The weirdest thing about this election has been watching the complete and total meltdown of the right wing as they struggle to find the magic bullet that will end the Obama candidacy. You would think that after watching the Clinton campaign do the same thing in the primary, they would have come up with a better plan. Rather than trying to advance an agenda that the American people find compelling, they instead teeter from one scary word to another, hoping upon hope that they will find the perfect line of attack.
Yesterday, Sullivan caught the Corner debating Obama’s political philosophy, and they could not decide if it was Maoist or Stalinist. The Powerline decided to ask “Barack Obama, Socialist?” Last night we had the spectacle of McCain and Palin with their favorite propaganda organ, Fox News and the shameless and mindless Sean Hannity, attempting to claim that Obama is a liar, dishonest, friendly with terrorists, and un-American. Watching these guys is like attending a Gallagher concert in 2008- what was once mildly amusing in 1983 when you were a kid just seems bizarre, out of sync, and painful, although you are happy for the plastic sheet to help cover you from the mess.
All of this nonsense bubbling in the belly of the Republican beast is on display when you watch their candidate, as Tina Brown observed yesterday:
As always on TV, the moments were enhanced by the cruel physicality of the screen. The received wisdom so far has been that Town Halls are better for McCain because he can loosen up and relax and make direct contact with what are nowadays called “real people.” But a Town Hall also meant the public saw a tall lithe young senator primed for the terrors of the future, against a stiff, hunched old guy hobbling around the stage in a body held together by an act of will.
During the campaign McCain has aged dramatically. Like Dorian Gray, the bargains he has made with his conscience are reflected in the mirror. He has developed a strange Jimmy Cagney rasp and new verbal eccentricities that seem to have fused the speaking styles of Bob Dole and Ross Perot. Critics have already pounced on the explosive contempt of his jab, “You know who voted for [the energy bill]? … THAT ONE.” The younger man watched him from his Frank Sinatra stool with the look of a family visitor marveling at the antics of the household’s resident crazy uncle.
This is a spent and exhausted movement. It is intellectually bankrupt, completely out of ideas and energy, and running on fumes. This has been a long eight years for the country, and the three decade reign of Republicans is winding down in a most undignified matter. The last gasp of the current GOP was birthed in 2000 in the elderly communities of Florida in the confusion of the butterfly ballot, and now they are slowly, though they do not recognize it, heading back to the retirement home. Hate is not a guiding political principle, and it is time for the elephant to take a little break. They are spent, and they just don’t know it.
*** Update ***
And yes, the irony of the National Review debating whether Obama is Maoist or Stalinist at the same time that a Republican administration is thinking about nationalizing the banking industry to save us all from the recklessness of the kings of capitalism is duly noted.
Atanarjuat
Paul in Boca
Then why are polls so close? Why doesn’t Obama have a 25 point lead? I don’t believe for a second that these guys have systematically mugged the Constitution and consolidated Presidential power to turn it over to Obama. Nothing really has been said, except by Palast, about the control of electronic voting machines in place all over this country. The coup took place in FL in
00, they stole the election on OH in04, they have to have something ready to spring in the next 20 some days.kay
The older, mostly female long-term Democrats who staff our local Obama HQ are frightened. Not for themselves.
An impressive group of grown ups. They were disappointed at Clinton’s loss, but came through, and they show up and work hard. They’re volunteers.
They’re afraid Senator Obama is going to get hurt by some lunatic right winger who Palin pushed over the edge.
We have to win.
The Grand Panjandrum
Even MM called McCain on his phony mortgage rescue plan. Of course, she framed it a little differently than you or I might but she nonetheless called him on it.
Both of Obama’s opponents made the fatal mistake of believing they were entitled to the job because they were more experienced. And now McCain seems to be following in the failed Clinton footsteps of scurrilous attacks and whisper campaigns about "those people" and essentially calling him a terrorist.
Maddow had NC Governor Mike Easley on and said something I found quite interesting. They were talking about race rearing its head in NC and Easley said he would not be surprised if a "reverse Bradley Effect" wouldn’t help put Obama over the top. He thought many NC’ers might like John McCain but they love their jobs. Who knows, but I have also wondered about that myself. Any thoughts?
