I went to an Obama speech watch party last night so I thought I’d give you my general impressions of the mood in the room. All anecdotal punditry disclaimers apply: this is 25 people in rural NW Ohio, all of us went in Obama supporters and all of us left Obama supporters.
There was one man there I had not met before who went on and on about how he is a registered Republican but is “the most liberal Republican you’ll ever meet.” I’m never sure how to respond to these proclamations of liberal or moderate Republicanism. I hear them quite a bit here, it’s a majority GOP county, and I (now) just nod and smile. Obviously he’s supporting Obama and he can call himself anything he wants, but I’m never sure what it is they’re looking for by telling me this. Sympathy? A persuasion pitch? Condemnation? I suspect they’re looking for a conversation about how “they didn’t leave the Party, the Party left them” and I’ve done that in the past, in the past I have patiently listened to the whole evolutionary tale, but I’m tired of searching the conservative soul. I think Democrats and liberals do too much of that anyway. I sometimes feel as if Republicans talk about Republicans, media talk about Republicans, and Democrats talk about Republicans. If the Party “left him” I would think the next logical step would be for him to leave the Party, but it’s his call, of course. It’s ungenerous of me, but do these proud (but liberal!) Republicans ever wonder if it’s a little insulting to come to someone’s home and announce you would never dream of hanging out with us riff-raff had your preferred Party not gone completely ‘round the bend? “Thanks so much! We’re honored!”
Three of us there had work to do. The Obama field organizer had a canvass work shift sheet to fill, which he did, so he’ll have 4 canvass shifts this weekend. A former county chair was there and he’s obsessed with those giant signs you see in rural areas at well-traveled intersections on state roads. He has to get permission to put the signs up from the respective landowners, so he stayed on the phone and got that done. I’m working on renting and setting up our field office, which will open September 10th.
Most of the attendees did not actually stay for Obama’s speech, because it was on too late and they have to work in the morning. They all saw Jennifer Granholm and they all saw Biden. The ten or so who stayed for the Obama speech loved it.
The general feeling I got was they’re going to defend the President from what they see as unfair treatment by media and real disrespect shown towards this President by Republicans. They’re rallying around him. If the objective of political conventions is to remind people why they belong to or identify with a political Party, and having attended several state and one national convention I think that IS the objective of conventions, this one did that.
Just Some Fuckhead
He’s trying to tell you he’s gay.
burnspbesq
Some people are Republican the same way that I am Irish. It’s a matter of ancestry. It can never become completely irrelevant. It can be denied but not purged.
The Moar You Know
I never ask why they left the party. I don’t care. To my thinking, if you voted Republican at any time after 1980, there’s something that went seriously bad in your soul, and whatever, I’m glad you’re over it, but I don’t really want to know the details.
I feel the same way when interview serial killers. Really don’t care why they did it, just lock them up and throw away the key and let’s all get on with our lives.
jurassicpork
If you still think Barry’s your man after reading my take on last night’s speech and a pretty accurate summing up of his first four years, then you need to get your head examined.
Kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So funny, because I had yard signs for Angela Zimmann, who is running for the US House. She has some pink signs and some blue signs, so I gave him a pink one because that’s amusing to me, to hand him the “girl” sign, and he told me he was “secure in his manhood” so would put it up. This is what I mean. What am I, a therapist?
jibeaux
Well, I went to a watch party featuring an Indian man, white people, and black people, hosted by a black Jewish family. Yep, that would be the DEMOCRATIC convention watch party. It was nice to get out and meet new people. I have no doubt that I will now be stalked by OFA but I don’t care.
CarolDuhart2
Kay, what do you think about the media floating the idea that Conventions are obsolete? I don’t understand that at all. Every industry has one, why not our politicians? I’ts worth noting that I never heard such stuff until this year….
EconWatcher
Ignore the troll, people. I know you can do it.
jibeaux
@EconWatcher: Afuckingmen.
dr. bloor
@jurassicpork:
Right, then. We’ll just put you down for Rmoney.
wrb
@jurassicpork:
I don’t love the smell of firebags in the morning.
Chyron HR
@jurassicpork:
Allow me to correct a misconception you seem to be laboring under:
Nobody’s ever read any of your blog droppings.
quannlace
It’s kind of pitiful the way you keep posting here, basically saying , ‘If you stupid people would only listen to meeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
jibeaux
@CarolDuhart2: If I heard that, my guess would be the media had an incredibly hard time saying both sides do it, and when they found 412 factual errors in Paul Ryan’s speech they had a devil of a time finding 412 Democratic ones even counting “Bill’s point is invalid because Monica.” So their only solution is to advocate getting rid of them. Which is pretty damn silly because the parties actually do have to formally nominate a candidate.
Michael Bersin
Ah, signs. From 2008:
Signs, signs, everywhere signs
That being said and written, I’m a huge fan of insult signage – placing those 4x8s so that some random republican driving by has a Homer Simpson “d’oh!” moment.
jibeaux
I am smacking you all with my rolled up newspaper. No! No! Stay away from the troll before I rub your noses in it!
Raven
@jurassicpork: you are an asshole today, an asshole tomorrow and an asshole forever
Kay
@CarolDuhart2:
I thought the convention I went to was both bizarre and fascinating, but I love those weird crowd scenes. I don’t know: haven’t we heard this forever? That political parties are becoming obsolete and everyone is going to be “of no party or clique?” Isn’t this more of that?
Like-minded people gathering together is a very old idea. I think people do that for some reason.
