Last night, Barack Obama won an election of tremendous historical and political significance. As an Obama supporter, I'm certainly very pleased with the victory as well as the positive reception his election has received around the world.
But my celebratory exterior belies the nerd within. I must have spent 18 out of the last 24 hours staring at that electoral map, trying to uncover the secrets behind Obama's lopsided drubbing of John McCain. Certainly, if you are one to believe the pre-election polling, this kind of performance was expected of Obama. In spite of these polling data, McCain's claims of a comeback and the so-called "Bradley Effect" left many on both sides of the aisle uncertain about what would happen on November 4th. As it turns out, the election went almost exactly according to the pre-election polling. Obama even stands to add icing to the cake if he wins either of the two remaining undecided races in Missouri and North Carolina.
So how did he do it? I'll save the hard analysis for another day, but studying the electoral map and comparing it to the 2004 election geography, some very telling facts arise that help tell the story of Obama's victory:
If you give North Carolina to Obama and Missouri to McCain (as it appears it will go), Obama will end up winning 364 electoral votes, 94 more than is needed to win and 78 more than Bush's 286 electoral votes won in 2004. It is also 26 more than Karl Rove predicted.
In addition to holding every blue state from 2004, Obama won nine states in 2008 that John Kerry lost: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
In addition to the newly acquired blue states, Obama pushed McCain in other traditionally red states. Obama got within ten percentage points of McCain in seven states carried by Bush in 2004: Missouri (-1 point), Montana (-3 points), Georgia (-5 points), North Dakota (-8 points), South Dakota (-8 points), Arizona (-9 points) and South Carolina (-9 points). Bush carried these states by an average of 16.3 points.
In the 2004 "Bush States," Bush beat Kerry by an average margin of victory of 18.2 percent. In these same states in 2008, McCain beat Obama by an average of only 9.5 percent.
Obama won his home state of Illinois by 25 points, while McCain won Arizona by only 9 points. (Obama also won his former home state of Hawaii by 45 points.)
In 2004 Kerry won six states by 3 or fewer points: Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Obama won these same six states by an averageof 12.3 points.
Compared to Bush in 2004, McCain performed better in only two states, Louisiana and Arkansas. McCain did roughly the same in Alaska and Tennessee, and worse than Bush in the remaining 46 states.
Tomorrow, in an event nearly two years in the making, Americans will finally elect their next President. The McCain campaign and the right wing media are attempting to interpret the most minute of polling fluctuations as McCain "closing the gap" on Barack Obama. The reality is that, while McCain is seeing a slight increase in support, so is Obama, a result of undecided voters solidifying their choice as November 4th approaches. The election analysis site fivethirtyeight.com currently gives Obama a 98.1% chance of winning. Pollster.com still has Obama leading comfortably in swing states of Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and leading slightly in Florida, Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina. CNN's Poll of Polls shows very similar findings. Fivethirtyeight.com projects Obama to win 340 electoral votes to McCain's 198. By Pollster.com estimates, McCain would need to win every toss up state and every blue leaning state to get the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win.
That said, many are predicting a very tight race much like we saw in 2000 and 2004. Why do people still think McCain can win? As far as I can tell, there are really only three reasons anyone can still hold out hope for McCain:
1. The "Bradley Effect"
The much-publicized phenomenon named for former Los Angeles mayor and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley has been used as evidence of a possible unreliability of pre-election polling. The idea is that a social desirability bias exists among polling respondents, causing them to tell pollsters they intend to vote for a minority candidate when in fact they do not. Some believe this effect can make as much as a 6 percentage point difference, which could swing some Obama-leaning states over to McCain.
2. Undecided voters will vote McCain
There is an idea floating around that undecided voters will opt for McCain because he is seen as more experienced and less risky. Also, some undecideds actually represent "Bradley Effect" McCain voters who claim to be undecided so as not to appear negative to the ethnic minority candidate. While there may be some merit to that idea, it is probably not that significant an edge for McCain, and the undecided voters currently only make up 3-4% of respondents polled. Even if the undecideds go for McCain 2 to 1, that only represents 2-3 percentage points, not enough to tip the balance in his favor in critical swing states.
3. GOP election-day shenanigans
Rolling Stone recently published an article detailing the GOP strategy to suppress to vote. Stricter voter registration laws will no doubt result in many eligible voters being turned away at the polls due to ID issues, typos and technicalities. The long lines that plagued many Democratic-leaning precincts in 2004 have already been an issue in early voting locations. Add to that Republican voter intimidation campaigns, phony claims of voter fraud, and voting machine "glitches," and it's easy to see why Republicans like McCain's chances despite polling data to the contrary.
Do I believe these things will have an effect on the election? Absolutely. Do I think they will tip the election in McCain's favor? Not by a long shot. In fact, I tend to believe Obama will win by pretty much the same margins the polls are predicting, if not more. For every election day unknown that benefits McCain, there is an equally compelling unknown working in Obama's favor:
A. Cellphone-only households.
Public opinion surveys, while often very reliable, do not take into account households (like mine) that have no land line telephone. Paul Maslin, Salon.com contributor and partner at the public opinion firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, noted that cellphone-only voters made up 7.1% of all voters in 2004. That number is likely to be much higher this year. So why does this help Obama? Because this demographic is more highly represented by young adults, minorities and the poor, all more likely to vote for Obama. Maslin suggests that the cellphone-only factor will likely give Obama an additional 2% to 4% boost nationwide. That is roughly equivalent to the percentage of undecideds McCain hopes will swing to his side.
B. The Enthuisiasm Gap
While survey firms usually only include data of "likely voters," not all likely voters are created equal. In a recent ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 63% of Obama supporters were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate. Only 29% of McCain supporters felt that way about the GOP candidate. One can fairly safely assume that the more enthusiastic a voter is for his/her candidate, the more like he/she is to actually vote for that candidate. Assuming the polling data are correct, Obama supporters are simply more likely to get to the polls than McCain supporters. Not only does enthusiasm increase voter turnout among the enthused, it also has the beneficial side effect of generating a massive volunteer staff, as the Obama campaign has done. Not only will Obama enthusiasts get to the polls, they will get others to the polls. Even with the addition of Sarah Palin to pander to the Evangelical Republican base, support for McCain-Palin remains tepid when compared to Obamamania.
Looking at the electoral map, McCain needs to win several states where Obama currently holds leads of 5 to 10 percentage points (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia and Nevada). The Bradley Effect, undecided voters and GOP vote suppression will certainly have an impact. The problem for McCain is that that impact will likely be offset and then some by the turnout of cellphone-only voters and Obama enthusiasts. I believe factors A and B to be much more influential than factors 1, 2 and 3. So for McCain to win, he would essentially need ALL THREE factors to happen and for factors A and B not to happen. This scenario is highly unlikely. More likely, in my opinion, is that Obama will actually beat pre-election polling numbers. McCain's factors can only account for a few percentage points here and there. In other words, there is a limit to how much these factors can actually benefit McCain. For Obama, the enthusiasm behind his candidacy and the massive Get Out the Vote campaign have the ability to drastically impact voter turnout. With voter turnout typically around 50-60% for presidential elections, there is a large amount of room for this to swing the vote in Obama's favor.
So, given that pre-election polling is historically very accurate and whatever undetectable advantages McCain has will likely be cancelled out by Obama's own untapped voting blocs, I am predicting a rather easy victory for the Obama-Biden ticket tomorrow. I won't go as far as to predict a landslide, because A) I'm not sure how to appropriately define "landslide" and B) it's not a good idea for someone who favors an Obama presidency to get complacent a day before the election. This will, however, be a large victory - and an historic one - for Barack Obama. Today, Monday, November 3, 2008, a man of mixed race and a Muslim-sounding name is poised to defeat the deep-pocketed, corporately-driven Republican smear machine. He is in this position in spite of widespread lies and distortions spread about him by his opponent, and a general campaign of fear and appeals to racism coming from the right.
Certainly 2008 has been set up for awhile as a good year for Democrats, with the embarrassing Bush presidency, an unpopular war and a floundering economy. This is precisely why this election can't be close. This election needs to be seen as a referendum on the Republican Party, and quite frankly, anything less than a blowout doesn't send a strong enough message. If McCain only loses by a few percentage points or a couple of dozen electoral votes, it shows that the GOP still has clout. It would show that despite inflicting endless war and reckless economic policies on the American taxpayer, many people still feel this type of leadership is appropriate.
