A Viler Shade of Palin

This is a late night thought but it's kind of a thorn I want to pull out of my side before going to bed. I guess I addressed it a bit already but I've really been remembering since listening to Palin's speech the sheer ugliness that American politics can get into, and why such an enormous amount of Obama's appeal is his truly steadfast refusal to go there. Throwing an elbow here and there, sure, but Palin's speech, and the reaction it was garnering from the crowd, was of a different magnitude altogether. There was something just a little bit like a cage of pitbulls - lipsticked and not - about that Republican crowd on Thursday. While Obama's speech - and so many of the Dem speeches - were a genuine celebration of possibility, a truly American sense of possibility, Palin was there with a permanent sneer and the desire and the power to throw politics right back into the unholy stinking gutter of contempt, empty vacous character assassination, and policy-free politics of personality that is by far the Republican party's - and its base's - least appealing character trait.

But what got to me really was a real sense that on a deep sense she meant it. With Giuliani's absurd political theater - a long-time mayor of New York railing about urban elitism (as if) - it just comes across as the pure act of a snake oil salesman reveling in his ability to rally the idiocracy. It's annoying, maddening in its sheer audacity of ridiculousness, but ultimately you can tell it's an act. With Palin, I don't feel that. That sneering vindictive spitefulness feels real, hellish and deep.

While there are all manner of reasons (namely an apparently unending stream of unhappy surprises from her past) that Team McCain is protecting the queen bee by shuttling her back to Alaska after a short tour of deep red country, I suspect that part of this is a realization that temperamentally she may simply be more than they had bargained for, and are genuinely afraid what might come up in a direct confrontation with professional journalists.

Barack vs. Bubba

Since McCain's speech basically left me temporarily assuming Obama victory, I started thinking about something some annoyingly condescending conservative pundit had said about the only reason Obama was so wildly popular among liberals was that he was a "Numinous Negro". And I really, really thought about it. Is it true that the liberal frenzy is just a desire to redress old wrongs by electing a black man President?

In all honesty, there was a little yes but mostly no there's more to the story. Of course there's a great amount of excitement at what this means historically, and dismissive conservatives aside, historically transformative moments are self-explanatory. Of COURSE electing a black man President will be historic, even if, in a way, the noteworthy nature of this moment is simply to negate the idea that it should even be noteworthy.

The mostly "no" part though is this: Barack Obama is clearly a singularly brilliant and talented individual, and the thought that he was merely chosen because of his color is ridiculous on its face. This is proven almost by the nature of the primary itself, when two equally historic candidates were running neck and neck to the bitter end. One had to be chosen, and largely because Obama knows how to create a movement around him, and has the brain, presence, policy wonkery, hidden electoral wisdom, and vocal cords to do it, he succeeded. Even when I step back and realize I'm being taken in by the political theater, the fact is I AM being taken in by the political theater, and I'm thankful, truly thankful, that someone has been kind enough to provide such wonderful political theater in my lifetime! We want to believe, and I truly believe that America functions better as a country when we are provided someone (when they provide themselves) to believe in. There's a reason the American Dream is called the American Dream and not the American Reality. Conservatives miss the forest for the trees when they miss that salient point (which is surprising considering Reagan was a master manipulator of the American Dream beyond compare).

I went a step further and thought about Barack Obama versus Bill Clinton. If Bill would have been in THIS primary, would he have won? And that's a very tough question to answer. John Edwards really never had a chance this time around, and it wasn't just because he was the white guy. I've never been sold on Edwards. I never doubt his sincerity (well...) but there's always just something about him that felt off, and I was never in the least surprised when it came out he'd been having an affair. I think it was this sense about him - sort of a preening self-regard despite the populist rhetoric, that allowed the comments about his $400 haircuts to stick. And Hillary just suffered from a combination of too much baggage and a confused campaign message. I loved listening to her go off on policy, it was wonderful to behold, but ultimately it was clear that she did not have a proper grasp on the necessary theater for the moment. The movement maker was the student of Alinsky, Obama.