Davis X. Machina
If nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come, then nothing is more dangerous, potentially, than an idea whose time has come and gone.
There’s a fine line between restoring the Golden Age and ushering in a Year Zero.
phobos
Hilzoy offers some logical guidance for the Corner:
Josh Huaco
And the human hemorrhoid who pulls the trigger will be yelling "Country First!" as the Secret Service drags him away.
Jasper
Brad DeLong has good advice for the GOP
"This Republican Party needs to be burned, razed to the ground, and the furrows sown with salt.."
It’s hard to believe at one point I supported "that party."
Rick Taylor
I’ve been astonished too. I’d thought they couldn’t possibly get any crazier than they were. Seeing them get behind the nomination of Palin has been a spectacle.
Learning from their mistakes, let alone other’s, has not been their forte. To be fair, human beings in general aren’t very good at it.
bud
Is McCain Italian Fascist or German Fascist? Who can tell?!
zmulls
Man, Tina Brown nails it, with much better prose than I could have come up with.
I had predicted that the race would be over after the first debate, because once the country saw the two men side by side, Obama’s smarts and poise and energy would be obvious (and McCain’s lack of all that would be equally obvious).
But she sure said it well….
The race is not close because many in the media have been, for too long, insisting on "balance" when there should be none, and only in the last couple of months, one by one they’ve jumped off the tire swing.
Comrade Some Guy Named Mattski
@bud:
Trick Question!! He’s Spanish Fascist!
Dennis - SGMM
Although hate isn’t an organizing political principle it seems to have infused the McCain campaign pretty thoroughly. Remember when McCain blamed his own negative turn on the fact that Obama would not agree to the ten town halls? I’m guessing that McCain now blames Obama for the Faustian bargain that he’s made with the Republican lunatic fringe and that he hates him for it.
Josh Huaco
I’ve always said, "Needs to be burned to the ground, its smoldering ruins exorcised and dowsed in holy water, and then what remains stored deep in Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years."
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
Shamless OT thread hijacking:
Biden was in town yesterday and blew the roof off the hall. It was the biggest event for a Democrat this heavily Republican dump has ever seen. 4500 people on their feet for a full half hour. Anyone who says Biden can’t get a crowd going needs to unwedge his or her head from between their buttox. Sure, he beat on McCain’s policies relentlessly, but the sheer positive energy was the absolute mirror of the "triumph of the will" Gidget held just up the street two days ago.
Oh, and I also got to shake his hand. He worked the crowd for a full half hour after his speech was over, shaking hands, mugging for the very many cameras, signing autographs, and he really looked like he was enjoying the hell out of it. Maybe I’m just a dupe but he looked like he wanted to spend the rest of the night just chewing the rag with everyone. How someone can keep up that punishing schedule and not want to chase people at random with a bat blows my mind.
John Cole
@The Thinking Man’s Mel Torme: You take any pictures? If so, send them and I will post them.
Kamishna ya Watu Xenos
To have conservatives calling Obama a socialist whilst the GOP is nationalizing the banks is a wonder to behold. Cognitive dissonance on this scale is a rare thing – the last step before utter spiritual and cultural depression for a movement.
And in the interest of fairness, the DLC branch of the Democratic party needs to be treated as the discredited punks they are. Maybe they can make up the core of a new center-right party once the Republicans go the way of the Whigs and Federalists.
Dennis - SGMM
@The Thinking Man’s Mel Torme: thank you for the nice verbal picture. I would love to see Biden or Obama speak in person. Living in California means that the Dems don’t need to campaign here and the Republicans rarely try so we mostly meet the candidates through our television sets.
Geeno
@Comrade Some Guy Named Mattski:
Oooooh – I thought he Argentine Fascist…. so close.
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
Yes indeedy. I didn’t get home after the event until about 11:00 and had to be at work at 7:00 this morning so I haven’t had time to upload them yet. I also have to get the pix from the person with whom I went as I was using a long lens and got mainly close-ups while she handled the wider-angle shots.