We had a more-senior Obama organizer-person come out from Chicago and I met her for lunch and she is from California and worked in tech and she went on and on about “pop up” campaign offices and “virtual” get togethers, but people here want a storefront office and they want to gather in refinished basements and talk to each other. The organizer is a living, breathing human being, and he’s working out of his car. WTF with the “pop up” office? What does that mean to him? It means he’s working out of his car, right?
EconWatcher
@jibeaux:
It ignores the troll, or it gets the hose.
gbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: You won’t know that for sure until you run into him in the men’s room.
Linda Featheringill
@CarolDuhart2:
Conventions obsolete:
They’re just saying that because the GOP convention didn’t accomplish much.
Phooey on the naysayers. We Dems had fun with our convention, including those that were there and the rest of us that watched from a distance.
Villago Delenda Est
Kay, thanks again (we don’t thank you enough) for your dispatches from the trenches. Always a great pleasure to read!
Ash Can
Our local OFA group had a convention-watching get-together at the local Irish saloon. About 80 people showed up, including (eventually) the alderwoman and our district state senator. Good times.
There was lots of cheering, as well as laughter and a few misty-eyed moments. But I have to say, one of my favorite moments was when the prez said, “And students, you have to do the work.” The monitors we were watching were tuned to MSNBC, and immediately after the prez said this, the camera switched to Michelle and the girls. The girls were kind of squirming and rolling their eyes, and their mom was giving them the Stink. Eye. like only Michelle can give. I damn near died, because this is exactly what happens between my son and me when he screws something up schoolwork-wise.
I was also struck at the severity with which Obama smacked Romney on insulting his British hosts on the Olympics. He didn’t mince words, and that’s on a subject where diplomats look like Benihana chefs with the language they use. The way he said it, he made it extremely clear that if it were just him and Romney behind closed doors, he would have torn Romney so many new assholes that his shit wouldn’t know if it was coming or going.
pk
@jurassicpork:
I read your childish drivel. You are so full of yourself. If as a grown man (I’m assuming that you’re a man and over 18) you cannot understand reality i.e. there are only two practical choices in this election, and voting for Stein is a worthless gesture then you and people like you are a part of the problem. Just as delusional as the idiot republican brain dead voters. Good luck in finding Utopia, and do drop us a line when you get there.
SiubhanDuinne
Someone who was def NOT a partygoer: http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/2012/09/06/97-mike-luckovich-cartoon-ex-president-speaks/
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jurassicpork: You lost me at Barry. Who’s Barry?
gbear
@Raven: He’s also the worst blogwhore ever. Every comment he leaves here links back to his own blog.
quannlace
@jurassicpork:
And why you’ve given yourself the name of a porn flick is beyond me.
Villago Delenda Est
Ignore the Naderite moron.
That is all.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Wow, twenty-five people! Not snark – I’m impressed. I had my own watch party at my home last night, and out of the fifteen or so who said they’d be over, only three showed up. :( But it was three people I’d never really visited with before, and they were all serious Obama supporters, so it was fun (and I got to hear some serious neighborhood gossip). And I now have enough snacks and beverages to last me though Christmas.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
BTW, did anyone else notice the other thing that Obama is pushing: “The policies of the last 30 years.” He’s not just going after the current Republicans, he’s attacking the entire Republican philosophy for the last 30 years.
sparrow
@The Moar You Know: I would take into account age. This is admittedly self-serving: as a young, brainwashed 17 year old I was SO MAD that I could not vote for GWB and I considered it an act of barbarous agism. (Four years later and much, much wiser after leaving the
compound, er, Oklahoma, I voted for Kerry, so there’s that). People who have been brainwashed/are imbeciles I am willing to give some leeway. Not the ones that should know better.debit
@jurassicpork: I was going to say something nasty about laughing when you beg for money again, but really, I don’t think it’s funny when people are broke and desperate.
However, I do know better now than to ever click a link from you again. Honest to god, I thought it was parody at first.
FlipYrWhig
@gbear: And he’s been doing that on various blogs for close to _10 years_ now.
Steve
I hope y’all appreciated Gov. Granholm down there in the Buckeye State. Over 100,000 Ohio jobs saved by the auto rescue!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
SOmebody posted a tweet last night by John Harris, head nitwit at Politico, whining that the Dems are taking the low road, while Our Willard has abstained from personal attacks. Like Brokaw’s defense of the welfare ads (“it’s not part of a larger narrative”), political reporters have no fucking idea what’s going on in politics, because they don’t want to know.
and yes, ignore the sad desperate blog whoring
Joshua Norton
TBogg said it best – Voting against Obama in hopes of getting a more progressive person elected is like hoping you get cancer because you could stand to lose a few pounds.
It’s just magical thinking that doesn’t do anyone any good. A Rmoney reign would be deadly beyond belief for the country.
SFAW
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Either that, or he was trying to get her in the sack. I saw it as a riff on “My wife doesn’t understand me” or “I’m worried that I may be gay, can you help me?” I mean, those lines went out of fashion 30 years ago (not that they ever WERE in fashion), so ya gotta update them for current conditions.
Satchel
… I’m never sure what it is they’re looking for by telling me this. Sympathy? A persuasion pitch? Condemnation?
They’re looking for their “Congratulations! You meet the minimal standards of a decent human being!” cookie.
SFAW
@Joshua Norton:
But
BushRomney andGoreObama are exactly the same!Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jurassicpork: masturbate much will looking in the mirror kiddo?
Kay
@Steve:
They loved her, but they were convinced she had a few cocktails. Don’t get me wrong, they completely approve of and encourage that. That went over very well.