So it's no secret that I'm hoping for (and predicting) a huge victory for Barack Obama. On Wednesday, McCain can go back to the Senate, Palin can return her wardrobe and disappear into the Alaskan wilderness, never to be heard from again.
Oh, and if Obama does win by a landslide, I imagine he'll get Stevie Nicks' permission first so as not to repeat the mistakes of the McCain campaign.
UPDATE:
Karl Rove is even predicting a big victory for Obama, 338-200 in the electoral college.
I just wanted to quickly comment on the following.
Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Republicans have repeatedly attacked Barack Obama for an alleged lack of patriotism. From his absent lapel pin to his wife's "proud of my country" comments, Righty has seized upon every opportunity to paint Obama as someone not all that psyched about the U.S.A. Some have even gone as far as to call Obama Anti-American and a "terrorist." He has even been attacked by his opponents for believing the country is not the "greatest source for good in this world" and is "imperfect." (Shit, at this point I would take imperfect, and maybe like, the 35th greatest source of good in the world.)
While the validity of such attacks can be easily disputed, I would simply like to respond by saying this: Barack Obama is running for President of the United States. As a brilliant, well-spoken and well-liked scholar, Obama could likely earn fame and/or fortune in any number of private sector capacities. He instead has spent much of his adult life as a community organizer, Illinois State Senator and U.S. Senator. Now he is seeking the highest office in the country and arguably the world. President of the United States is a tough job, a thankless job, and for Barack Obama, a very dangerous job.
Yesterday, federal authorities disrupted a neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Senator Obama. It is the second such plot uncovered, after authorities arrested three would-be Colorado assassins in August. The Tennessee-based neo-Nazis planned to kill Obama and go on a shooting spree at a "predominantly African-American school." Here's a photo of the nutjob, pulled from his MySpace page:
Whether or not these threats are legitimate remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that there is an element that exists in the United States that welcomes the assassination of this political figure. It's becoming clear that Obama is not so much "The One," but rather The One Right-Wing Radicals Have Been Waiting Their Whole Lives to Assassinate. After all, this is a nation with a history of offing its most charismatic, influential and forward-thinking leaders. Obama is a radical neo-Nazi's wet dream: a little Kennedy, a little MLK.
I am in no way suggesting that the views of these radical racist elements represent the right as a whole. Certainly they inhabit the right half of the political spectrum, but I'll spare right-wingers from any guilt-by-association smear. The point I'm trying to make is that by attempting to lead a violent, gun-toting nation with a history of racism and demonization of the left, Obama is taking a pretty big risk. He's doing so, in essence, to take on probably the most difficult and stressful public service job in the world. So stop claiming this guy is un-American, a Muslim or a terrorist. Stop harping on his lapel pins and his middle name. This is a guy who has the opportunity to bring the nation together and move it forward. To to so, he has chosen to campaign in the lion's den, speaking to large outdoor crowds in the South, Western Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, and so on. This likely caused him a few sleepless nights. And if elected, we will likely hear about similar assassination plots every few months or so.
So while Obama might not be a great war hero, but one could easily say he is putting his life on the line to serve his country. Regardless of how one feels about Obama's political views, it's time for the questions about his patriotism to end.
I just had to comment on this. Thanks to The Press-Enterprise and Thinkprogress for picking this one up.
For those of us in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire is sort of like our retarded cousin to the east. The IE (or the 909) is like having a little bit of Alabama right in your own backyard. Whenever COPS is not filmed in the South, it's in the IE. The 909 is to air quality what China is to civil liberties. You get the idea. Every so often they do a bad thing and have to be reprimanded. You can't really blame them for doing the bad thing. They are, after all, the IE. But they still need to be learn that what they did was wrong.
This week the Press-Enterprise reported on a disturbing newsletter circulated by a RanchoCucamonga based Republican women's group. The newsletter contained what was meant as a critique of Barack Obama's claim that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Here's what they came up with:
Let me just say that I typically have a pretty high threshold for racism. There are many occasions when claims of racism are bandied about inappropriately. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE OCCASIONS. This is so racist that it just slaps you in the face. There's a great Dave Chappellestand-up routine where he talks about this kind of racism:
Have you ever had something happen that was so racist that you didn't even get mad?...I mean it was so blatant you were just like "Wow." Almost like it didn't even happen to you, it was like a fucking movie.
Aside from the collard greens and pigs feet, the illustrator pretty much nailed all of the African American food stereotypes. Now I have to come clean for a minute. As a teenager, my friends and I once regrettably took part in a "traditional black picnic," for black history month, featuring pretty much the same fare depicted on the "Obama Bucks." I now realize that the picnic idea probably amounted to racism. Victimless racism, but racism nonetheless.
The problem with the above depiction of Obama is that is was circulated to members of the community, as supposedly representing the organization's members. Of course, this kind of thing shows up all the time in Republican-affiliated newsletters and websites (here, here, here, here, and here). Appeals to racism generally work to the GOP's advantage. What made this story unique in my opinion, was the utterly moronic claim of ignorance on the part of the person responsible for the newsletter's circulation. Diane Fedele, president of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, said this of the illustration:
I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected. It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else.
Yeah, no. Nobody is buying for a minute the idea that watermelon, fried chicken, ribs and Kool-Aid are "just food" whilst encircling a black man. There are times when I may be ignorant to racism. I'll hear someone cry racism and I say to myself, "Wow, really? That's racist? Good to know." Like apparently Jar Jar Binks was racist. Not a racist, mind you, but I guess the character invoked some unfortunate black stereotypes. I don't know. But this Obama Buck crap is different. I assure you if I were a contestant on the Pyramid, and my partner rattled off those four foods, I'd be like, "Dude, you had me at watermelon: Foods Black People Like to Eat!"
So don't sit there and try to tell people you didn't know it was a racial stereotype. Stop saying that you don't see the color of people's skin, only the character of their soul. Wait! Let me guess. You had a friend in college who was black, right? I knew it. Just stop it already. We get it. You're a racist. You thought it would be funny. You thought no one would say anything because they're all racists too. It's fine. Some people are just racists. Just stop telling people you didn't know any better, because fucking dogs knew that picture was racist.
Damn. Now I'm hungry.
UPDATE:
Tonight, Keith Olbermann named Diane Fedele his Worst Person in the World for her lame brained excuse given for circulating the racist newsletter.
When I began this blog, it was meant in large part to be a kind of centralized dumping site for all the online discussions and arguments in which I had become engaged. While it has strayed a bit from that ideal, I still like to include occasional commentary from online discussions I have had with Joe Righty (a moniker meant to encompass all right-wing bloggers/commentators with no official ties to mainstream or right-wing media).
As you may know, I utilize YouTube quite often as a primary source of documentary information. Occasionally I feel the urge to comment on a video or on someone else's comment.In researching my last post,Drinking the Sarah Palin Kool-Aid, I came across this gem mockingPalin's ignorance of crucial U.S. foreign policy concepts:
I found the following user comment disturbing and decided to leave a comment. Here is the comment, posted by user jimmyvan1775:
1.You can really tell a lot about a celebrity by their fans. You can also tell a lot about the fans by their choice of celebrity. This guy is a leftist idiot, a real tow the Democrat party line moron. He has the freedom to spew this kind of stupidity; others even have the right to believe it. However, lets remember that the Bush Doctrine has kept us safe to shop, work, go to movies, and yes watch retards like Maher
2. It was the Democrats, Bill Clinton, which treated terrorism as a criminal action rather than an act of war. As a result we enjoyed events such as the first bombing of the WTC, the bombing of our embassies, the bombing of the USS Cole, and the debacle that was Somalia, among other events. Now, in the waning years of the Bush administration, the left has to find a new village idiot. Sarah Palin has more backbone, brains, ands brawn, than the entire left-wing in this country.
