Ellington

This presidential election has introduced America to a lot of new and interesting concepts. Never has a race captivated the minds of voters so much that it seeps into popular culture. It has unified us, but it has also polarized us by race. It's pitted warmongers against peace lovers. It has put big government against the common man. But lately I've seen the terms "Wall Street" and "Main Street" bandied about.

Street is. Those are the guys whose butts you and I are saving after they've greedily played real-life games of Monopoly. They're the AIGs and Lehmans of the world. It's pretty safe to say most of these guys are in a different income bracket from most of us. In fact, we're ensuring that although they have performed poorly, they remain in that bracket.

Recently, we've seen the revival of the term "Main Street." I'm assuming that moniker denotes the average everyday Joe Schmo, the guy that the candidates so desperately want to appeal to. They want to appeal to the section of the population that would get fired if they'd done the same thing some of these companies have done. But I had to ask myself. Does the term "Main Street" apply to all of us? What about the backstreets?

As common or as "regular" as you may think the folks on said "Main Street" are, there's a portion of the nation that doesn't reside there. Yet, I never hear them mentioned.

Sarah Palin says her family went a year without health care. But there's another street where the families have never had health care. These folks don't hold down good-paying jobs. They don't have mortgages. They don't have credit. Their street isn't paved with good intentions, churches or neighborhood stores. Instead, it's lined with liquor stores and dreams deferred. For the most part, people don't discuss presidential elections on this street. They don't think it would do them any good. Some of them don't know what a "bailout' is and don't care, either. No one ever comes onto their street to ask them how they feel.

The media act as if the backstreets don't exist. Hell, Fox News thinks all regular folks frequent coffee shops and diners! Does the 'hood even matter?

Methinks you'd find some pretty opinionated people residing in the places that most folks fear to visit. How about asking them what they think every now and again? That dose of reality might just be the sobering truth that our next president needs to hear.

And that's the truth ... shonuff.