I like her because I once listened to her on Michigan public radio and she could run a car company at this point. She was rattling off stats like crazy. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio can do the same thing.
I also love the phrase “the first gentleman” which they used to describe her husband. I picture him in a morning coat, carrying her handbag.
jwb
@burnspbesq: For anyone who is brought up within and identifies with a political party, changing is akin to religious conversion—it’s a change in identity and that is a very hard thing to do.
Betsy
Hey Kay, I just wanted to say, I always enjoy your reporting and there is so much of SUBSTANCE in your words.
I’m fired up. Going to go help the campaign out this weekend with voter registration. You’ve got me ready to go!!
jwb
@CarolDuhart2: I had this sentiment after the GOP convention, but the Dems actually produced some pretty good theater with their convention and it has me convinced they are still useful (and more importantly are still worth the TV time).
mdblanche
@Chyron HR: No, but now that people are actually responding to it instead of just ignoring it, it’s coming back for more. Seriously people, this is why you don’t feed the trolls.
Abijah L.
My parents started voting the right way in 1992, but didn’t change registration and officially join the party of goodness and light until 2004. Meanwhile my dad was sending me articles that he had torn out of Mother Jones and The Nation.
lamh35
@CarolDuhart2:
The goal post moving this morning is fascinating. First Romney needed to have a good June, after the primary was over. He didnt, contrary to CW, Obama cleaned his clock. Then Romney needed a better summer leading up to the convention. Aside from Paul Ryan pick, Romney had a bad summer. Then Romney needed to have a great convention and therefore increase his fortunes, but he didn’t the convention was a disaster, first cause of Isaac, then Ann Romney’s overrated speech, then all the speakers who talked more about themselves that about the nominee, then the drab stagecraft, then Paul Ryan’s lying acceptance speech, then Romney lukewarm speech that was a big ole whiff of nothing, with no mention of the war or the troops, oh and less we forget…Clint Eastwood! Now he needs to over perform in the debates. Which is a lot of pressure & Mitt doesn’t seem to do well under pressure. Also, personally, I think more people are underestimating Obama’s debating skills by comparing them to 2008, & they are overestimating Romney’s debating skills by comparing them to that clown show that was the GOP primaries.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Joshua Norton:
It also willfully ignores the whole 2000 to 2004 period were the Blue Dogs were in their mealy mouthed ascendency in the Democratic Party because Bush’s elections PROVED that the Democrats were to liberal
R-Jud
@Kay:
That’s adorable. I always picture a “first gentleman” sitting at a table in dress clothes, with a monocle that drops out of his eye into his sherry glass when he reads something negative about his wife in the newspaper.
Cassidy
@Chyron HR: I took one for the team. It’s your basic “I didn’t get my pony”, both sides do it, purity BS. It’s not even original.
xian
@pk: you know what republican strategists call firebaggers? “useful idiots”
SFAW
@Abijah L.:
You mean the Greens? Because everyone knows the Dems and Rethugs are exactly the same – EVILEVILEVILEVILEVIL!
ETA: And by “everyone”, I mean jurassicdork, of course.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jwb: Lincoln Chaffee stayed in the GOP Senate caucus because of a deathbed promise to his father. I suspect Olympia Snowe, Kay’s OH acquaintance and a whole bunch of others have the same kind of sentimental attachment to the “Party of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln”. To me, calling the party of John Boehner and James Inhofe the party of TR is historically inaccurate, calling the party of Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms the party of Lincoln is blasphemy.
ding dong
Most of the officials’ speeches were auditions for obama’s second term cabinet. I hope Granholm and. Schweitzer got themselves jobs. Kerry only if Warren wins.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jwb:
Funny you should say that because my de-conversion from Catholic to atheist paralleled by conversion from Republican to Democrat. Included various intermediate stages.
Steve
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t really understand how they define “personal attacks.” Are they suggesting that Obama called Romney ugly or something?
When Romney says, “To the majority of Americans who now believe that the future will not be better than the past, I can guarantee you this: if Barack Obama is re-elected, you will be right,” in my opinion that’s a pretty low thing to say. I suppose it’s not a personal attack, though.
The thing is that Republican policies, like cutting people off from government assistance and slashing Medicaid, would in fact have serious consequences for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. But of course, Republicans don’t WANT old people to be unable to receive health care – they simply propose policies that would have that effect – so it’s gauche to point out what the actual effects of their policies would be. Because it makes them sound like bad people and we all know they’re not bad people.
quannlace
And his endless demeanor of ‘Sad Dad’ during that speech. Not exactly the way to fire up the crowd.
Steve
@Kay: I sure think she had a few cocktails. She’s quite a performer but I’ve never seen her quite like that. A pity it couldn’t have been her who spoke at my college graduation instead of that boring granny-starver John Engler.
mdblanche
@lamh35:
Good. Most of the horse-race coverage of the debates is all about expectations, so that would put Obama (and Biden also too) exactly where he wants to be. It’ll make it that much harder to spin the debates as good news for Mitt Romney. They’ll still try of course, but they’ll just be flailing worse than ever when they do.
EconWatcher
@lamh35:
Romney goes into the debates with a massive liability, namely, the fact that his campaign is basically a fraud: No, really, we’re the ones you can trust to protect medicare.
It violates a basic precept: You need to attack on grounds that fit people’s preconceptions about the other guy. So if you attack Obama on grounds that he’s imposing insane regulations that are stifling business and jobs, you might get some traction with that, even if it’s a complete fabrication, because people do have some notion that the Dems can be antibusiness.