I felt compelled to leave the following comment, hoping to set the record straight for the man:
Dude if you think attacking a country without the desire nor the means to attack the U.S. has kept us safe, then you also belong in the Category 5 Moron class. This is what is fundamentally wrong with Neo-conservatism. You believe that your right to shop and go to the movies is more important than an Iraqi citizen's right to be alive. That is an egotistical, reckless and deranged worldview. You wonder why al-Qaeda wants to attack us? Not for our freedoms, but for things like the Bush Doctrine.
Today, I was greeted by this reply from the incensed conservative:
YOU said, "Dude if you think attacking a country without the desire nor the means to attack the U.S. has kept us safe,"
Dude, I don’t think, I KNOW that sending troops into Iraq has KEPT the terrorist IN THE MIDDLE EAST fighting our solders THERE, and that has kept US safe HERE in the continental U.S.
YOU said, "then you also belong in the Category 5 Moron class."
Once again, for the real CAT. 5 Moron here, if we keep the Islamist (those are the bad guys in our story) in the Middle East, they can not set bombs in our backyards. President Bush and the military (those are the good guys) have done exactly that.
"This is what is fundamentally wrong with Neo-conservatism. You believe that your right to shop and go to the movies is more important than an Iraqi citizen's right to be alive."
First of all I am a CONSERVATIVE, none of this neo crap. As a part of my conservative beliefs, I think that when a group of people attack us and kill thousands, like say, I dunno, maybe THE TWINS TOWERS on SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND AND ONE, that give us the absolute RIGHT to kick the tail of ANY HUMAN BEIBNG or ORGINIZATION that is involved with these enemies in any way. By the way, we aren’t fighting and killing Iraqis, we are fighting and killing TERRORISTS that are in Iraq.
"That is an egotistical, reckless and deranged worldview."
What is truly egotistical, reckless, and deranged, is the worldview of idiots with no ability to rationally examine a situation and come to a logical conclusion is somehow given the status of true thought. I mean people that simply absorb the comments made by retards like Maher, are allowed to believe their words are just as valid as the words of someone who truly uses his or her mind.
"You wonder why al-Qaeda wants to attack us? Not for our freedoms, but for things like the Bush Doctrine."
You poor, poor, left wing propaganda casualty. They attack us because we aren’t like them. They attack us because we don’t call God Allah, and we pray whenever we feel like it, and some of us don’t pray at all. They hate us because we treat women with respect and not like dogs and slaves. What happened first? Did we preemptively, unilaterally, enter Iraq happen first? Or did the terror attacks on 9/11 happen first? How can they hate us for something that we had not even considered as a national policy at the time they did what they did? Confusing? Well, let’s make it clear. Al-Qaeda hates us for being us, and not them. As a result of this hatred they attacked us. We determined as a nation that we would find and kill or capture as many terrorist as we could. This led us into Iraq, and thus the “BUSH doctrine”.
Please do some research and thinking, maybe you can break the stranglehold the mainstream media and idiots like Maher have on your mind. Leave the dark side and come over to the light. You can do it!!!!
First, let me say that being smug ("You can do it!!!!") about something of which you are ignorant is neither endearing nor a good way to win an argument. That said, I would like to use this space to reply to the spirited post by jimmyvan1775. "Once again, for the real CAT. 5 Moron here, if we keep the Islamist (those are the bad guys in our story) in the Middle East, they can not set bombs in our backyards. President Bush and the military (those are the good guys) have done exactly that."
This response represents what is fundamentally wrong with most proponents of aggressive military action. The "Good vs. Bad" and "Us vs. Them" scenarios are as inaccurate as they are juvenile. Foreign policy is not a fairy tale. There are not always well-defined good guys and bad guys. When you enter into a conflict believing you're on the "Good" side, then any action taken by that side is deemed infallible. Trust me, I wish global relations were that simple. I wish we were always right. But that kind of myopia is not only ignorant, it's also why many foreign countries despise the United States for our unrepentant unilateralism.
Second, the notion that "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is almost as ludicrous. The Right likes to point to the fact that we have not had a major domestic terrorist attack since the Iraq War began, as if that has prevented an attack. Fair enough. Assuming correlation equals causation, as the user has assumed, here are just a few other significant post-9/11 events that have also thwarted terrorism:
The New England Patriots win the Super Bowl three times (2002, 2004, 2005)
The last episode of "Friends" airs (May 2004)
Hurricane Katrina (August 2005)
Pluto redesignated as a dwarf planet (August 2006)
Martin Scorcese wins first Ocsar for The Departed (February 2007)
Barack Obama becomes first African American major-party presidential candidate (June 2008)
Michael Phelps wins 8 gold medals at Beijing Olympics (August 2008)
It is not any more preposterous to claim these events were related to 9/11 than to make that claim of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Yet right-wingers continue to assert these false links, which have even been debunked even by their own heroes:
September 2003: President Bush admits that there is "no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."
June 2004: 9/11 Commission Report finds no link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.
August 2004: Dick Cheney claims he never made Iraq-9/11 connection.
August 2006: Bush admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, then suggests that no one in the administration ever made that claim.
September 2006: Cheney admits there is no Iraq-9/11 connection.
Even if we could overlook the FACT that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, one would still have a difficult time making the argument that invading a sovereign Arab nation would make us safer here in the U.S. Just looking at the idea at face value, it's difficult to believe that motivated terrorists would stop planning coordinated 9/11 style attacks in favor of essentially becoming cannon fodder in Iraq. As if Osama bin Laden said, "You know...that 9/11 attack went pretty well for us, but what I think we need is to do is go to Iraq and be blown away by tank fire." Bin Laden may be a sociopath, but I give him more credit as a tactician than to believe that.
Of course, the difficulty in convincing Joe Righty using logic is that he often doesn't have the fundamental facts straight. He believes that all terrorists are irrational and only want to attack Americans because they "hate our freedoms." In believing that fallacy (which I will explain in more detail later), Joe Righty essentially feels that nothing the United States actually does will have any effect on the way these people view Americans. That being the case, the only way to prevent more terror is to kill ALL the terrorists, making America safer in the process. As you may have predicted, this is simply not the case. Expert assessments and actual U.S. intelligence have found that the U.S. presence in Iraq is inspiring terrorists and making the world and U.S. citizensless safe. Even General Petraeus, whose word conservatives value just slightly less than the word of God, could only muster an "I don't know" when asked if the Iraq strategy was making Americans safer.
Of course, even if one could claim that we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here," there are still a few obvious moral impediments. One, it's not really fair to Iraqi citizens for their country to be destabilized to the point of civil war so that the United States can outsource its terrorism problem. Imagine, if you could, that China is at war with some radical anti-Chinese element residing in Mexico. Imagine that the Chinese leader says (in his best Bill Lumbergh voice), "Hey, America. Yeah...see we've got this war-type thing going on with some guys down in Mexico, so if you could just...let us occupy your country for the next several years while we fight them. I hope you don't mind. Of course, many of them will cross over here to try and kill our soldiers, and in the process, many American civilians will die in the crossfire. But hey, we need to fight them here so we don't have to fight them at home. 'Mkay?"
The second obvious moral issue is the idea that a U.S. soldiers' death is worth less than the "potential" death of a U.S. civilian. Look, I understand that certain sacrifices are expected to be made when one dons the uniform. What makes the notion of preemptive war so ridiculous is the fact that in sending troops into the line of fire, some will certainly be killed. By comparison, there is no guarantee any Americans will die if troops are not sent into a preemptive battle. Given how shoddy the pre-war intelligence was (lies, exaggerations, forgeries, cherrypicking), what are the odds that a military death has actually saved a civilian life? Five percent? Ten? So much for "an eye for an eye." 3,000 Americans are killed in the 9/11 attacks, and what do we do? We send 4,000 more to die, create violent unrest in Iraq while Osama bin Laden remains a free man. And somehow people who question that strategy are called un-American.
First of all I am a CONSERVATIVE, none of this neo crap.
Not surprisingly, neoconservatives don't much care for that label, probably because of the negative connotation these philosophies have garnered in recent years. But make no mistake about it. "Nation-building" and aggressive foreign policy (i.e. the Bush Doctrine) are hallmarks of neoconservatism. Still not convinced? Here's what some prominent neocons have said about the Bush Doctrine:
William Kristol: "The world's a mess....The danger is not that we're going to do too much. The danger is that we're going to do too little."
