It would be restful if, along with Joe the Plumber, John McCain's running mate just went off into a disposable-celebrity waste basket along with the other used Kleenex of the campaign, but Sarah Palin and the idea of her are still with us, as Andrew Sullivan so cogently points out today:
"That the Palin absurdity should follow the two-term presidency of another individual utterly out of his depth in national government is particularly troubling; 46 percent of Americans voted for the possibility of this blank slate as president because she somehow echoed their own sense of religious or cultural 'identity'. Until we figure out how this happened, we will not be able to prevent it from happening again."
Promoting an over-aged cheerleader with no political substance whatsoever for 2012, as William Kristol and others are doing, is a sign that the diaper division of the Republican Party has no interest in going back to its Goldwater-William F. Buckley roots and offering principled opposition to the new Democratic majority.
Palin's ascension is highlighted by the decline and fall of Ron Paul who, in his own idiosyncratic way, identified some of the issues that his party should be considering and debating. As Paul now writes:
"In the rise and fall of the recent Republican reign of power these past decades, the goal of the party had grown to be only that of gaining and maintaining power--with total sacrifice of the original Republican belief in shrinking the size of government."
Instead, the GOP focus is on Palin's "star quality" and her media blitz this week to make GOP true believers forget how her vast emptiness and arrogance helped bring down John McCain's campaign.
Showing posts with label Joe the Plumber. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe the Plumber. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Saturday, November 01, 2008
McCain, Obama: The Authenticity Gap
What's left of the real Barack Obama and John McCain after all this nonstop being seen and heard? If Obama wins the prize Tuesday, it may be, behind all the political jabber, a victory in the media war of attrition not to lose his authentic self.
After eight years of having a beer with a nobody-there George W. Bush, voters gave the nominations to candidates who appeared to be most themselves--Obama over the seen-as-calculating Hillary Clinton, McCain over an empty suit known as Mitt Romney.
If McCain goes down, it will be due mainly to his mystifying decision to keep being the semi-fictitious figure required to appease the Far Right in the primaries and not reverting to the straight talker who won over so many media people and independent voters in 2000.
John F. Kennedy summed up the problem in 1960 saying he sometimes felt sorry for Richard Nixon: “It must be hard getting up every morning trying to decide who you’re going to be that day.”
In these past months, there have been too many McCains, with only rare glimpses of the real one, who has fittingly enough surrounded himself with fictitious figures like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.
Obama's most crucial campaign decision was to try to hold on, as much as possible, to his authentic self--a problem he recognized early in the process, telling Tim Russert with a worried smile that his wife and friends thought he was still there behind all the hype and admitting on 60 Minutes that the “attempt to airbrush your life...is exhausting.”
That he has made it seem effortless is an important part of his achievement, but if wins, it won't get any easier, as foreshadowed by his irritation with photographers last evening as he took his daughter out for Halloween.
In the White House, it will be four years of trick-or-treat, to say nothing of hide-and-seek with the media trying to find the "real" Barack Obama.
After eight years of having a beer with a nobody-there George W. Bush, voters gave the nominations to candidates who appeared to be most themselves--Obama over the seen-as-calculating Hillary Clinton, McCain over an empty suit known as Mitt Romney.
If McCain goes down, it will be due mainly to his mystifying decision to keep being the semi-fictitious figure required to appease the Far Right in the primaries and not reverting to the straight talker who won over so many media people and independent voters in 2000.
John F. Kennedy summed up the problem in 1960 saying he sometimes felt sorry for Richard Nixon: “It must be hard getting up every morning trying to decide who you’re going to be that day.”
In these past months, there have been too many McCains, with only rare glimpses of the real one, who has fittingly enough surrounded himself with fictitious figures like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.
Obama's most crucial campaign decision was to try to hold on, as much as possible, to his authentic self--a problem he recognized early in the process, telling Tim Russert with a worried smile that his wife and friends thought he was still there behind all the hype and admitting on 60 Minutes that the “attempt to airbrush your life...is exhausting.”
That he has made it seem effortless is an important part of his achievement, but if wins, it won't get any easier, as foreshadowed by his irritation with photographers last evening as he took his daughter out for Halloween.
In the White House, it will be four years of trick-or-treat, to say nothing of hide-and-seek with the media trying to find the "real" Barack Obama.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
In Voting, White Men Don't Jump
The final days find male Caucasians in the spotlight as John McCain pushes his white hope, Joe the Plumber and David Brooks focuses on Patio Man.