But nobody starts off thinking of the GOP as protecting and the Dems destroying social programs. And when you then pick as your running mate the guy who actually had the brass to write the bill that would end Medicare as we know it, how are you going to sell yourself as the savior?
No, the Mittster’s only chance was to have Obama on the ropes already by now, through the massive ad campaigns. The very last thing he needs are debates right now. And deep down, the man is a coward. If he were up, I could see him coming up with reasons why no debates are necessary.
But he’s down, so he can’t possibly do that. I’ll bet he’s soiling his pants right now. Not necessarily because of fear of Obama. But because he knows he’s been peddling a fraud.
artem1s
I’m never sure what it is they’re looking for by telling me this. Sympathy? A persuasion pitch? Condemnation?
The closet social progressives I know are all pretty much trolling to find out if its cool to be a Democrat. They pretty much socialize, work, or live with Neanderthal Wingnut Teahaddists who think nothing of bullying people who are aligned with teh gay, feminazi party. They are used to getting an ear full any time they drift away from the alternative universe script. They haven’t experienced a political exchange that is an intelligent exchange of ideas. They’ve only pretty much seen the blood sport side of campaigns.
I’ve found firmly telling them that I couldn’t be prouder of my President and I’m not playing ‘both sides do it’ anymore stuns them. I also disabuse them of any notion that compromising on civil rights is in any way acceptable. They either shut up and go away at this point or they begin to learn that there is another way to be politically engaged. It doesn’t have to be white hot fury 24/7/365.
Mandalay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And this morning Politico posted this swill:
Unbelievable (literally).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: and all too believable. Rachel Maddow a couple weeks ago was talking about Politico and ad-libbed (maybe), “also known as the Romney Campaign Newsletter”. THey’re barely bothering to pretend anymore. The Pool Boy is on Maher tonight, I hope whichever PA is assigned to tell Maher what’s going on this week points out that Politico is a pile of shit, owned by the chair of the Reagan library board.
Yutsano
@EconWatcher:
Yesbut…OBAMA SAID HE WAS GONNA CUT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE! IT’S TRUE! YOU’RE JUST SO BLIND IN YOUR OBOTISM YOU REFUSE TO SEE DA TROOF! THOSE CUTS ARE COMING ANY DAY NOW! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!
/firebagger
burnspbesq
Was trading texts with the kid last night, and asked him what his favorite speech of the DNC was. He surprised me a bit by naming Warren.
Kay
@Mandalay:
I think he hit the right tenor because what I’m hearing canvassing is this sort of exhaustion with lying and gamesmanship and the horse race. I don’t know if it’s because it’s Ohio and they’ve been bombarded with ads since spring, but they just went thru this huge, hard, terrifying grind (the recession) and they just want some plain-spoken TRUTH. I’m not seeing all this anger and disgust and hatred of government I keep hearing about.
We’ll see, but Obama generally has good political instincts. I think he got it just about right.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh35:
This morning on Morning Joe someone from PBS (can’t remember his name) kept saying that the Dems were too cocky and could lose because the economy is awful.
While this is true, I don’t see the Dems as overly cocky. I think we know quite well that this election is too close for comfort and that Romneybot 2.0 has $$$ to rain down ads in swing states.
Wonder what people think Romneybot 2.0 is going to say at the debates that’s going to blow everyone away. He’s purposely kept his policies under wraps and is running a just-trust-me, everything-will-be-revealed-after-I-become-President campaign.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: @Patricia Kayden: there’s what you’re going to be hearing from The VIllage, Obama was weak and deflated and cocky, and anyone who points out the contradiction will get the same blank, bovine stare Piers Morgan got when he told Candy Crowley, Wolf Blitzer and John King that austerity drove the UK back into recession.
1badbaba3
@Kay: That GOP obstruction thing they’ve been doing to Obama since ’09, was field tested in Michigan against her. Engler (as Bush) looted and pillaged, and then used JG as the scapegoat. DeVos and the Amway crowd run the west side of the state and are doing their level best to kill Detroit to shift the balance of power away from UAW and MEA hotbeds, and minority dominated urban areas. Hence, the excerable emergency manager laws. They’re trying to turn the state red. They won’t succeed.
Did you hear Rmoney has pulled ads out of Michigan? And didn’t McCain pull out early in ’08 also too? Jeez, if they can’t cheat, they don’t win.
priscianusjr
@jurassicpork:
Kirbster
I don’t know. Maybe national political conventions are obsolete in a world of thousands of cable channels if they only preach to their respective parties’ committed choirs. In the pre-cable/satellite days, everyone watched both national political conventions (if they watched TV at all) because that’s all that was presented on the half dozen stations that existed in any particular market. Potential voters got exposed to both platforms with relatively little editorializing, unlike the pre-digested and spun coverage they get from today’s “news” networks. I suspect the majority of American adults of voting age didn’t watch one minute of either convention.
Loviatar
THIS, THIS, THIS
.
Unfortunately for liberal/progressive Democrats, many of them continue to have the same authoritarian zeal and ideas, which made them good Republicans but now they’re are part of the Democratic party. In other words fucking the country up from inside the Democratic party instead of outside as Republicans.
The sad thing is that Democrats want to win so badly that they’re willing to compromise their core principles in order to win over these “Fox” Democrats.
Lyrebird
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hear, hear!!