So, Bill versus Barack.... My money in that contest would be on Bill, even with the "historic nature" business riding behind such a contest. Mainly this comes down to Bill's ease with "just folks". He doesn't have to force it at all, it just flows out of him like honey. Barack, beyond his indisputable gifts, beyond a certain degree of casual cajolery he can allow himself, doesn't ultimately project ease with folks the way Bill can, or rather sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. Policy-wise I'd be curious to see how the battle would have gone, although I think it's clear it would have been simply another case of the hair-splitting that went on in this primary. So it would have to come down to personalities. And in that contest - it's tough, but just-folks-but-also-strangely-genius-Rhodes-Scholar-with-golden-tongue- and-hypnotizingly-strange-pointer-finger Bill Clinton I think wins. It's just Bill - as singular and exotic a creature as Barack Obama - and something about him just makes you want to let him get away with everything. Something, no matter how philosophically open-minded he might be, is just that much a little stiff and judgmental about Obama, or at least feels that way.

So I'm curious how Barack will season the actual business of governing. I have little doubt he'll be an effective, enormously conscientious, policy wonk's policy wonk of a President. My main curiosity is how he will work on the national sensibility in the long term. I kind of suspect he'll end up being a sort of distant Woodrow Wilson type - having mastered what political skills he needed to get to where he needed to be and then moving beyond them - but who knows, maybe he'll favor a weekly town hall approach a la FDR... But I somehow doubt that he will be as comfortable in the role as Bill ever was (for better and definitely for worse).

Zzzzz

McCain's final speech was pretty much a dud, esp. contrasted with last night's side of moose served raw. What he really needed to do tonight was talk specifics, but by the time he meandered his way soporifically to the specifics it was hard to pay attention to them, which might have been the intent since there really wasn't much specific about the specifics.

What I largely got from the majority of the economic stuff was - in code of course - we really like it when people do stuff for themselves so when I become president I'll talk a lot of happy talk to the economically oppressed about bein' a rill Amerkin and pullin' yerself up by the bootstraps. In other words nada there for the folks who are really looking for some kind of plan. The usual straightfaced lie about Obama's tax plan, of course. The educational voucher stuff - really? I guess it gets the base fired up (not like serving up Obama Tartare, but it's a little bit of a red meat to this clearly Palin-hungry crowd). And then "oh my healthcare plan"... which is really not much of a healthcare plan, except maybe in terms planning to let employers off the hook of actually having to provide healthcare... but it's not "national health care"! (And the Sarahcudans go wild... yay! down with the pinko commies who think it's cool for everyone to be covered!)

Finally he gets a little actually excited about the energy plan, pushing once again the falsehood that Obama's against drilling and nuclear, when in reality there isn't much daylight between the two plans... the only difference I really sense is that Obama seems to be obsessively focused on it and therefore capable of actually achieving something with it, while McCain just seems mildly more interested in it than he is about the other policy stuff, which is to say "at all" as opposed to "not at all". He attempts to seem "enthusiastic" about it, but one can feel the quotes.

By that point frankly I'd drifted away and missed what was apparently the best part of his speech, the part about his biography as a POW, which clearly seems to be the only tangible remaining reason (since his maverick credentials are out the window) to vote him into office. I caught the very end of it, which was touching, but he also struck me as almost pleading... I know I'm just reading this into it - but his tone was one almost of, please, this is my last shot... An approach that totally works on me... fortunately I've got Sarah Palin to keep me strong.

Overall, meh. Even the offensive stuff was so unconvincingly delivered, or hopelessly oblique, that I didn't even care. I think he may very well have extinguished the Palin frenzy. Some commenter at TPM suggested that it won't be long before Palin pushes McCain off the ticket. And if independents were looking for inspiring or encouraging policy specifics, unless they were leaning so far toward McCain so as to topple in the breeze of anti-national health care fever or just have this thing for stale Republican boilerplate, I really doubt they would have been sold.

