There is one major difference between the arts policies of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain -- Obama has one, McCain does not.
This is not surprising. Sen. Obama talks about the importance of arts education during his major speeches. He even has an arts policy committee of people in the arts both well-known and obscure. They've been circulating a five-page plan on the subject.
Before I proceed, I do have to say that the arts is not solely the domain of Democratic Party candidates. Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi serves on the Senate Arts Caucus and has served on the board of arts organizations in Gillette, his hometown. He has worked on this issue with Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had been out of the loop lately with his cancer treatments. If a CONSERVATIVE businessman from Wyoming coal country can work on arts legislation with a diehard LIBERAL city boy from Massachusetts, maybe there is some hope for Arizona Repub John McCain to get on the arts bandwagon.
You can read Obama's plan at http://www.artsactionfund.org/pdf/artsvote/ObamaStatement3b.pdf. It also features a letter from one of the members of the advisory committee, novelist Michael Chabon, author of the "Yiddish Policemen's Union," which I recently devoured.
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