dress to kill at a Republican convention with as much aplomb as she could dress to literally kill — on a deer hunt in Alaska. A self-proclaimed hockey mom she was the kind of outdoorsy gal who would quench any reservations about the Republican ticket being jaded. Or so it looked on paper.

Obama meanwhile had long carved out an image as a sports enthusiast — he had even been photographed performing pull-ups before going on stage at one rally in Montana. While there were accounts of journalists following Obama to his gym only to see him talking on his cellphone, most of his gym visits were considered genuine by the media on the whole. He’s a full-body workout kind of guy who trains with one of his personal aides — a 1,93m former university football and basketball player who assists him with his regimented workout programme. One session at a Washington DC sports club saw him combining tricep extensions, calf raises and shoulder raises.

The latter exercise must have been a particular kick in the teeth to McCain who is unable to raise his arms above his head due to injuries sustained in the Vietnam War. But the Arizona senator was never going to take the fitness issue lying down. When asked by a reporter what his favourite hobbies were, a mercurial McCain replied: “I fish, I do light exercises and I barbecue. I recently hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim!” he proudly added, neglecting to mention how long that particular endeavour took.

So although McCain didn’t come within a donkey’s roar of Obama on the fitness front, how did they shape up dietwise? Well, Obama favoured protein bars, almonds and spinach on the campaign trail, according to his officials, and McCain, not one to be seen chowing on goji berries, opted for doughnuts, pepperoni pizza and the fruits, or rather the meats, of his favourite labour — barbecues. Were the US voting system not based on the Electoral College System but on Weight-Watcher points it would have been game over long ago for McCain.

What must have rubbed the most salt in McCain’s war wounds was Obama’s appearance on this month’s US edition of Men’s Health magazine. In a publication more synonymous with featuring ripped celebrities and models as cover boys than quasi-skeletal presidential candidates, Obama seemed nonetheless as at ease striking a pose as Matthew McConoughey or Will Smith did. It was a controversial move for the usually apolitical magazine and Republicans have already come out in force to cancel their magazine subscriptions in protest. For the Obama camp, however, it can be viewed as a coup — achieving nationwide exposure in the world’s best-selling men’s magazine. In the interview Obama chewed the fat on exercise routines as if the gym was his second home. “Usually I get in about 45 minutes, six days a week. I’ll lift one day and do cardio the next,” he chimed.

At this point it was action stations for the Republican Party. The Democrats had slapped McCain in the face with the fitness card until he begged for mercy and now something had to be done to halt the growing perception among the electorate that Obama was the irrepressible Roadrunner to McCain’s pubic image as the clapped-out wily Coyote. But just when you felt the Republican Party couldn’t improve on action hero Chuck Norris attending their previous rallies, they go and bring Mr Universe supremo and governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the stage.

Speaking in an accent as strongly Germanic as the day he left the meadows of the Austrian alps 30 years ago, the Governator challenged Obama to train with him. “He needs to do something about those skinny legs!” he announced to an uproarious audience last weekend at a rally in Ohio — one of the key battleground states. “I’m going to make him do some squats. And then we’re going to make him do some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms.” With Palin’s pedigree as a beauty queen already established, the lines seemed to be increasingly blurred for the bemused crowd about whether they were going to be voting the next week in a presidential election or in a Mr & Mrs Fitness pageant, but none the less, they cheered along irrepressibly.

Alas, the Republican Party’s final attempt to add some brawny kudos to the GOP ticket seemed rather too little, too late with Arnie’s words, seeming to hold about as much weight with undecided voters as that McCain shoulder press. So today, while Palin paddles her own kayak back to political obscurity in Alaska pondering if she’ll ever get to go seal hunting with Nicholas Sarkozy, McCain must be waking up to the hundreds of “what ifs?” in his mind: like could Mitt Romney have been the right VP candidate to take him to the White House and, what could only have been had he replaced his kettle braai with the abs diet.