I found this in my parents’ basement. For you kids who haven’t seen anything like this before, it’s a quickie paperback. Before the Internet, if you had some big breaking news or some bullshit story you wanted to get out quickly, this is how you did it. This specimen of the genre came out before the ’72 election after the Eagleton disaster, and it’s a top-notch fantasy piece by the man probably best known as the co-author of John Denver’s autobiography.
I don’t know if there are a lot of parallels between this race and 1972, but one of them is that the incumbent president got his wish. He’s running against Paul Ryan’s budget and the Republican House’s do-nothing intransigence, which is what he’s wanted all along.
Kirbster
I like to think that this will be more like the 1964 election, where an embattled Democratic incumbent will run against a truly radical GOP ticket, and win in an electoral landslide.
beltane
Being that I was in preschool during the 1972 election I had to go brush up on the Tom Eagleton affair. Boy, the Democrats really were in disarray that year, behaving quite a bit like today’s Republicans.
mistermix
@beltane: 1980 was also a shitstorm disaster for Democrats.
beltane
@mistermix: That one I have a better memory of because it was the source of much “discussion” in my family. My mother held a grudge against Ted Kennedy for many years after that debacle.
EconWatcher
I’m pretty sure Obama will be re-elected, and I got more sure of that over the weekend.
But if we can’t hold the Senate and get close to parity in the House, the country is going to be completely ungovernable. I really shudder to think what it will be like. And right now, I don’t like our chances. Too many candidates have to beat the odds (Tester, McCaskill, etc.)
I’m pleasantly suprised that the public still mostly understands that Obama didn’t cause the economic disaster. But if we make no progress over the next two years, he’ll almost certainly be blamed, no matter how outrageous the obstruction he faces.
The system the Framers designed can’t hold up when one of the two major parties has strong internal discipline and acts in bad faith. I suppose no system could.
Sigh. Monday pessimism, I guess.
Seth Owen
Wow, what a find. That belongs in a museum. Those quickie paperbacks tended to be tossed rather readily do there probably aren’t too many of them still around.
EconWatcher
@Kirbster:
Unfortunately, that outcome is both necessary and unlikely. I’m not much worried about Obama, but I’m really afraid we’re going to lose the Senate and end up with a completely ungovernable country. For which Obama will be blamed in 2014.
The system the Framers designed just doesn’t hold up when one of the two major parties is both disciplined and willing to act in bad faith. I suppose no system could.
Kay
The campaign is just really, really good. I already got a call this morning on a specific local federally-funded project that Ryan opposed and is a success. Jobs. They want someone who works there :)
8 o clock in the morning and they’re already down to the county level.
WereBear
@Kay: The Republicans wanted to wipe out what competence, much less brilliance, looked like.
Only way they look good.
I was HOPING for 1964; not for any analytic reason, but because it would mean some slice of the population had woken up.
Maybe, just maybe…
PurpleGirl
MM: I like your mouse-over caption.
PurpleGirl
MM: I like your mouse-over caption.
PurpleGirl
MM: I like your mouse-over caption.
Jay C
@Kirbster:
Not like 1964 at all: as a
creaky old geezerveteran observer, I can recall that LBJ was not at all an “embattled” incumbent that year: he was, IIRC, quite popular with the public at large – who saw him as a unifying figure in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, and with a reputation (well-earned, btw) as an astute politician, and a commitment to classic Democratic New Deal ideals. Even if the Republicans hadn’t nominated an outright wingnut like Goldwater, Johnson would probably have won the election, if maybe by a lesser margin.By 1968, though…. another story.
The Red Pen
Scan! Scan! Want!
Valdivia
@Kay:
Yes, that is where the Obama money goes. Instead I have noticed that since this weekend Romney is inundating political sites (just regular Villagy ones like Political Wire) with pop ads.
mistermix
@The Red Pen: It’s 1500 miles away right now, but I’d have to cut it apart to scan it. One thing about quickie paperbacks: the paper was super-cheap, and it’s yellowed and crispy.
arguingwithsignposts
Wrong. The country isn’t ungovernable. This country is eminently governable, but one party doesn’t want to govern. Government would be at a stalemate.
There’s a difference between those two things. Subtle but important.
jheartney
1964 was the year that created today’s wingnut machine. Goldwater was what they wanted, but he got clobbered at the ballot box. Seeing that happen made them build the whole edifice – the talk shows, the fake think tanks, the propaganda publications, the corps of unified pundit yakkers, the fake news network. and above all, the unified messaging, that we know and loathe today. All started because they knew their message would never win without all that stuff. Kind of admirable, in a horrifying way – they spent decades perfecting a machine for creating political power, and it works.
Matt McIrvin
1964 was more like what would have happened if the September 11th attacks had happened in 2003 instead of 2001.
(Or, to make it an even better analogy, if President Gore had gotten killed in the terrorist attacks late in 2003 and Joe Lieberman were running for reelection.)
BGinCHI
Um, what were you doing in your parents’ basement?
Any luck finding that stash of Penthouses?
The Red Pen
@mistermix:
1500 miles away is a problem.
The scanning problem can be solved by using a document camera (or your cell phone) to photograph the pages. Time consuming… so it’s unclear whether it’s worth it; it depends on the entertainment value of the material. I’ll check and see if it’s already available.
LanceThruster
@BGinCHI:
Someone find this issue of Playboy to scan Craig Vetter’s “Underground at the Daily Planet.”
I loved hippie Jimmy Olsen’s line, “Everyone knows he’s Superman. You can that shitty red ‘S’ under his cheap white shirts.”
john deville
there’s sad and poignant anecdote about this quickie where McGovern had a copy of it and was eagerly pointing out to a politico on how he was going to win the election when all the polls indictated the ensuing landslide.
john deville
there’s sad and poignant anecdote about this quickie where McGovern had a copy of it and was eagerly pointing out to a politico on how he was going to win the election when all the polls indictated the ensuing landslide.
General Stuck
It’s distance and difference of politics on Mars and here on Mother Earth. I think we have left whatever the fuck that era was, and are in a total new political dimension, gauging the direction of the wind with propeller heads, to where we might land.
It is the anti climax of the post war New Deal era, pitted against the forces that never wanted that deal, and are through pu ssyfooting around the edges to moderate it. And those forces are mustering every single tattered piece of their always shaky coalition of misanthropes, and throwing caution to the wind.
One version of America must die, or else the other one will. This is the wingnut melodrama of it all, and reality and fate is never that clean, but they aren’t totally off their rockers that murrica needs to make a defining choice sooner rather than later. Lincoln’s divided house metaphor has not been settled yet, it just doesn’t involve active slavery this time.
Justin
Anyone read this?
http://www.democracycorps.com/Battleground-Surveys/july-battleground-survey/