Also, since you have Sully’s "thatone" graphic up, a related note: I snagged the image from his site yesterday and printed out a few and was wearing one as a homemade sticker. I must’ve had 200 people give me the thumbs-up. Obama’s regional coordinator, to whom I spoke after the event, busted a gut when he saw it. I’m probably violating 10 kinds of copyright but if the rumor holds true that Obama is coming to town, I’m going to print up a few hundred and pass them out.
Comrade Colonel Ivan Ivanovich Renko, Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (ret.)
I’ve said it before and I believe it to the core– The Republican Party swallowed a poison pill when it invited the segregationists and the bigots to swell their voter rolls.
We’re simply witnessing the end result of that poisoning– paranoia, delusional thinking, and ultimately– death.
NonyNony
What the hell happened to National Review? Am I misremembering, or was it once actually a magazine with a decent respect for intellectual endeavor? Maoist or Stalinist – Jeebus. It’s like they don’t even know what those words mean.
Don’t be disappointed when McCain walks away with more than 40% of the popular vote. In 1980, which is the election where events were closest to what we’re seeing today, Carter got 41% of the vote. Mondale got 40.6% in 1984, and that was considered a blowout by Reagan (he got almost 59% of the popular vote, though – that’s as close to a blowout as American politics gets).
We’re a 40/40/20 crowd here in the US. 30% will vote for a Republican no matter what, 30% will vote for a Democrat no matter what. That middle 20% is up for grabs, and for the last 30 years its fallen into GOPer hands for the most part – Clinton’s first term was fairly anomalous.
This election looks poised to be a major shift, but there’s no way that McCain actually drops below 40%. Or, more to the point, if McCain actually DOES manage to drop below 40% I think it would mean that the Republican Party would be going the way of the Whigs.
Dennis - SGMM
Much as I’d love to see it, the reports of the incipient death of the Republican party seem a bit exaggerated. They are already floating that idea that neither Bush nor McCain are "real Republicans" – whatever that is. The real fun will be in seeing whether the remaining sane members of the party wrest control from the loonies or whether the loonies convince everyone that they just aren’t far enough to the right.
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
One thing I never understood is how Ken Blackwell could evilly engineer Bush’s win in ’04 yet somehow not do the same for himself two years later…
Anyhow, on the ‘Back to the Future’ meme, am I the only one getting flashbacks to 1992? With the Republican campaign swirling down the toilet, now they’re screeching ‘terrorist’ and ‘socialist’ right out in the open with the tacit assistance of the McCain campaign. Its as if the 28%ers dusted off their old ‘Clinton Bashing for Dummies’ books and started reciting from page one.
r€nato
John, I’m glad you woke up to what was going on with the GOP and the right-wing. It’s just a shame that so few others have; we might have saved ourselves from a 2nd Bush term.
A lot of folks in this country don’t have the time and/or inclination to be political nerds like us, and they take their cues from whatever media they consume. When the media routinely ignores the DFHs who have been repeatedly proved fucking right over the last 8 years, it makes it much harder for these people to wake up to what is really going on – it takes a true crisis to focus their attention. Let’s hope that the DFHs are listened to a lot more in years to come. We may not always be right in the future, but we do have a consistently better track record than the Very Serious People who have made a total fuckup of just about everything this decade.
Unfortunately, they have enjoyed 30 years of living high off the hog up until now. Unless they spend the next 20 to 30 years in the political wilderness and the Democrats manage to dramatically change the course of the government and the national conversation, I’d consider that a win if I were one of them. (this means NO MORE GOP LITE/DLC BULLSHIT FROM DEMOCRATS)
If the GOP only spends the next four to eight years in the minority, I am pretty sure they would take that trade-off; 30 years of bending this country to their will – gutting regulations, cowing the media, looting the treasury, reframing rightward the national debate, endless militarism, seeding the civil service with their moles – that’s not going to get reversed very easily nor very quickly.