And I hope you enjoyed hearing Pres. Clinton’s delivery of many of your points (and points made by other FPers here) about policy!
cmorenc
@Kay:
I count myself as someone who “didn’t leave the Republican Party; it left me”, although it’s been a very long time now since I firmly transformed to the progressive camp and left the last vestiges of regret behind over the withering and then death of the once-thriving wing of the GOP that was capable of supporting some progressive approaches as the most prudently pragmatic ways to address certain problems, as well as still being bona fide fiscally responsible. Ironically, Mitt Romney once (not so long ago in fact) appeared to embody a remaining healthy island of this wing of Republicanism, whose future success in the Republican Party had promise to lead to a strong revival of this strain of Republicanism, with its roots in Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, and even oddly enough what better side of Richard Nixon there was (foundation environmental laws, EPA) rather than Robert Taft, Ronald Reagan, and Grover Norquist. Long ago that I became a firm progressive democrat, it still is a profound disappointment that the real Romney turned out to not be an apple not far from the tree of his dad, but a fraudulent prodigal chameleon.
Anyone who still believes the current GOP has any still-living strains of Teddy Roosevelt or Ike in either its genetic DNA or its adoptive relations is simply deluding themselves. The current GOP has been taken over completely by the southern heirs of Jesse Helms, the northern siblings of Paul Ryan, and the intellectual heirs of Anton Scalia and Grover Norquist. All that’s left of Nixon’s legacy is the nasty, paranoid part.
bemused
@Patricia Kayden:
“Dems were too cocky” sounds like Dems should just roll over and be subdued about their platform as opposed to Romney/Ryan who are cocky as hell.
The Moar You Know
@priscianusjr: I went over there and read about twenty of his posts. Got to agree with you; he doesn’t write about politics. He writes about himself. Technical definition of a vanity blog if I ever saw one.
Isn’t this the same guy who shows up here every now and then begging for money?
Kay
@Lyrebird:
I did! I was all excited that Clinton tied Medicare to Medicaid, because that’s TRUE and it’s HUGE. Yay! Someone finally does it!
Medicaid as a program is harmed by being constantly referred to as a program “for the poor”.
I think it allows people to dismiss it as “we’re all being such charitable working class and middle class by sort of tithing to this program for ‘the poor’.
Medicaid is much, much more than “for the poor”. It’s for working class and middle class, too, whether we’re ready to admit that or not. Clinton was telling the truth about Medicaid. It’s a working class and middle class subsidy as much as for “the poor”. I hope congressional Democrats grab it, finally, and USE it.
Cut Medicaid and you’re cutting Medicare. Fact.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
More like it ignores 1992-2000 where the DLC and Blue Dogs were the Future of the Democratic Party. 2000 to 2006 was the demolishment of that assumption.
S. Holland
@The Moar You Know: @The Moar You Know: Amen amen amen!
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
This is like going to a gay bar and declaring “I’m not gay, I just enjoy sex with men.” Well, whatever. We can discuss your identity issues on Nov. 7th.
Somehow the word “Democrat” became a shame-word in our culture. Not really sure what horrible things Democrats are supposed to have done to deserve this, but then again I was a baby in the 1960s.
dww44
@ding dong: What difference does that make, other than open up the possibility of the 2 Mass Senate seats both going Republican? There will be an election to replace Kerry if he leaves to become SOS.
DFH no.6
Kay, I’m with you on the whole “tired of searching the conservative soul” bit.
Almost all true-believing conservatives are selfish, narrow-minded fascist jingo bigots with a simplistic and wrongheaded understanding of history and economics who in earlier times were royalists and supporters of aristocracy and the iron-handed rule of whatever religion was their tradition (obviously, today’s “Taliban” – whether our own Christianists, or Islamic, Hindu, or Jewish versions across the globe, are fully on board that last). Their worldview is tribal and faith-based, the antithesis of open-mindedness and empiricism.
There’s additional nastiness besides, of course, but that’s sufficient for me.
As I’ve told my conservative baby brother (whose primary stated reason for being conservative is the “liberals just want to take the hard-earned money from white folk like me and give it to lazy blacks and Hispanics” simplistic nonsense so typical of white identity-politics resentment in America today):
“There aren’t any lords, ladies, or kings for you to support today, so instead you support the modern version of that — the plutocracy, who laugh at little cannon-fodder fools like you who make their vast power and wealth possible. In an earlier time you would have been cheering on the burning of heretics at the stake and the gibbeting of supposed “witches”. You and I would have been on opposite sides in the Civil War and the American Revolution. You would have been the one wearing the gray in the 1860s defending rich plantation owners’ rights to have slaves, or the one wearing whatever Tories wore while defending King George’s right to rule America like, well, like a king.”
That’s the conservative “soul”. Occasional conversions occur, of course (our esteemed bloghost, and my one brother-in-law, who attended Obama’s Inauguration with me after spending most of the previous 30+ years as a die-hard Republican). But they’re rare, and don’t really give anyone insight into the masses who remain devoted to the evil death-cult of modern movement conservatism.
We don’t need to understand fascists, we need to defeat them. Over and over again, pretty much forever from what I can tell.
1badbaba3
@lamh35: Yeah, it seems like two lifetimes ago, but does anyone remember “Obama’s bad June”? Everyone was being fed that hogwash, in anticipation that SCOTUS was going to hand Das Mittens the election by striking down THE ACA and upholding SB 1070. Fast and Spurious was to have been the cherry on top. And yet…
After getting their ass kicked everyday for just about four years, you would think they’d learn.
Oh, never mind.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
The punditocracy seems to have already gotten its talking points in order. It seems like a freakishly wide consensus amongst the press that the speech was a dull, lazy failure of unprecedented proportions or something.