So maybe, whew..... But give it a week.

OK, maybe I over-reacted

But that particular line of conservative attack-doggity gets to me, because frankly I grew up believing in it.  So I immediately assume that it has a mass appeal that it probably, in the end, doesn't.  And the reactions from independents in the focus groups I've read seem to indicate the fact that she over-reached with the negative stuff in a big way.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Dread

The more I think about her, the more Sarah Palin fills me with the worst feeling of dread. McCain on his own I could handle as President. I'd be crushed, especially after this campaign when I lost whatever real respect I used to have for him, but y'know I'd be able to handle it ultimately. Sarah Palin erases that comfort level completely. Forget the fact that she really has no idea about governance on a national scale, she scares me on a biblical level. She is my worst nightmare of a conservative, self-righteous, self-confident, deeply spiteful but with a perfect smile, absolutely convinced about her personal correctness while blissfully capable of floating over personal cotradiction, and completely willing to spout whatever lie flashes by her eyes on the teleprompter without compunction - because it's falsehood for a higher cause. It's Christianity on steroids and acid, and it freaks the hell out of me.

I never bought that Bush was actually Christian, it always felt like positioning, same as with McCain - I could be wrong admittedly - and Obama is the kind of Christian-of-doubt that I can fully sympathize with. But Sarah Palin feels like the real (scary) deal, and if it's true that she's an adherent to end times theology, I have to admit, the idea that she might end up in the White House stirs up all my freaky childhood beliefs about the apocalypse a bit as well.

I wish I were kidding. When does the Mayan calendar end? Thank you Google: December 2012 (same end date as X-Files, I think).

So please, let's not let it happen.

Sexist double-standard?

Looking out at the ocean of buttons saying things like "The hottest VP from the coldest state" and "Hoosiers for the hot chick" I couldn't help but think, Biden was accused of being sexist for saying that she was better looking than him?

But then this was the same evening when Mitt Romney was raving about the problems of "promiscuity in the high schools" while the pregnant, unwed seventeen-year-old daughter of the VP nominee sat in the front row. Republicans are so blissfully free of the effects of cognitive dissonance.

It almost makes me wish I were a Republi... no, no it doesnt.

I am afraid

Coming from exactly the kind of place filled with exactly the kind of people to whom Sarah Palin will appeal - truth or the lack thereof in her speech be damned - I am seriously at this moment dreading the onset of another Republican administration.

She really is a pitbull in lipstick, and frankly while I was liking her early in the speech, by the end I had a serious bad taste in my mouth. Other pundits were saying that would probably be a general reaction, of really walking away thinking she's not really so much charming as actually mean-spirited with a pretty smile. I hope, but doubt, that is true. I know where I come from, and this kind of shiny red poison apple feels like exactly what the good people of these United States love to swallow on down.

A Tale of Two Cities

Just realized that the main problem with the RNC this year, besides the fact that it has the curse of being Republican in an anti-Republican year, is that the DNC last week had so much pre-packaged drama. How would Michelle Obama come across? Would the party be "unified"? Would Hillary pull a convention shocker and attempt to take over? Would Bill stick to the program during his speech? Would Obama be able to actually pull off justifying an acceptance speech before a stadium of 75,000?

And some kind of miracle happened that really went beyond something that could be choreographed. First Teddy Kennedy provided a stirring reminder of the Kennedy blessing on the house of Obama, then Michelle Obama gave a wonderful and heartfelt biographical piece, ending with the "Wizard of Oz" appearance of Barack Obama on the huge screen talking to his family spontaneously on the DNC stage. Then the next night, following a fantastic crowd-warmer from Brian Schweitzer, Hillary blew everyone away with what some considered her best speech ever, and a quote-unquote "full-throated" endorsement of Obama that started about the fifth sentence in. Then the next day the actual nomination - which I remembered liking watching when I was a kid but hadn't seen since - had this really genuinely joyous sense of the best kind of political theater, the best because everyone feels genuinely in the moment and inspired, and it was capped in a delirious crescendo by Hillary's short but sweet request to stop the count and declare Obama the nominee by acclimation. Then the next night, when everyone was just thinking about Bill's speech, there was the surprise star turn by Kerry who enjoyed fully his moment to stick it to the Republicans. And then Bill reminded everyone what they always forget to remember - that he can deliver a speech that goes right to your spine and you don't even know it's happening. And throughout the week, the complaints that there weren't enough hits on McCain slowly dissipated.