Napoleon
I will stand by my prediction that in the end McCain will not dip under 45%, although honestly in my 47 years on Earth there has not been a campaign so incompetently run and a political party with the wind in its face at election time then McCain and the Republicans. I hope I am wrong and my countrymen turn on the bums big time, but after seeing a complete empty suit like Bush elected twice I am not hopeful.
limbaugh's pilonidal cyst
Found this while looking over the history of Lee County, Florida, where the sheriff referred to "Barack Hussein Obama" and crowd members called a black soundman "boy" and worse, while Sarah stood there and smiled:
"1924-The lynching of two black school boys in Fort Myers
(May 24-25)."
Someone on one of the blogs has already wondered when Barack will start to be burned in effigy. I think have a possibility as to where.
Why hasn’t every Democratic leader, elected or not, gotten up and condemned this? I’d sure hate to be DWB in Lee County these days……
limbaugh's pilonidal cyst
C’mon, r€nato, "right" is so boring, if they’d listened to us then Al "Snore" would be finishing his second term, therefore no 9/11 attack, no wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, no economic meltdown. Not good for ratings, yanno?
Juan del Llano
You wrote, and I agree with you 1,000 percent:
This is a spent and exhausted movement. It is intellectually bankrupt, completely out of ideas and energy, and running on fumes. This has been a long eight years for the country, and the three decade reign of Republicans is winding down in a most undignified matter. The last gasp of the current GOP was birthed in 2000 in the elderly communities of Florida in the confusion of the butterfly ballot, and now they are slowly, though they do not recognize it, heading back to the retirement home. Hate is not a guiding political principle, and it is time for the elephant to take a little break. They are spent, and they just don’t know it.
Isn’t it incredible that there’s still a whole industry (claque, tribe, gang, whatever) devoted to pumping air into this old torn balloon?? Delightful, in a way. Maybe they’ll all go down the drain together.
Kirk
@Dennis – SGMM:
I’ve talked of that before. There’s this tendency among the highly partisan – politics being one example – to believe a setback was because of a lack of "purity". The obvious and immediate requirement is to become ‘more pure’. Most organizations – religious, political, etc. – suppress this element. Sometimes, however, the element gains ascendancy. When it does, it enters a positive feedback loop. It purges the fringes – the less pure – and goes forward. When it encounters further loss, it purges again, becoming more fanatical. At a certain point even success is insufficient to break this cycle. When that happens it becomes highly likely that the organization, or at least that splinter of it, becomes insignificant. Dangerous, mind you, but on the whole something most people despise and avoid.
The Republican party as a whole isn’t there yet. But for at least the last 20 years it’s been on the way. There have been indicators of this cycle in California and Kansas, where the response to not taking certain seats becomes, "we must rid ourselves of the RINOs."
If this cycle happens on the national stage, I think the Republican party as we know it – perhaps even as a name – will become a minor third party if not completely disappear within two decades. We’ll have some idea in 2012, and know for certain come 2016. If the nomination process is fraught with cries of "No RINOs" and full of people rabidly demanding their candidacies reflect "True Republican Ideals" then I think it’s probable. If they get another master of compromise – or even good at pretending otherwise (like Reagan), then they’ll last.
Right now there is no way to tell for sure whether the national party has entered this cycle. It appears to be on the cusp as it’s let the more fanatical members seize control. As noted there’s the constant comment that McCain isn’t winning because he’s not a Real Republican – an allusion to the ‘impure’ meme that causes such trouble. If this goes on, we’ll see it happen. In the process it’ll be nasty – this is a national party, and the spewing venom will splash everywhere.
Josh Huaco
Already happened (hanging not burning), and in the last place you’d ever expect.
Kayakr
Too bad Tina Brown is basically full of shit even as she makes a decent point.
"…those of us who once fell in love with McCain’s flinty heroism and independence"
This pretty much says it all.
"McCain shouted at the crowd, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” and an audience member yelled back, “A terrorist!” And there was a panicked look on his face that said, “My God, what have I done?”
I don’t know what video she looked at – to me McCain looked at best, mildly surprised…but pleased.
malraux
First, Obama has a healthy lead right now. Not a blowout lead, but one such that he could probably just play defense till election day and still win easily.
And unfortunately, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense right now for obama to spend time trying to convince hold-outs in say Texas that he’s the better candidate. And once he gets a particular state to ~60/40, his resources are going to be better spent moving on to the next close state rather than trying to push those percentages up more. Of course he’s interested in following Dean’s 50 state strategy, so there is some movement toward campaigning everywhere, but that’s as much about down ticket Ds and having the resources in place to take advantage of opposition screw-ups.