Richard Perle: "So the message to Syria, to Iran, to North Korea, to Libya [four countries that have not attacked nor threatened the United States] should be clear. If we have no alternative, we are prepared to do what is necessary to defend Americans and others.
David Horowitz: "Today 'neo-conservatism' identifies those who believe in an aggressive policy against radical Islam and the global terrorists.
Paul Wolfowitz: "if we say our only problem was to respond to 9/11, and we wait until somebody hits us with nuclear weapons before we take that kind of threat seriously, we will have made a very big mistake."
Just because you don't like the label, it doesn't mean it isn't aptly applied.
As a part of my conservative beliefs, I think that when a group of people attack us and kill thousands, like say, I dunno, maybe THE TWINS TOWERS on SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND AND ONE, that give us the absolute RIGHT to kick the tail of ANY HUMAN BEIBNG or ORGINIZATION that is involved with these enemies in any way. By the way, we aren’t fighting and killing Iraqis, we are fighting and killing TERRORISTS that are in Iraq.
Again, Iraq was not at all involved with the September 11th attacks. The attacks were perpetrated almost entirely by Saudis, who received training in Afghanistan. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a Kuwaiti living in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia. And you can't be so naive as to believe we are only fighting "terrorists" in Iraq. Exactly who we are fighting in Iraq is an extremely complex issue, as CNN's embedded reporter Michael Ware explains here. It is fairly common knowledge that the Iraqi insurgency began with the vacuum created by the removal of Saddam Hussein. Initially, the insurgency was born from a combination of Saddam loyalists, Iraqi nationalists (who resented U.S. occupation), disgruntled Iraqi military (whose unit's were disbanded under the Coalition Provisional Authority) and some Islamic radicals. We know that there now exists an al-Qaeda presence, but experts believe it represents a small percentage of the overall fighting, and did not come to be affiliated with al-Qaeda until 2004, after U.S. troops arrived.
Finally, to illustrate just how improbable is the idea that only "terrorists" have been killed in the Iraq War, one need only look at any of the estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths. Estimates run as high as 650,000 civilian casualties. Even if you take the Bush Administration's word for it and assume that only 30,000 Iraqis have died since 2003, that is still 30,000 civilians!!!! Not terrorists, but civilians, and by Bush's own admission. Of course, given the Bush administration's extensive war propaganda machine (here and here), the chance that their estimate is correct is highly unlikely. No one suggesting that the U.S. military gunned down 650,000 Iraqi civilians, only that these people would theoretically still be alive were it not for the American military presence in Iraq. I wonder if jimmyvan1775 remembers the sacrifices these people made when he goes shopping. Probably not.
What is truly egotistical, reckless, and deranged, is the worldview of idiots with no ability to rationally examine a situation and come to a logical conclusion is somehow given the status of true thought. I mean people that simply absorb the comments made by retards like Maher, are allowed to believe their words are just as valid as the words of someone who truly uses his or her mind. I generally try to avoid making statements that, taken out of context would mean virtually nothing without a few key partisan words. For the sake of illustration, I'll break with tradition, and offer this critique of jimmyvan1775:
What is truly egotistical, reckless, and deranged, is the worldview of idiots with no ability to rationally examine a situation and come to a logical conclusion is somehow given the status of true thought. I mean people that simply absorb the comments made by retards like Maher Hannity, are allowed to believe their words are just as valid as the words of someone who truly uses his or her mind.
See what I mean? A virtually universal statement. Although I would submit that my argument has relied on a breadth of information from a variety of actual documented sources, while my conservative counterpart has (I can only assume) relied almost exclusively on Fox News talking points (hand delivered by the White House) to defend...well, the White House. What you find, when you actually fact check and diversify your information stream, is that the conclusions you are able to draw are invariably more valid.
They attack us because we aren’t like them. They attack us because we don’t call God Allah, and we pray whenever we feel like it, and some of us don’t pray at all. They hate us because we treat women with respect and not like dogs and slaves.
I also dealt with this topic several months back. The University of Maryland conducted a public policy survey entitled the 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, a vast survey of the current attitudes of Arab citizens. The polling found that 80% of those surveyed based their opinions about the United States on "American Policy" compared to 12% who responded that "American Values" were most influential. For all we have heard about Muslims "hating freedom," these data really blow that idea out of the water. Certainly there exist some radical elements in the Arab world, and certainly, taken literally, the Koran can be seen as promoting violence against the "infidel". But again, these people represent a very small percentage. Besides, there are many non-Muslim nations throughout the world, often with more liberal societies than that of the United States. Yet it is the United States that, in the same survey, was viewed "Very Unfavorably" by 64% of the Arab world. Does anyone really believe that all this anti-U.S. animosity is created entirely from a disdain for American values? If that is the case, why don't we see similar anti-Chinese, anti-Italian or anti-Brazilian sentiment? They are just as non-Muslim as the United States. Is Brazil any less liberal a society than the United States? Is Italy any less free? The freedom-hating Muslim theory is one that has been debunked so many times, yet it somehow remains a belief espoused by many Americans.
What happened first? Did we preemptively, unilaterally, enter Iraq happen first? Or did the terror attacks on 9/11 happen first? How can they hate us for something that we had not even considered as a national policy at the time they did what they did?
Those are all great rhetorical questions. However, since we have already seen that 9/11 had nothing to do with the Iraq War, these questions are reduced to mere historical trivia rather than the cause and effect relationship the author had hoped to establish. Here are a few more rhetoricals, but this time, with that relationship. What happened first, September 11th or the Reagan-era bombings of Lybia?
What happened first, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or U.S. support of Israel?
What happened first, the U.S.-led coup in Iran and subsequent installation of a puppet government or the Iran hostage crisis of the early 1980's?
In each case, of course, U.S. foreign policy preceeded the terrorist act. Why is there a causal relationship between these events? Because the terrorists that carried out these acts actually said what their motivations were. In fact, in the last several hundred years, I'm not sure there has ever been a terrorist attack on the United States that was the result of hatred of our values. This idea is an invention of the mainstream media and the U.S. government, as a means of deflecting guilt away from our own past military escapades. That is certainly not to say that these terrorist attacks were justified by any means. It says that ignoring the terrorists' motivations and writing off attacks as acts of lunacy does nothing to help thwart future attacks.
We determined as a nation that we would find and kill or capture as many terrorist as we could. This led us into Iraq, and thus the “BUSH doctrine”.
And the notion that "we determined as a nation" to go to war with Iraq is highly suspect. Look at how the nation feels today. As the public came to understand the costs and learned that the justifications for war were flimsy if not outright lies, people withdrew support for the war. Currently 65% oppose the war and only 39% feel we were right to invade Iraq. Certainly the war had more support in the beginning, even in congress. Yet in October 2002 (a month before a congressional election), despite the fact the president and intelligence experts were telling congress that Iraq had nukes and that and Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, 23 Senators and 133 Members of the House boldly voted not to authorize U.S. military involvement in Iraq. So we certainly did not go to war "as a nation" but rather as a nation divided. Once the holes emerged in the pre-war intelligence, support for the war dwindled dramatically and was the primary reason for the 2006 shift of power in congress.
Please do some research and thinking, maybe you can break the stranglehold the mainstream media and idiots like Maher have on your mind. Leave the dark side and come over to the light. You can do it!!!!
Well, I decided to take him up on this little challenge. How'd I do? I certainly outdid him on the research aspect, but let's examine the question of "thinking" for a bit. Which would you say requires more thinking?
- Constructive criticism or name-calling ("idiots", "retard")
- Relativism and objectivity or "Good Guys" versus "Bad Guys"
- Careful, documented analysisor regurgitation of GOP talking points
Naturally, the options inblueexhibit more sound reasoning than the chest-pounding, knee-jerk type of responses seen in red.
Perhaps most disappointing about jimmyvan1775's post is the fact that he never quite addresses the main point of my comment, the critique of his claim that Americans should have the right to shop and go to the movies even if it means the deaths of many innocent people. I suppose my opponent would counter by claiming that no innocent Iraqi was killed, as all Iraqis are terrorists. Really? Even the women and children? They were all terrorists too, huh?