But still there was the final big show.... trepidation ran high... were the columns too much? Would they give the McCainiacs fodder for more celebrity ads? Would the sheer size and spectacle feed into the celebrity meme? Would he get lost in one of his lofty speeches, the kind of speeches his followers swooned over but that the people he needed to appeal to were starting to complain were too airy and not filled enough with specifics? Would Obama really be able to deliver? Would he be able to put the "high" in "Mile High"?

And then, after a day filled with people trying to make their way through the long lines, so's not to miss Stevie Wonder singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" and a few preliminary speeches, followed by the obligatory (and pretty good) biopic, narrated by David Straithairn (impeccable taste in the Obama camp as usual), Obama walked out to the strains of a U2 song that I love, "City of Blinding Lights". And then, he delivered, to an audience not of 75,000 but nearly 90,000, and really, to a record televised/internetted audience of at least 38,000,000 and quite probably closer to 50,000,000. And he delivered a speech filled with specifics, a "grounded" speech as they called it - which disappointed some, but was exactly what he needed to do, along with bringing the fight directly to McCain, as in, in McCain's face.

.... and the point is, how could anyone - esp. a party on the popular outs, but really anyone - compete with an event like that? St. Paul is just guaranteed to disappoint.

Instead, the main drama is 1) will Sarah Palin deliver a decent enough speech to not completely tank on a political level in the non-koolaid drinking public's eyes? and 2) will McCain make it through his acceptance speech without laughing that creepy little nervous laugh of his or uttering a patently insincere "my friends"... And really all of this is subsumed by Hurricane Sarah in any case, the ever-burgeoning pile of Palin data, from the frivolous to the silly to the scandalous to the slightly weird to the genuinely incriminating. Maybe McCain took a gamble that there would just be so MUCH stuff that people would just end up paying attention to none of it. Not kidding.

All the rest, all of the wholly predictable dittohead posturing at the convention, isn't going to register on anyone's radar, and why should it?

Yes, Waterloo, but not just for McCain

I think the main effect of the choice of Palin, besides hastening McCain's rapid descent in the polls and final loss in November, will be essentially the entire Republican Party and all of its spokespeople irrevocably tossing their credibility in the flames.  Fantastic!  It really couldn't happen to a better bunch of folks.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Is Palin McCain's Waterloo?

While the original announcement, after Obama's historic acceptance speech Thursday (which somehow already feels as though it occurred weeks ago), certainly had it's intended effect of throwing the news immediately off of the wholly successful Democratic convention, it's difficult to see how McCain's campaign is going to survive the choice of Sarah Palin for the VP nominee in the long term. 

Even beyond the fact that she now seems to be the gift that keeps on giving to the Obama campaign in terms of eye-opening revelations from the political to the personal, the fact that the move from the start was perceived as a desperate gambit - a "Hail Mary pass" as I think everyone liberal to conservative has described it - creates a perception both that, first off, McCain's position is more desperate than I think was generally perceived, and, secondly and more importantly, that he is more than willing to make rash, unexamined moves with very little forethought - a quality I think even the American electorate can process after the last eight years as one that we would be much better avoiding in our next President.

But, of course, after the last eight years, trying to process the inner mental workings of the American electorate is clearly an impenetrable task.  Still, from poll results and the results of focus groups run gauging the reaction to McCain's choice of Palin, it does seem as though the Hail Mary pass is eventually going to be looked at as more of a punt.