A few electoral thoughts, a year out --
The Democrats are a lock to win the 2008 Presidential elections, and, probably, to increase their majorities in both houses. Two different ways to look at this --
--There will never be a better time to try to elect America's first woman and/or person of color to the Presidency.
-- There will never be a worse time to try to elect America's first woman and/or person of color to the Presidency.
If your primary motivation is to shake stuff up, live in science fiction land, push the social envelope forward, get a non-white or non-male into the nation's highest office, put a non-white or non-male face on America's government -- this is the best shot you've ever had. The Republicans can't even pick up a paper clip without somehow shooting themselves in the foot; the Dems should absolutely be able to put ANY nominee into office in '08... so, you know, let's swing for the bleachers, absolutely. Once we have a non-male or non-white in the Presidency, the precedent is set for all time, that barrier is broken, and we should see more qualified candidates running from this point forward.
If, on the other hand, your primary motivation is to beat the horror that is the Republican Party to death with a voting machine, then you should, for the love of God, not want to see either Obama or Hillary as the Democratic nominee. The Dems have this election sewn up... unless they run a black man or a woman for President.
So, of course, they're going to run a black man or a woman for President.
You know all those decent hard working church going conservative voters that the Dems are counting on to stay home next election day out of disgust for Republican shenanigans...? Running a black man or a woman for President (much less, as I suspect will happen, running a woman AND a black man for President/Vice President) will guarantee that those decent hard working church going conservatives march right out to their local polling places and pull a lever for ANY Republican running against the Evil Clinton Cunt and her uppity nigger houseboy. I guarantee you, a Hillary/Obama ticket will absolutely galvanize the deep red base. The evangelicals will not break off and vote for a third party candidate as they've been blustering about; they will suck it up and get behind Rudy, no matter how many pictures of him in a dress the Dems post on the Internet.
Which voting segment will the Hillary/Obama combo drive away from the polls? Dumb ass white guys who would otherwise have voted Democrat, if, say, Edwards were the nominee. (Dumb ass white guys who vote Republican will, of course, turn out to the polls in droves, and they'll bring all their dumb ass Republican white guy buddies who otherwise might not have voted, too. At least, as many as they can fit into their pick up trucks.)
We can always hope there aren't too many dumb ass white guys who vote Democrat out there, but my own observations lead me to think that this is a vain hope indeed.
Mind you, I'm half a dumb ass white guy myself. Should Obama get the nod (which he won't, but, you know, speculatin' on a hypothesis, here) I would grit my teeth mightily, swallow hard as I try to ignore how appallingly he has pandered to nutball black evangelicals and how little respect I have for anyone who had done that, and pull the lever next to his name. Anything to keep Rudy out of the White House.
If it's Hillary, though... I don't know if I can grit my teeth that hard. She won't close Gitmo, won't stop illegal domestic spying, has no problem with torturing 'terrorists', won't revoke the PATRIOT Act... I don't know. Maybe we'd get some universal health care... but nothing in Hillary's resume indicates to me that she's got the guns to go up against the insurance lobby and win.
Still... yeah... yeah, okay... anything to keep Rudy out of the White House.
But... Jesus Christ, why can't I have a Presidential candidate I really want to vote for?
Because those people can't possibly win.
To be fair -- what makes Hillary so unpalatable to me is how craftily she triangulates her positions. Every move she makes is calculated -- if she votes that way, or announces this policy, or states something else in the debates, well, she'll piss off THIS 33% segment of the electorate, but she'll appease or even please the other 66%. Every time, every breath she takes, every move she makes, it's been polled to a fare thee well and worked out on eighteen different political slide rules to seventeen decimal places before she twitches a finger. I fucking HATE candidates that do shit like that... but the fact of the matter is, candidates that DON'T do shit like that are fringe candidates who cannot be elected to national office.
Maybe, if Hillary wins, she'll just say "fuck it" and do some good stuff. Maybe she feels she CAN'T come right out and say "I'll repeal the PATRIOT Act, I'll shut down Gitmo, I'll tear up all of Bush's signing statements, I'll personally sue the telecom companies, and I'll absolutely declassify every government file that exists as to exactly what really happened with 9/11, the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, Katrina, Iraq, Plamegate, the politicization of the Justice Department, and I'll even let you all know what really happened that time Cheney shot the other guy in the face." Maybe she'll just do all that stuff anyway, once she gets into office. And pull our troops back home. And invest billions in finding an alternative to petroleum.
Yeah. Heh. Suuuuuuuuuuure she will.
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So this Boy Scout, couldn't have been older than eleven, is holding up this kinda chubby looking Scotch Pine. It was.... ehhhh... okay...
Holy dangling chad, Batman....I do believe I agree with everything you wrote.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a double-edged sword of an election. Republicans I know are foaming at the mouth to have Hilliary as their opponent.
We just have to remember that "non - white," and "non - male" are, as I somehow can't keep from harping on, not monolithic. Just think about the electability of someone like Al Sharpton vs. Obama.
But excellently articulated.
I wouldn't say that the election is a lock. Remember when they said Howard Dean was a lock to defeat W last time around?
ReplyDeleteAnd remember when they said there was no way Bush the elder was gonna lose, coming off the high wave of patriotism that was Gulf War I?
And that Muskie was gonna win until they planted those stories about his wife and it looked like he was crying in the snow?
A lot of this lock talk this time around is coming from pundits who as Mark Evanier noted aren't paid to say "I don't know". I wouldn't be printing up the ballots yet.
But too bad it's pert much gonna be decided before this circus rolls into our neck of the woods, though.
And from what I spy from the fundamentalists it looks like they're just starting to realize that maybe they're being used for their vote and aren't getting anything they think they were promised. I don't know if they're going to bolt and go 3rd party if Guiliani is nominated as they've threatened. Hope they do.
Tony C.
http://mahtwocents.blogharbor.com
Ope,
ReplyDeleteI ran out of time this morning. Had I had a little more, I was going to add my... not 'theory' really, but, well, interesting speculation... that maybe Hillary's Presidential ambitions explain while the Dems have been so paralytic and useless since the 2006 elections. It's just possible (I suppose) that the Clintons have enough pull in the Democratic Party that they can actually say "We do NOTHING risky, NOTHING that could possibly blow back on us, NOTHING that expends any of our political capital at all, until Hillary is in the White House. We will be using every single thing we have to get her in there. Once she's there, we can cut loose... but until then, anyone who goes off the reservation can forget about getting any money from the Clinton fundraising machine in 2008."
It's probably wildly paranoid to think that, but it sure would explain why the Dems have been so toothless since they took their new majorities.
Tony,
I'd love to think the fundies will bolt the Republicans for a third party candidate, but it's a foolish wet dream. The fundie movers and shakers are like every other conservative/Republican player; their well espoused public beliefs mean nothing, what they're really interested in is power. If they stick with the Republicans they will at least have SOME influence over national politics; if they bolt, they have none. (See "Libertarian Party" for an illustration of that.)
Oh, wait, did I say "conservative/Republican player"? How naive of me. The Democratic/liberal players are exactly the same way. Our elected stooges say what they say in order to get elected and stay elected; but what they actually do while they're elected has nothing to do with what they said to get there. Politics really is a choice of the lesser of two evils... but the last six years have certainly shown us how important that choice can be.
Actually Jon Stewart did some creative editing of the democratic political debate that might interest you. He, basically, shows how Hillary is for everything...and nothing. It was pretty funny. Actually, the whole thing was...until he got Dennis Kucinich to admit that he saw a UFO over Shirley McClain's house...
ReplyDeleteHeh. You're right. The "white males" aren't known for the electable goodness...are they?