Finally, a few words now for jimmyvan1775:
Whether or not you choose to believe it, yours is an insulated worldview, shared by an ever-dwindling number of like-minded individuals. In fact, we are both in the minority with respect to our views on the Iraq War. I opposed the war from the beginning. You still support it now. In between, 35% of Americans withdrew their initial support for the war, with about 60% currently opposed, according to Gallup polling. Only about 40% support the war. Who are these people? Basically, they are the ill-informed, or should I say, misinformed. Despite the notion being debunked by the 9/11 commission and the Bush administration, 30% of Americans still believe Saddam was "personally involved" in the 9/11 attacks. In an internet world where information is so readily available, how are so many Americans so wrong about major current events? Is it stubbornness? Intellectual laziness? Fox News? Whatever the cause, Americans need to start allying themselves with the facts rather than blindly following the leader. The United States was founded on dissent. The founding fathers saw it necessary to include freedom of speech, freedom of the press and checks and balances to dissuade groupthink from stifling dissent. Because of these allowances, the truth about the Iraq War has come out and many Americans have changed their minds. Certainly you too are allowed dissent from the mainstream and continue to tow the GOP party line, but why would you? Why cling to beliefs that are just not true? Do you still believe the Earth is flat? Do you still think slavery was moral? Do you still think witches ought to be burned? Assuming the answer to each is no, why do you still cling to the idea that the Iraq War has anything to do with September 11th or making Americans safer? In this age of information, you have every opportunity to acquaint yourself with the truth. I humbly implore you to do so.
When John McCain picked Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate on August 29th, the campaign got a quick jolt of energy from the party's social conservative base, resulting in a momentary boost in the polls. This initial energy was met almost immediately with very pertinent questions about Palin's qualifications to hold the highest political office in the country. Since then, opinion of the governor has been on the decline, spurred on by her "Bridge to Nowhere" lies, the "Troopergate" scandal, her daughter's "shotgun weddin'", dead moose carcases, speaking in tongues, book burning, and a seemingly endless supply of public gaffes that would make Miss Teen South Carolina blush. As a result, the McCain campaign has seen a 5 percentage point lead in Gallup polling turn into a 9 point deficit.
So if McCain doesn't exactly have a Palin Problem, at best his campaign has seen zero net effect from her joining the ticket. The idea that Palin is not qualified to be President of the United States is hardly a matter of opinion. Holding office as governor of a small state and mayor of a very small town do not make an impressive resume. Say what you will about Barack Obama's lack of experience, but at least he has had experience at the national level. I would prefer a candidate with four years in the U.S. Senate to one with fifty years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Public opinion seems to agree. 57% of those surveyed in a October 3 CNN poll said that Sarah Palin was not qualified to serve as president, compared to 18% who felt the same about Joe Biden. (It is interesting to note the very low number for Biden here. Almost any poll conducted about a candidate's likability, favorability, or readiness typically skews along party lines, with results usually falling between the 35% and 60% levels. Biden's 18% - compared to 80% who believe he IS qualified - is a staggeringly low number. This means a lot of Republicans swallowed their pride and admitted Biden is indeed prepared for the job and Sarah Palin is not.)
Certainly Obama's credentials can be debated. I would even feel more comfortable if he had one more term in the Senate. But when John McCain (the same John McCain who has cancer and would be the oldest president ever to take office) selected a first term governor of Alaska as his running mate, experience, for all practical purposes, was taken off the table. After all, who in their right mind would say that an already embattled first term governor from the nation's 47th most populous state is more qualified to lead the United States than a man who taught constitutional law for 12 years, was a state senator and community organizer from the third most populous city in the country, and served in the U.S. Senate for four years?
The answer, of course, is no one. No one in their right mind, that is. That hasn't prevented the radical right from not only coming to the defense of the flailing Palin, but from engaging on some sort of Palin worship that truly boggles the mind. Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt is currently working on a book entitled, How Sarah Palin Won the Election ... and Saved America. Another conservative pundit, Randall H. Nunn, had this observation: Sarah Palin is "quite possibly the strongest candidate conservatives have seen since Ronald Reagan." What? Not better than Reagan? So you can see the kind of derangement I'm talking about. That said, I give you my Top 7 Most Ridiculous Things said in Defense of Sarah Palin:
7. Palin is a "real person" and that qualifies her to be President. Ironically, Republicans seem to love Sarah Palin because there is nothing exceptional about her. When news of Palin's pregnant 17 year old daughter was announced, Republicans lined up to praise Palin for it. The pregnancy made Palin "a real person like all the rest of us" and "show[ed] the Republican Party is a real American party," according to two RNC delegates. Conservative pundit Frank Salvato more eloquently stated Palin's qualifications thusly:
At this, our country’s most critical hour, when irreverent forces – both foreign and domestic – strive to destroy our nation, we should all be thankful that a real American, with real life experience as a citizen and a patriot’s love of country, chooses to exercise civic responsibility.
You can almost hear "Battle Hymn of the Republic" in the background. New York Times contributer Judith Warner summed up the right's affection for "real people" over qualified people in her blog:
One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can “relate” to.
Or, as Bill Maherless eloquently put it, "shit-kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they wanted to have a beer with and everybody else had to suffer the consequences." As long as the GOP continues to lose on the issues, they will frame this election as "The Real People" versus "The Elitists." Of course, the Democrats could just as easily frame the election as "The Smart People" versus "The Dumb People" or "The Wrong Ideas" versus "The Right Ideas," but they shouldn't have to. Being "elite" is not a bad thing, nor does it make one an elitist. No offense to all the "real people" out there (a group to which I also belong), but let's leave the job of governing the greatest power in the world to the elites this time.
6. Defending censorship. Michelle Malkin posted on her website an entry entitled, "The Bogus Sarah Palin Banned Books List," assailing an obviously phony list circulating the internet after evidence of Sarah Palin's desire to ban books as mayor of Wasilla surfaced. The problem with Malkin's rescue effort: nowhere does she refute the story that Palin tried to ban books, only that the "list" was a fake. And she does so with such self-satisfaction as to make one's stomach turn. Palin's book-banning is a story that I don't think has gotten nearly enough traction. She later tried to terminate the librarian who opposed banning books. After a public outcry, Palin backed down, claiming the librarian was marked for termination because she was friendly to her opponent in the most recent mayoral election. A couple of things to take from this episode. One, the book banning allegations have not been sufficiently debunked. Two, I seriously doubt there was hardcore porn on the shelves at the Wasilla Library. Chances are, Palin was seeking to censor books with an anti-Christian or anti-Conservative message. Three, you know you're small potatoes when you send a political payback message to the town librarian. I hope the janitors at city hall support Palin if they value their jobs.
5. The faux outrage over Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment. Even though John McCain and other politicians have used the common expression, many claimed it was directed at Sarah Palin. Of course, Obama was talking about McCain's policies, not Palin, but the McCain campaign and the right-wing media went forward with the outrage anyway. Jane Swift, head of the "Palin Truth Squad," seemed to think it was crystal clear: "Senator Obama uttered what I can only describe to be disgusting comments, comparing our vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, to a pig." Swift also noted that "she's the only one of the four presidential candidates or vice-presidential candidates who wears lipstick." Well, that's good enough for me. Here's the entire right-wing thought process on this one (in your best caveman voice): "Palin say lipstick. Obama say lipstick. Me mad!!!"
Right-wing tough guy Sean Hannity maintained the faux outrage even after guest Mike Huckabee refuted the claim. September 9th on Hannity and Colmes, the clip of Palin's hockey mom/pit bull knee-slapper was played immediatly preceeding the Obama "lipstick" comment. After Huckabee explained the ubiquity of the expression, Hannity insisted that, "He's talking about Sarah Palin," and it's "naive and irresponsible" to believe otherwise.
This phony "pig" controversy is made even more ridiculous by the fact that it's being feuled by the campaign of a man who actually joked about the physical appearance of a political opponent's teenaged daughter:
"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."