In a time of unprecedented fear and worry, traditional male breadwinners seem to be the Republicans' best target, but the question arises: Will they make enough difference?
One striking answer can be found in a study of the American electorate over 20 years by the National Journal, which shows:
"Over the past five elections, no Democratic nominee has carried even a plurality of white voters, although Bill Clinton came close in 1992 and 1996 when Ross Perot siphoned a substantial number of them away to his independent candidacy.
"White men have been particularly cool to Democrats. Only once since 1988 has the Republican nominee amassed less than a double-digit lead among white men. (That was in 1992, when Perot reached his high point.) And in both 2000 and 2004, white men provided George W. Bush with crushing margins of about 25 percentage points over his Democratic opponents."
The dominance cuts across class lines with the five most recent Democratic nominees averaging 36.6 percent of the vote among white men with less than a college education (blue-collar workers) and 36 percent among white men with a college education.
For whatever reasons, when it comes to voting for a president, white men don't jump party lines and, in concentrating on them, are John McCain and Sarah Palin wasting their time preaching to a very convinced choir?
In a time of unprecedented fear and worry, traditional male breadwinners seem to be the Republicans' best target, but the question arises: Will they make enough difference?
One striking answer can be found in a study of the American electorate over 20 years by the National Journal, which shows:
"Over the past five elections, no Democratic nominee has carried even a plurality of white voters, although Bill Clinton came close in 1992 and 1996 when Ross Perot siphoned a substantial number of them away to his independent candidacy.
"White men have been particularly cool to Democrats. Only once since 1988 has the Republican nominee amassed less than a double-digit lead among white men. (That was in 1992, when Perot reached his high point.) And in both 2000 and 2004, white men provided George W. Bush with crushing margins of about 25 percentage points over his Democratic opponents."
The dominance cuts across class lines with the five most recent Democratic nominees averaging 36.6 percent of the vote among white men with less than a college education (blue-collar workers) and 36 percent among white men with a college education.
For whatever reasons, when it comes to voting for a president, white men don't jump party lines and, in concentrating on them, are John McCain and Sarah Palin wasting their time preaching to a very convinced choir?
Monday, October 20, 2008
Out of the Mouths of Boobs
Two leaders of the get-paid-to-be-stupid-in-public punditry give us gems today, Pat Buchanan with his pronouncement that Colin Powell is backing Barack Obama because he's black and William Kristol scolding Peggy Noonan for saying that Sarah Palin is symptomatic of "a new vulgarization in American politics.”
Buchanan can't help belaboring the obnoxious obvious, but Kristol reaches new heights of sappiness in attacking Noonan:
"Why do elites like to proclaim premature closure--not just in elections, but also in wars and in social struggles? Because it makes them the imperial arbiters, or at least the perspicacious announcers, of what history is going to bring. This puts the elite prognosticators ahead of the curve, ahead of the simple-minded people who might entertain the delusion that they still have a choice."
Aside from attacking what he does for a living in prose that shows an urgent need for instruction in remedial invective, Kristol is making the case that Joe the Plumber is "the latest ordinary American to do a star turn in our vulgar democratic circus. He seems like a sensible man to me...
"McCain and Palin have had the good sense to embrace him. I join them in taking my stand with Joe the Plumber--in defiance of Horace the Poet."
When Kristol's New York Times gig expires, the editors should seriously consider Joe as his replacement.
Buchanan can't help belaboring the obnoxious obvious, but Kristol reaches new heights of sappiness in attacking Noonan:
"Why do elites like to proclaim premature closure--not just in elections, but also in wars and in social struggles? Because it makes them the imperial arbiters, or at least the perspicacious announcers, of what history is going to bring. This puts the elite prognosticators ahead of the curve, ahead of the simple-minded people who might entertain the delusion that they still have a choice."
Aside from attacking what he does for a living in prose that shows an urgent need for instruction in remedial invective, Kristol is making the case that Joe the Plumber is "the latest ordinary American to do a star turn in our vulgar democratic circus. He seems like a sensible man to me...
"McCain and Palin have had the good sense to embrace him. I join them in taking my stand with Joe the Plumber--in defiance of Horace the Poet."
When Kristol's New York Times gig expires, the editors should seriously consider Joe as his replacement.
Friday, October 17, 2008
No Joe, No Plumber, But Racist?