Along with the usual screechings of conservatives everywhere from the top down of “HE DESTROYED EVERYTHING, GET THAT WORTHLESS KENYAN OUT OF MY COUNTRY NOW!!!!!!”
kofu
The historic Republican Party still exists, in thin traces. Look at the maps of which party won what states around 1900, and compare with a century later. A complete flip, almost state for state.
Party loyalty, party machines, family traditions, etc. The question goes both ways: You have to ask what gets people to change their party affiliation, just as you have to wonder what’s good about group/ethnic/tribal affiliations that people don’t float aimlessly from day to day, year to year.
lamh35
If this is truly their strategy, then this campaign is dumber than a box of rocks (and I’m sorry for the insult to the rocks in this analogy)
A Month of Mistakes?
Um…ok. So the Romney campaign is gonna wait for the “No Drama Obama” campaign to make a series of mistakes and that’s a strategy??? Obama making a series of mistakes…oh like Mittens series of blunders on his European tour? Really? This is a Presidential campaign right, not amateur night at the Apollo, right
If I was Repub, I’d be pissed. I’m not psychic, but my gut tells me they gonna be waiting a long time for those series of mistakes to come.
dww44
@Kay: I would also say that Medicaid has saved many a family of an elderly parent or relative from financial ruin. My widowed Mom worked her entire life, standing on her feet all day in a textile factory that had no pension. When she retired she had nothing but Social Security. As she was classified as a “notch’ baby, sher monthly check was insufficient. So for the next 25 years 3 of her kids supplemented her income so that she could remain independent and in her own home. When she died last September at age 93 with advanced dementia after 5 1/2 years in a nursing home, I am sure she cost Medicaid lots of money. But had it not been there for her and us, we would all be bankrupt by now. And, then what would we do when we enter our late 80’s and need lots of hands-on care?
CarolDuhart2
@pk: I’ve seen this since the late 1960’s when both sides voted for third parties. The Right mostly wised up and went into the Republican Party with few exceptions. The Left is still looking for a third party pony.
If they would become Democrats, at the very least they could move things to the left in places that are pretty left already.
Now party platforms are statements of principles, but who was chairing the meeting? Cory Booker, who wants to be Governor of New Jersey (or Senator). If they joined the party and worked on stuff like this, they would get to work with the Cory Bookers and make change on the inside. The Right learned that a long time ago, and we see the results.
wrb
@jurassicpork:
I’d never read one of J-pork’s blog entries before.
That there wasn’t firebagging, it was true masterbagging.
Betsy
@bemused: There’s nothing the indsiders/villagers/tireswingers love more than to see Dems fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.
CarolDuhart2
@lamh35: Obama? Mistakes? At Crunch Time?
It also shows that they are truly amateur. To try to make your opposing Presidential Campaign make mistakes at a time when the kinks are usually worked out of a campaign and putting your hopes on that, is just as good as wishing something would happen to win.
It’s also clear that they are relying on ads. Romney has never had much of a ground game, and they are scrambling to put together one at the last minute.
Betsy
@lamh35: It’s projection.
Will C
Wow did the first part of your post come off a little bitchy.
Maybe you want them to hold their nose and vote Romney cause he is the guy representing ‘their’ party.
Democrats, always shooting themselves in the foot rather than being happy about the good fortune they might have to convert people.
Kay
@dww44:
Exactly and you’re not alone. I hear this a lot. I like how Clinton started that riff with “a lot of people don’t know this but…”
Now. I ask you. Why don’t a lot of people know this? This is a very important thing, the intersection/connection between Medicaid and Medicare. I think people don’t know it because Medicaid gets cordoned off in this sort of rhetorical “poor people” category and then dismissed, while MEDICARE is treated as “respectable” and “middle class”.
Clinton put them together, and they should be together. We need less weepy pleading on behalf of “the poor” and more truth-telling on who gets what in this country. It will be be better for “the poor” and for everyone else if we start talking in real terms about these programs.
Betsy
@CarolDuhart2: And yet, $150 million in ad buys in recent weeks (did I get that right?) has moved the needle not an inch in Romney’s direction.
ThresherK
@CarolDuhart2: The amazing thing is that we heard this idea during the GOP convention.
I’d have guessed we’d be subjected last weekend to the meme that “The GOP was awesome in Tampa! In a totally unrelated story, are conventions suddenly obsolete before the Dems hold theirs in Charlotte?”
(This story may have been filed someplace. I don’t know if I’m kidding anymore.)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@lamh35:
__
The GOP strategy session must have gone something like this:
MITT: Who did we lose?
RYAN: Michigan.
ROVE: Pennsylvania.
MITT: And Ohio. Five.
ROVE: Three, sir!
MITT: Three. Well, we’ll not risk another frontal assault. That donkey’s dynamite.
KOCH: Would it help to confuse him if we ran away more.
MITT: Shut up. Go and change your armor.
[KOCH leaves, walking strangely]
ROVE: Let us taunt it. It may become so cross that it will make a mistake.
MITT: Like what?
[ROVE cannot find a suitable answer to this]
ROVE: Do we have any bows?
MITT: No.
RYAN: We have the Holy Hand Grenade
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Interestingly it was the opposite for me. My turning from Republican to Democrat happened about the same time I went from non-practicing freethinker to practicing Christian. I’ve bounced back from that since, but it didn’t seem like a contradiction at the time and it still doesn’t. The number of ways they reject Jesus’ message, the extreme materialism of the ideology, the embrace of sins going from greed to murder, their beliefs seemed at least as anti-Christian to me as those of Communists. They still do.