-John McCain, 1998
4. Palin's bogus foreign policy credentials. Perhaps the most hilarious defense of Sarah Palin is the idea that Alaska's geographic proximity to eastern Russia somehow gives her adequate foreign policy experience to be President. First, how does physical proximity yield experience? I live down the street from a hospital, but I wouldn't say I'm qualified to be a doctor. Yet Palin herself made this moronic claim, after the right began repeating it ad nauseum. Fox's Steve Doocy made the claim on Fox and Friends on August 29th (the day Palin was nominated), saying, "she does know about international relations because she is right up there in Alaska right next door to Russia." A few days later, Cindy McCain repeated it. Then John McCain said it. Even if Palin's foreign policy theory were true, it would only be helpful if the U.S. were to enter into a conflict with Russia (or, I suppose, Canada). As Palin will soon learn, there are 190 other countries in the world, many of which share no border with the United States.
3. Criticism of Palin = sexism. Let's get one thing perfectly clear: if Barack Obama had chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate, no one outside of Alaska would know who Sarah Palin is. McCain certainly could have chosen Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback if he really wanted to appeal to the Christian conservative base. He chose Palin because she is a woman, plain and simple. That is the very essense of sexism. But to hear the right tell it, it's not the selection of Palin but the often well-deserved criticism of her that is sexist. Rush Limbaugh claimed that the ethics investigation into Palin's firing of an Alaska State Trooper is "pure sexism." That's right. Investigating a woman is sexist, according to Limbaugh. The sexism claims don't stop there. McCain advisor Carly Fiorina cried sexism after the SNL's initial portrayal of Governor Palin (played by that chauvanist pig Tina Fey). Dick Morris was lampooned by Jon Stewart for his Palin-Hillary double-standard. Speaking of the initial Palin media frenzy, Morris claimed that "a man would never have had to go through this." Except several months earlier he essentially said that if Hillary Clinton couldn't take the heat, she should get back in the kitchen. The bottom line is that Sarah Palin is woefully unqualified to be President, and it has nothing to do with gender. Like the "lipstick on a pig" fake controversy, the phony sexist outrage seems almost choreographed by the McCain campaign and the right wing media. It's now beginning to look like Palin was chosen to allow the campaign to play the gender card.
2. Palin Derangement Syndrome (PDS). At some point shortly after the Republican National Convention, right-wing talking heads were dispatched with the identical message that critics of Sarah Palin - her experience, her intelligence, her political views or her campaign tactics - have no logical basis for such criticism. It's virtually identical to Bush Derangement Syndrome, an idea put forth to shield George W. Bush from frequently warranted criticism. It's the idea that any criticism of a Bush is spawned from irrational hatred of the man, not his actions, abilities or beliefs. Michelle Malkin was out in front of this one, first claiming PDS after news surfaced that a pregnant Palin had boarded a plane for Alaska after her water broke in Texas, hardly an obstetric recommendation. On September 12, John Fund of the Wall Street Journalcried PDS on Bill Maher in defense of Palin's embarrassing interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. On September 18, Cinnamon Stillwell of The San Francisco Chronicle (yes, apparently it's possible to be named Cinnamon and not be a stripper) gave an ominous warning to PDS-stricken Democrats that "a public backlash over perceived media bias against Palin may be brewing." If that is the case, this brew is taking quite a while to ferment. It has been three weeks since Stillwell's prediction, a period that has seen the percentage of people that feel Palin is qualified to be President drop from 50% to 43%. So, if anything, Palin Derangement Syndrome more aptly describes those on the right who still feel Sarah Palin is a qualified candidate for national office. What PDS really is is an effort to group all criticism of Sarah Palin, warranted or otherwise, under the same umbrella and write it off as sheer lunacy.
1. Sarah Palin is more qualified that Barack Obama. Say what you will about Obama's relative lack of experience, but compared to Obama, Palin looks like a small-town mayor. Oh, well, yes, I guess that's what she is. Poor analogy. But check out some of these fanatical statements:
McCain staffer Jill Hazelbaker: "She has a record of accomplishment that Senator Obama simply cannot match."
Rudy Giuliani: "She had to make decisions....All Senator Obama has had to do is talk. That's all he does.”
Rush Limbaugh: "She's more qualified than Barack Obama....He has not done one thing to qualify himself to be President of the United States."
Randall Nunn of The New Media Alliance: "Governor Palin understands the Bill of Rights better than this Harvard trained elitist."
Much of the Republican's claim hinges on the idea that one must hold an executive capacity to be a great president. One need not have any experience in national politics, but being a state governor and having "executive" experience is really what counts. Of course, very recently we have enjoyed the presidency of someone who was governor for a longer period of time from a much larger state, coupled with vast executive experience at the corporate level. His name was George W. Bush, and we all know how that ended up. (in case you're unaware, Bush's approval rating has recently polled as low as 22%.) Republicans are now suggesting that someone not as qualified as Bush on the same experience assessment is somehow more qualified than Barack Obama. Good luck with that one.
You really have to admire the ingenuity of the Republican Party. When the typical assortment of innuendo, spin, demonization, ad hominem, flag-waving and fear-mongering aren't enough, Republicans get creative. This week Open Left and Think Progress both covered a story about a rather brash Republican smear campaign launched by embattled congressman Virgil Goode. The campaign ran an ad (video here) literally altering their opponent's physical appearance.
The Democratic challenger, Tom Perriello is portrayed in the ad as a bearded, swarthy, sinister character. What's the problem, you ask? Only that Perriello doesn't really look like that.
As you can see (above picture comes from Perriello's own campaign website), Perriello has light brown hair and what might easily be called a fair complexion. So who's that menacing rogue pictured in the smear ad? Well, it's Tom Perriello, at a time when he was unfortunate enough to be photographed with a beard. Run the pic through Photoshop, add an ominous soundtrack and voila! A friendly-looking white guy becomes Lucifer personified. Here's what I'm talking about:
Above are the doctored image and the source image side by side. But let's forget for a minute how they doctored Perriello's appearance and instead focus on why they did it. I think that is fairly straightforward. Most voters in Virginia's 5th congressional district probably don't know what Tom Perriello looks like. If Virgil Goode can make people believe that some dark, hairy weirdo with (gasp!) a foreign-sounding surname is coming from New York to depose their congressman, it's probably to Goode's advantage. One could certainly argue that physically altering your opponent's appearance in a smear ad might not be the most virtuous path to re-election. Time and time again, however, Republicans seem to get away with this garbage, and this year will likely be no different.
Probably more disturbing than the utter lack of ethical constraint on the part of the Virgil Goode camp is the very blatant political fear-mongering this stunt represents. Republicans have often resorted to racist and xenophobic innuendo in political campaign ads. Why should this year be any exception. The dark, bearded and/or mustachioed and possibly foreign antagonist is an archetype whose connotations have been strengthened even more by recent U.S. history. Archetype? What archetype? Glad you asked.
There are the modern villains, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden:
Then we get into the realm of fictional and/or historical villains. Why not start with pirates:
Captain Jack Sparrow
Edward Teach (aka "Blackbeard")
Captain Hook
Captain Morgan
Then we move to famous cartoon villains:
Brutus/Bluto from Popeye
Stromboli from Pinocchio
Jafar from Aladdin
Captain Hook, once more
Duke Igthorn from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
Wario
And finally some archetypal villains of no particular classification:
The Sheriff of Nottingham
Count Rugan (aka, "The Six-Fingered Man") from The Princess Bride
"Evil" Spock
Andy from Pee Wee's Big Adventure
I guess my issue with this campaign tactic is not so much the dishonesty or lax ethics. What is truly disturbing is the idea that in 21st century American politics, a major party candidate feels the need to appeal to ignorance, xenophobia and racism in order to secure victory. Of course, even if Tom Perriello actually did look like Stromboli, that's still no reason not to vote for him. But evidently Virgil Goode doesn't think very highly of the voters in his congressional district. He believes these people are more likely to react to sinister images of his opponent than to vote on character or issues. In an election year that has seen a floundering American economy and two stagnant wars, that is an extremely cynical assessment of American political will.
On the September 12, 2008 edition of his HBO talk show, Bill Maher defined cynicism as it relates to the token nomination of Sarah Palin:
A real cynic is someone...who knows better but knows that the stupid people don't. They know what the dumb people don't but they know that somebody like that [Palin] can get over on the dumb people.