Ron E.
Hey now, John, unlike John McCain smashing watermelons with a sledge hammer never gets old.
Grumpy Code Monkey
I’m sure they’ve convinced themselves that the only reason it didn’t work for Hillary was that she didn’t get nasty enough. And that she was, you know, Hillary Fucking Clinton, which in their eyes was a big enough handicap in the first place.
After all, this kind of shit worked against Kerry. It’s not like Obama would have noticed that and learned any lessons from it or anything.
Graeme
Next thing you know someone at National Review write a book called Liberal Fascism while an Administration run by ‘their guy’ is eavesdropping on citizens and torturing people to death.
Oh… Yeah. Right.
jcricket
My 65 year old mom has made this point a bunch – "Who thought that the first black president would win by a landslide? Or rather, a 1/2 black, 1/2 white president with a foreign sounding name winning at all, is a landslide"
It’s a good point, and one we should remember.
We’re going to blow open a bigger majority in the house, pick up between 5 and 10 (!!!) Senate seats, and win the presidency running somebody named Barack (whose first name is not Ehud).
The up-thread suggestion that we use this victory to banish our cow-towing deference to the GOP (GOP lite) was also right on. The next couple of years are going to get worse, economically, and quite possibly socially (social unrest driven by higher unemployment and crime). We’re going to be fighting two unpopular and losing wars (definitely in Iraq, possibly losing in Afghanistan).
It’ll take a steady, strong hand (I mean that collectively) to convince the American public that the actions the Democrats take over the next 2-4 years are ones that blunt the negative impacts of the situation going on and positively position us for the future. Roosevelt did this with the new deal and it took 50 years for the Republicans to even partially dismantle it.
But he did not do so by writing sternly worded letters. Americans respond positively to strength and confidence, and as long as we’re still part of the reality-based community, I’m positive that our policies will be effective.
jcricket
Why do you continue to disrespect our war veterans?
You know the reason John McCain isn’t a bald, beret-wearing Canadian prop comic is that he can’t lift a sledgehammer after 5 years being a POW.
Chandler in Maine
@bud:
Trick Question!! He’s Spanish Fascist!
LOL. Exactly! That’s why he doesn’t want to talk to the Spanish! He doesn’t want to talk to his friends much less his enemies!
D-Chance.
The weirdest thing about this election has been watching the complete and total meltdown of the right wing as they struggle to find the magic bullet that will end the Obama candidacy.
Don’t think that idea isn’t being planted… and the incitement BY THE FREAKING McCAIN-PALIN CAMPAIGN is getting scary.
Jennifer
Desperation brings out the worst in people. I swear, I have a growing fear in my heart of hearts in terms of what some people are capable of doing – and justifying – out of this very real desperation. I am typically incredibly tolerant, patient and empathetic to those who see the world differently that I do. But right now, I’m just feeling very wary, distrustful and rankled by those same folks.
Have you seen this video of some of the crowd at a Mc-P rally? It’s truly, truly heartbreaking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E
Jennifer
Oops. Sorry about the link. I see you already found it. I should have started at the top and worked my way down!
Chad3337
And what, exactly, are the brilliant ideas the left is offering to move this country forward? Can anyone name a single proprosal that’s a new idea with legs?
I’m sorry, but I see the same mental exhaustion on the left as I do on the right.
The only proposal I hear is tax, tax, tax those individuals making over 200K or couples making over 250K, a proposal guaranteed to cause businesses to accelerate their moves overseas and crush small businesses.
So please, acknowledge that people are holding their noses when voting for Obama. They’re not voting for Obama so much as they are voting against Bush. NO ONE sees any brilliant new policy proposals or great ideas coming from the left that that will somehow save the American people or reinvigorate our democracy.
rachel
My problem is, Obama isn’t really a leftie. But hey, "tax, tax, tax" is far better than "Put it on the nation’s credit card and make the kids pay for it," so I’m voting for Obama, anyway.