Some Loser
@Will C:
Where did she say or imply she wasn’t grateful of their votes? It just seems she is tired of this particular thing popping up all the time and expressed confusion of why they are the way they are.
aimai
@dww44:
Its a perfect storm and people who haven’t yet hit it don’t grasp it. In a by necessity two income working family there is no one home anymore to physically care for an elderly person, and yet people are living longer, with massive mental and physical disabilities. First it costs a ton of money to maintain them in independent living even if its just rent on a studio apartment, then it costs a ton of money to maintain their fragile health, then it takes a ton of intervention and labor to help them remain independent and later be watched or be entirely bedridden.
Not everyone has children at all, not everyone has children they are close to, not everyone has children able to take on this burden–especially the lower down the social and housing scale you go.
And yet people who are right on the cusp of this issue–that is: they are hanging on to the middle class, they have a house with an extra bedroom, and their parents have SS and Medicare are angry that their parents have to “spend down assets” in order to get Medicaid. They think nothing of letting their congressmen block grant Medicaid or set eligibility at whatever percent of absolute poverty when it comes to other people’s parents and children. But when these laws apply to them they are outraged and surprised.
Tom’s great post on transfer of intergenerational wealth was really on point here–people are living long enough to outlast any asset management strategy available to the middle class or the working class (if people even have assets anymore) and the crash in value of the biggest assets like the home has meant that there’s nothing to transfer to the kids in exchange for home health care. But the structural aspects of this escape a lot of people–its happening and its happening to them but its like a tidal wave. By the time it crashes over you its too late to realize that THIS WAS WHAT THE DEMS AND REPUBLICANS WERE TALKING ABOUT all the time you ignored politics and policy because “they are all alike” and “I don’t like the way that speaker blinked” or “I was too busy with real life issues to attend to the election.”
aimai
jenn
Kay, I have to admit that I understand your larger point re the Republican guest, but I’m uncomfortable with the mocking, too. He’s THERE, unlike a gazillion of so-called Democrats, and I think he deserves some benefit of the doubt there. Plus, give him another four years and he may end up being another John Cole! But most folks need encouragement, Or at least not discouragement. I dont know, I’m just imagining him coming by here. Some of us just suck at small talk!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Chris:
Mainstream Christianity has had a split personality from the very beginning. It was both a egalitarian and communitarian system of social ethics and a tradional devotional cult and mystery religion. You can tell which aspect a particular church focuses on by paying attention to which part of Jesus’ biography they give greater emphasis to. If the incarnation and passion are the focus, that is the devotional side of Christianity. If the focus is on Christ’s Ministry then it is the social ethics side. One side pays attention to the words preached by Christ as an adult, the other side reveres the infant Christ and the dead and ressurected Christ.
Devotional religions need material offerings and over time they tend to both attract the support of wealthy and powerful elites in the host society, but also get co-opted by the latter and put to use supporting the elites social, economic and cultural agendas. Obviously these two aspects (the egalitarian and the elitist) are in direct conflict with each other and much of the history of Christianity can be understood as a series of struggles for dominance and control between these two aspects of it, a struggle which was a continual source of the innumerable schisms and heresies that are such a prominent feature of Christianity in particular.
My theory is that by the time of the European Enlightenment these two aspects of Christianity had became so irreconcilable that they effectively split up, i.e. they got a divorce, moved out and set up seperate households. The political Left is the inheritor of the social ethics aspect, now largely secularized, and the political Right is the inheritor of the devotional aspect.
There are days when I wonder if this is an unhealthy state of affairs and we should be trying to heal this split and bring the two halved back together, because alone and in isolation each aspect of this Christian legacy contains weaknesses and vulnerabilities which very bad people have exploited for their own ends, vulnerabilities which are mitigated by the other aspect of the Christian heritage.
Steve
I’m sure Kay was perfectly nice to the guy. If she can be nice to the BJ commentariat then I’m confident she can pretty much put up with anyone.
Chris
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Interesting points all. In retrospect I thought Christianity had basically gone down the same road as socialism – starts out as a universalist belief popular among the poor and lower classes preaching a message of brotherhood, love and charity, then gets corrupted by the power-hungry into a tribal identity supporting biotry, hatred and greed. Never thought of it as being a split personality thing that goes back to the very beginning, though you make a good point (and correct in my observation) about the split between people who follow his teachings and people who worship his death/resurrection.
jenn
@Steve: I’m sure she was too. I just don’t find it unlikely to think that a liberal Republican who’s working For Obama’s re-election and is therefore somewhat engaged might not find himself at least lurking on a blog formed by someone who’s made the same transition. And even if not, he’s there, he’s involved, unlike most actual Dems. That goes a long way for me.
Chris
@jenn:
That’s a good point.
Personally I don’t care what people are registered as as long as they vote. I remember seeing a chart back in the Bush years showing that the U.S. had significantly more registered Democratic Party members than Republican, but clearly that hadn’t stopped most Americans from voting Bush in (probably including quite a few Ds). So if you want to be officially Republican because Abraham Lincoln was your favorite president or because you remember when Republicans still had a liberal wing or because you’re just too busy or too lazy to change your registration… whatever, dude. Just as long as you’re a D when you’re in the voting booth.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Chris:
__
The reason I say this split goes back to the beginning is that if you look at the history of early Christianity as it spread thru the Roman Empire, it was in competition with other mystery religions like Mithraism for the same pool of potential converts; not all of the early Christians converted only because of the social ethics, many of them were attracted to the devotional aspect. This is also noticeable in places outside of the Roman Empire (like Ireland for example) where the conversion of a previously pagan society to Christianity started with the conversion and baptism of local elites and then worked its way down the social ladder, not up.
cckids
@DFH no.6:
Love it! The daughter asked me last election, in all seriousness, if the GOP’s color was red because they identified with the Brit redcoats.