Virgil Goode certainly fits this definition of cynicism. Who knows? Maybe he's right. Maybe the best way to get elected to political office is to trick your constituency. One would hope, however, that this type of campaigning backfires on the GOP. One would hope for a voter revolt of sorts, where people simply say, enough already. We're tired of being talked down to. We're tired of being frightened into voting Republican. We're tired of Republicans assuming we hate foreigners and wierd names. Impeding this "revolt," unfortunately, is the fact that this Karl Rove style of campaigning usually works. As long as it works, I don't expect Republicans to stop employing it. So it's up to voters themselves to wise up. It really doesn't matter if Tom Perriello looks like a dark-skinned foreigner or whether Barack Obama has a peculiar sounding name. Here's a general rule you might want to follow: If Virgil Goode's attack ad makes you more likely to vote for Virgil Goode, then you probably shouldn't be voting.
During the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain has reversed course on more issues than one can count. Today, however, McCain outdid even himself when he called for a suspension of his campaign to deal with the present economic crisis. Actually, I would assert that McCain's announcement to return to the Senate is really more irony than inconsistency.
Irony #1: Just last week, McCain, amid a catastrophic meltdown in the financial sector, claimed that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Today, McCain referred to the same economic environment as an "historic crisis." While leaders like McCain and President Bush have ignored the economic warning signs for months, McCain now seeks to claim that he's the one out in front of this issue. That's quite a bold attempt, considering McCain and his GOP buddies were complicit in stripping our financial system of the very safeguards that are meant to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the first place.
Irony #2: The idea that McCain wants to suspend political activities to get work done in the Senate is, in a word, laughable. McCain has not cast a single vote in the Senate since April 10th. By comparison, BarackObama has voted 99 times since Senator McCain's last vote. McCain has missed a whopping 64% of Senate votes since the 110th Congress was sworn in January of 2007, by far the most of anyone in the Senate. In fact, the only other members of the Senate missing more than 15% of votes either ran for president (Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback) or had severe health issues (Tim Johnson, brain hemorrhage, and Ted Kennedy, brain cancer). McCain hasn't felt the need to show up for work for five and a half months, yet now is calling on a suspension of the 2008 campaign to fix a failing economy his party was responsible for creating. I guess that might be funny is it weren't so reprehensible.
Irony #3: Last week, Senator McCain dismissed Obama's concerns over the crashing economy as "political opportunism." If that was indeed the case, McCain has taken that opportunism to a whole new level. By "beat[ing] Obama to the punch" as the Associated Press put it, McCain has in essence forced Obama to either suspend his campaign and risk looking like a Johnny-come-lately, or go ahead with the campaign and be seen as insensitive to the economic crisis. Jumping at an opportunity to put your opponent in a political paradox is the very epitome of "political opportunism".
I think Obama did the right thing in refusing to suspend the campaign. Of the two options, he chose the one that made him look like more of a leader than a follower. Plus he got in that little jab about being able to "deal with more than one thing at once." The ultimate irony - and the reason I believe McCain is taking this siesta - is that by going back to congress to "work on the economy," he won't have to answer as many difficult questions about the economy.
Silver medalists (L-R) Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry
The Republican National Convention and the fervor created by the nomination of Sarah Palin has turned the 2008 Presidential Election into quite a barnburner. BarackObama, who has at several times enjoyed as much as a 9-point lead in Gallup polling over rival Republican nominee John McCain, now finds himself in a virtual dead heat with the Arizona Senator.
This should be especially disturbing for Democrats, given that the political climate could hardly be better. An unpopular war, an unpopular president, a floundering economy and a skyrocketing national debt are just a few of the factors in the Democrats' favor. Coupled with the fact that the Democrats have nominated a fresh, exciting and change-oriented candidate in Obama, the Democrats should be burying an old, uninspiring, politically entrenched, retread of a candidate like John McCain. But they're not. Somehow McCain has convinced 45% of the electorate that he and the Republicans are the agents of change. He has convinced them that a woefully inexperienced Governor of very average intellect is qualified to run the United States. (Come on, John. We know why you picked her. You can stop pretending she's qualified now.)
So whatever the reasons are for the Democrats' current predicament, I believe there are ways they can recapture the energy of Denver and possibly win in a November landslide. So if I were advising the Obama campaign (no, seriously, are there any openings?), here's what I would propose:
1. Ignore Sarah Palin
Democrats need to treat Governor Palin as a non-entity. Much to my own surprise, the national media has shown thus far that they are interested in Palin and will not let her lies, scandals and outrageous views go unnoticed. But Palin is not the candidate. John McCain is rife with inconsistencies, bad policies, conflicts of interest, and deep-rooted Washington entrenchment. McCain not only is an easier target, but attacking him doesn't bear as much risk of backlash. Excessive questioning of Palin's credentials could lead some to feel she's being unfairly treated or bullied. Democrats don't want to make a martyr of a "good Christian" rural mother of five. Democrats need to treat Palin as they would treat a rumor about Obama being a Muslim: ignore it, or risk lending credence to it by addressing it. When Republican Senator Larry Craig called a press conference to announce that "I am not gay.... I never have been gay," people must have come away saying, "You know what? I bet he's gay." (of course, if Sen. Craig was gay, he could always visit Sarah Palin's church to get "converted.")
2. Get the Clintons out there
Hillary Clinton may still be stewing over her narrow defeat in the Democratic primary, but she needs to get over it, and soon. I know the Clintons both spoke at the convention, and that's nice. But they need to really get busy for the sake of their party and to ensure that the Clinton legacy is not permanently dismantled by another Republican administration. The Clinton's have the ability to do the following:
Appeal to Southern and moderate voters. Bill Clinton was successful in 1992 and 1996 because he was seen as a centrist and had credentials in the South. 2008 marks one of the extremely rare occurrences in American politics where there has not been someone from the South or the rural Midwest on either ticket. And Bill is in the rare position to say, "Hey, I know moderate. John McCain is no moderate."
Bring Hillary loyalists to the Obama side. Hillary Clinton has scores of followers who appear to have been more interested in electing a woman than electing a Democrat. Hillary needs to show how similar she and Obama are and how distant the McCain-Palin ticket is from either of them.
Attack Sarah Palin. Oddly enough, this parody on SNL made me realize something. Hillary is probably the only person who can attack Palin with impunity. At the very least, she is the position to be the most effective critic of the Alaska Governor. Despite the fact that Obama and Palin have both been criticized for inexperience, religious affiliations, family, patriotism and sex education, some on the right have argued that criticism of Palin is purely a result of sexism. Hillary has the ability to criticize Palin without being viewed as sexist and hopefully make American women realize that the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate is itself a blatantly sexist act. (further reading on this here and here.)
3. Dumb it down a little
As the enthusiasm over Sarah Palin has demonstrated, Americans aren't going to be voting with their brains any time soon. That is the unfortunate reality for Obama, who is without a doubt a brilliant man. The Columbia University and Harvard Law graduate, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, and former Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago probably has the combined McCain-Palin ticket beat in terms of IQ points. McCain ranked 894 of 899 students in his class at the US Naval Academy. Palin attended four different schools, including two stints at the University of Idaho, before attaining her Bachelor's degree in communications. It's not that BarackObama is too smart to be president. On the contrary, I would argue that one can't be smart enough for that job. His problem is that he's too smart for people who would vote for John McCain.
The average voter doesn't get that increased domestic oil drilling will have no immediate effect, very little long-term effect, and will get us no closer to developing cleaner, renewable energy sources. They don't understand that unregulated capitalism leads to the kind of economic disasters we are seeing this week. They don't see how blunders in foreign policy have eroded the global goodwill the U.S. has been building for a century. In essence, they don't understand cause and effect very well, and don't want some politician lecturing them about it. It's sad, but true. Obama needs to hit people with a barrage of "problem-solution" scenarios. There are plenty of problems that need solving, and people generally want a quick fix. Don't tell people all the most intricate details of a solution, how long it will take or how much it will cost. Just tell them it will work.