Kay
@Chris:
I see both your points, but the truth is I DO get tired of everyone sort of celebrating the brave Republican who breaks ranks and just taking all these Democrats for granted.
I do want you to know I wasn’t unkind or unwelcoming to him. It’s just that I think there’s this tendency among Democrats to point to Republicans to validate Democrats. I think it’s great that Charlie Crist wants to back Barack Obama. I’m just not going to be falling all over him in gratitude. I see the same sort of dynamic with Andrew Sullivan, not here, now, but in ’08 I felt it. It’s like we need his Tory seal of approval. We’re always pointing to renegade Republicans like “see? even Republicans dislike Republicans!” I just personally feel sort of past needing that.
I gave him a yard sign free! I usually try to hit people up for three bucks for those! :)
dww44
@Kay: Thanks, it’s also interesting to note that it was my diehard conservative brother who decided 4 to 5 years ahead of Mom’s going into a nursing home to take her one financial asset, her $30,000.00 home, out of her name and transfer to ours, and then to apply to get her on Medicaid. This is the same brother who ahead of the ACA vote said to me that surely I didn’t believe that our financially strapped older brother “deserved” as much health care as we did. At the time, I didn’t realize I was listening to the newest conservative anti universal health care meme. But this brother also had no problem with accessing the system to get benefits that would and did mitigate our own personal outlays Don’t get me wrong, we continued to spend lots on supplementing her care inside the nursing home, including 3 years of so of sitters.
Kay
@dww44:
Oh, sure, it’s smart, because there’s a look-back at transferred assets. I loved the Castro speech at the convention because of the notion of a relay, not a race, but applying it in a much more hard-headed way. That’s an intergenerational middle class subsidy, is what you got there, in Medicaid. Your conservative brother is up 30k thanks to a program he probably derides.
I was once listening to Michelle Bachmann try to explain her way out of the farm subsidies her husband’s family receives. She’s bullshitting us, and she’s a tax lawyer, or was, so she KNOWS she’s bullshitting us. HER KIDS will benefit from that federally subsidized property, next generation. She can play “bootstrap” all she wants, but the facts are she’s passing an asset to the next generation that holds value because of a federal subsidy.
dww44
@aimai: Thanks for your whole post and particularly for this:
We’ve a close cousin whose parents were financially way better off than my Mom. Both of them had to have long periods of health care, the father in a nursing home and the Mom at home. This cousin was very resentful that one had to spend down one’s assets to qualify for Medicaid that both needed. They financed their care with the sizeable farm asset the parents owned. The cousin (female) is even more of a diehard, talk radio listening conservative than my brother is.
Chris
@Kay:
Oh, I didn’t think you’d been unkind or unwelcoming. And I totally see your point. I think the reason people point to Republicans so much though is kind of just our version of “Even the liberal New York Times…” It’s trying to say “look, you people are so extreme and radical and isolated that even your own people are abandoning you!”
johnny willamette (rhymes with godammit)
I can’t help but thinking that anyone who still identifies as a ‘moderate’ republican at this point in time is going to be looking for a way to avoid some very ugly truths about themselves.
They’re trying real hard to avoid looking in the eye the creature they know is there. (The teabaggers are trying real hard to avoid even acknowledging the creature they kinda sorta already know is there).
The monster has backed these ‘moderates’ into a corner and they are looking for something to help them face it. They can’t gaze upon their Gorgon directly. They need something to filter, deflect, reflect. They’re looking for the equivalent of Perseus’ shield.
I guess that guy wanted you help him with that.
Kay
@Chris:
I sometimes extend my feelings about “famous” conservatives (Crist, Sullivan) to regular people, which is probably wrong, so I’ll try to stop doing that. Internet world collides with real world.
It’s true that I’m past ass-kissing, though. I feel like it lowers the bar to say “it’s SO GREAT that Charlie Crist told the truth about Obama’s efforts to help Florida!” which is what I heard from the assembled Democrats last night.
That’s what Crist should be doing, if that’s in fact what happened. He doesn’t get extra credit for ordinary decent behavior.
Chris
@DFH no.6:
Oh, and I forgot –
This.
I’ll admit that I’m fascinated (morbid of me, I know) by the process of how these far right psychos come to power – Paxton’s “An Anatomy of Fascism” is one of the best books I’ve read in a while, and I do mean to get around to Perlstein’s books eventually. But as for what actually goes on inside their minds, they’re just fucked in the head, not much to understand.
Chris
@Kay:
Cue Chris Rock’s routine about wanting credit for things they’re supposed to do. “What do you want, a cookie?”
Kay
@Chris:
I’ll give you an Ohio example. We had a really bad Democratic AG once. The Democratic Party pushed him, and he won a primary against a much better lawyer. “Better lawyer”? Let’s say “better person in every way”. So, if asked, I trashed the Democratic AG. He was terrible at the job. He eventually had to resign, which was completely predictable from the moment he won the primary. But I didn’t expect all sorts of kudos from local Republicans for admitting the obvious, nor did they give me any.
Another Halocene Human
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Meh. I’ve never been convinced that Christianity, per se, needed to be saved.
It’s a free country–what’s wrong with people freestyling their own devotional religion? That organized religion thing never ends well.