4. Focus on the economy
McCain this week criticizedObama, calling Obama'sassessment of the crashing Bush economy, "political opportunism." Notice how McCain didn't say Obama'sassessment was wrong, or offer any solution other than setting up a "commission" to study the current economic crisis. Imagine if the 9/11 Commission was formed as the planes were about to strike the World Trade Center. I'm pretty sure the planes would have still hit their target, just as a commission on the economy will not likely deter this current economic free fall. In fact, as Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch and AIG were collapsing, McCain reiterated his claim that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." The resulting echoes of laughter must have reached McCain's ears, as he quickly redefined these "fundamentals" as "American workers, innovation, entrepreneurship," bizarrely suggesting that criticism of the economy is akin to criticism of working people. See for yourself:
The point of course, is that John McCain knows next to nothing about the economy, and what he does know is wrong. For example, McCain's chief economic advisor and likely Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm was instrumental in ushering in a new age of financial deregulation and corporate loopholes. Obama needs to show who is responsible for the current economic meltdown, and let the American people know that, aside from the Iraq War, economic policy is where Bush and McCain are probably most similar.
5. Grill McCain on his houses
Various reports have concluded that the McCains own somewhere between seven and nine houses. The Obamas own one. This topic is not simply a personal attack and is very much fair game for the Obama campaign to use. For one, McCain is touting himself as the populist while calling Obama an "elitist." This is almost hysterical, given McCain's aforementioned real estate empire, the fact that he believes only those making more than $5 million are rich, and - hello??? - he's a Republican, the party that for decades has committed itself to making life easier for the super rich at the expense of the middle class. Despite these facts, McCain is still going to try to claim that he's the guy that supports the middle class. Obama needs to mention the 7+ houses whenever it is appropriate and often when it is not. People aren't that stupid. If someone with nine houses says he's in touch with the plight of the middle class, he's lying, and people will know he's lying if they know he has nine houses.
6. Grill McCain on his staff of lobbyists
For reasons unknown to me, John McCain has somehow been able to make a lot of people believe he is a "Maverick," an "Agent of Change" and someone who will clean up Washington. This is highly suspicious given the fact that so many current and former lobbyists are employed in key positions on McCain's campaign staff. Here are just a few:
Rick Davis: campaign manager, partner at lobbying firm Davis, Manafort & Freedman.
Charlie Black: chief campaign adviser, former chairman of lobbying firm BKSH & Associates.
John Green: campaign liason to Washington, current lobbyist for the firm Ogilvy Government Relations
Frank Donatelli: Deputy Chairman of the RNC, former lobbyist for McGuireWoods Consulting.
Randy Scheunemann: foreign affairs advisor, registered lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia.
In fact, according to the website, Mccainsource.com, the candidate has had 133 current or former lobbyists working at various levels in his campaign, many sporting conflicts of interest with either the candidate or the country. And if McCain gets elected, what happens to these high-level lobbyists? They become high-level members of the President's cabinet or staff, giving lobbying firms people on the inside.
For Obama, this one shouldn't be at all difficult. People don't like lobbyists and they don't like hypocrites. By cramming his staff with the former, the Maverick has become the latter. Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington put it this way: "The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he's the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists."
7. Grill McCain on his flip-flops
Back in 2004, Republicans painted John Kerry as a flip-flopper. That, along with with smearing a decorated war veteran and "fixing" things in Ohio and Florida, helped the Republicans win a close election. McCain's flip-flopping is legendary. If there ever was an example of a politician that will say anything to get elected, it's this guy. More complete lists can be found here or here, but here are some of the highlights:
Religion: McCain, who once called Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance," actively sought the endorsement of Paster John Hagee, an equally bombastic Christian ideologue. In an April 2008 interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous, McCain said it was a mistake to accept the Hagee endorsement, then later said he was "glad to have" it.
Taxes: McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Now he promises to expand those tax cuts, even amid an economic meltdown.
Economy: In the midst of this week's economic debacle, McCain flip-flopped on regulationin less than an hour. He said "I don’t like excessive and unnecessary...government regulation." Later he said "Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes."
Immigration:McCain said in January that he would not vote for his own immigration bill he sponsored in 2006.
McCain's flip-flops are especially damning for his campaign because they almost all involve him flopping to the right. McCain the Maverick has built his brand image on bucking his own party, yet in the race for the White House, the GOP seems to have been successful in reigning him in. Obama needs to expose McCain as the master panderer that he is, essentially a political nomad loyal to everyone and to no one.
8. Indirectly attack McCain's age
Obviously Democrats can't explicitly call McCain "too old". They need to imply that he is too old. The two best ways to do that are to stress McCain's public gaffes (i.e., "senior moments") and his ridiculous aversion to technology. All political candidates make verbal errors over the course of a year-long campaign. McCain, however, has really outdone himself this election cycle. He has confused Sunni and Shia. He has mixed up his economic regulatory agencies. He said the Sunni awakening in Iraq was caused by the "surge," when that was not remotely the case. He claimed that Iraq and Pakistan share a border. (They don't) Recently, he started discussing Latin America and Mexico when a reporter asked him about U.S. relations with Spain. Whether these are merely "senior moments" or evidence of a deep lack of understanding we may never know, but either way, this is not good for McCain.
McCain's bizarre disdain for technology is not as widely reported as it should be. I'm not saying a presidential candidate must have a Nintendo Wii and a Blue Ray player before I will vote for him. But in the most industrialized nation in the world, is it too much to ask for the president to be able to use email? It's clear that McCain's technology gap could pose problems in November. As one GOP strategist put it, “If I were counseling John McCain, I would have him standing in line for an iPhone.” Again, inability and/or unwillingness to adopt technology that has been around for 20 years may not be to the benefit of McCain either as presidential candidate or as president. Since he has admitted publicly to being "illiterate," this illiteracy is fair game for the Obama campaign to use to paint the broader picture of a candidate that needs to be put out to pasture.
9. Get people talking about his temper
Most politicians and Washington insiders have known about McCain's nasty streak for some time. From obscenity-laced tirades on the floor of the senate, threats of physical violence aimed at political opponents, and even dropping the "C-bomb" on his own wife, McCain has proven to have a very short fuse. Apparently he once got into a Senate floor fight with a 95-year old Strom Thurmond. Needless to say, a hot-head in the White House is the last thing the country needs. While Obama can't explicitly attack McCain's temper, he needs to find a way to get it out there. In the debates, Obama should try to get under his skin a little and see if he can elicit an outburst. Hey, if Obama is lucky, he may even get a racist eruption from the Arizona senator. Cha-ching!
10. Remind voters that McCain is a Republican
Comparisons of John McCain to George W. Bush may be fairly accurate, but that strategy has seen mixed results for Democrats. According to A CNN poll conducted last week, only 53% of those surveyed felt that McCain would carry on the policies of the current president. If a McCain victory really means a third Bush term, the public isn't buying it. It's as though McCain has acheived a public opinion that more closely associates him with his self-invented "Maverick" brand than with his own political party. If Democrats want to win back the White House, this perception needs to change. The fact that McCain is fleeing the disastrously unpopular Bush presidency indicates that he knows Bush won't be an asset to his campaign. What the Democrats have to do is simplify things. Instead of endlessly dissecting Senate votes and policy positions, Dems need to put it this way: George Bush is a Republican. John McCain is a Republican. Therefore, George Bush = John McCain. While extremes certainly exists within political parties, what gives the major parties their strength is their unity on a vast number of issues. If McCain really had a 50/50 chance of bucking his own party, as Americans now believe, that would potentially fracture the Republican party as we know it. Anyone who believes the Maverick will come out once John McCain is elected doesn't understand American politics or political parties.
Look. John McCain is a Republican. If he wasn't, he would be running as an independent. He's not. He belongs to the same Republican regime that is on the wrong side of issues like Iraq, health care, the economy, the environment, abortion, gun control, and stem cells. He's a member of the same party that has crashed our economy and has erased any credibility we once had with the rest of the world. Most of the people that voted for George W. Bush will also be voting for McCain. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE REPUBLICANS!!!! There simply aren't enough Republicans out there (27% by recent estimates) for McCain to win this thing unless independents and moderate Democrats vote Republican as well. To prevent this from happening, Democrats need to stop making this about people and start making it about party. When you're dealing with an ill-informed electorate, as we are in the U.S., Republican = Republican is a lot easier to grasp than McCain = Bush.
Captain Jack Sparrow
Captain Morgan
Jafar from Aladdin
Captain Hook, once more
Duke Igthorn from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