John McCain's new best friend is not a plumber, his name isn't Joe, he's a tax deadbeat and, to make the symbolism perfect, talks about Barack Obama in racial terms.
No more carefully vetted by the McCain campaign than Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber in his wall-to-wall TV debut turns out to be Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, who has never had a plumber's license, and is no danger of having to pay more taxes, as he suggested to Obama, by making $250,000 a year, even after he pays off the lien for failing to pay what he owes Ohio from past earnings.
In an interview with Katie Couric, Wurzelbacher said his encounter with Obama was prompted by the desire “to ask one of these guys a question, and really corner them and get them to answer a question for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance.”
Obama, he added "was almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”
If he maintains this level of discourse, Wurzelbacher could end up on the campaign trail palling around with Sarah Palin.
No more carefully vetted by the McCain campaign than Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber in his wall-to-wall TV debut turns out to be Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, who has never had a plumber's license, and is no danger of having to pay more taxes, as he suggested to Obama, by making $250,000 a year, even after he pays off the lien for failing to pay what he owes Ohio from past earnings.
In an interview with Katie Couric, Wurzelbacher said his encounter with Obama was prompted by the desire “to ask one of these guys a question, and really corner them and get them to answer a question for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance.”
Obama, he added "was almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”
If he maintains this level of discourse, Wurzelbacher could end up on the campaign trail palling around with Sarah Palin.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
No Mo-Joe for McCain
After giving up Joe Lieberman as a running mate in favor of Mrs. Joe Sixpack, John McCain brought out Joe the Plumber for tonight's debate--to no avail. The networks' instant polling shows a third straight loss for the Republican's attempt to sell himself as the champion of the average Joe.
The candidates squared off after a day of dismal economic news--another stock-market plunge, retail sales down, factory orders at historic lows--and the best John McCain could do was jibe that, if Obama wanted to run against the Bush Administration, he should have done so four years ago.
But voters apparently aren't buying McCain's attempt to run away from the Bush-Cheney debacle that has left them distressed about their homes, their jobs, their retirement funds and savings for their kids' college educations.
McCain, who had promised to kick Obama's posterior, ended up flat on his own after another encounter in which his opponent looked presidential, often smiling at attacks, while McCain seemed barely able to control his anger and frustration with odd grimaces.
(Adam Nagourney of the New York Times notes, "The split-screen visual contrast between the two men--McCain often appearing coiled and annoyed, Mr. Obama seeming at ease and smiling--was striking.")
Obama did what he had to do, including sidestepping Bob Schieffer's question about whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be president, while McCain retroactively discovered that Joe Biden was wrong on several issues during their decades together in the Senate.
In his final statement, Obama summed up the campaign:
"I think we all know America is going through tough times right now. The policies of the last eight years and--and Washington's unwillingness to tackle the tough problems for decades has left us in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
"And that's why the biggest risk we could take right now is to adopt the same failed policies and the same failed politics that we've seen over the last eight years and somehow expect a different result.
"We need fundamental change in this country, and that's what I'd like to bring."
What Americans are facing will be longer and harder than Obama can admit or prescribe fixes for during a presidential campaign, but it's looking very much as if the average Joes are going to give him the chance to try.
Now that the debates are over, voters will wonder if they served any purpose. Let's leave the last word on that to tonight's moderator, who writes in his new book, "Bob Schieffer's America," that presidential debates are a 20th century invention and that "with the turn that modern campaigns have taken, maybe there is some merit in the nineteenth-century idea of just having the candidates stay home."
The candidates squared off after a day of dismal economic news--another stock-market plunge, retail sales down, factory orders at historic lows--and the best John McCain could do was jibe that, if Obama wanted to run against the Bush Administration, he should have done so four years ago.
But voters apparently aren't buying McCain's attempt to run away from the Bush-Cheney debacle that has left them distressed about their homes, their jobs, their retirement funds and savings for their kids' college educations.
McCain, who had promised to kick Obama's posterior, ended up flat on his own after another encounter in which his opponent looked presidential, often smiling at attacks, while McCain seemed barely able to control his anger and frustration with odd grimaces.
(Adam Nagourney of the New York Times notes, "The split-screen visual contrast between the two men--McCain often appearing coiled and annoyed, Mr. Obama seeming at ease and smiling--was striking.")
Obama did what he had to do, including sidestepping Bob Schieffer's question about whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be president, while McCain retroactively discovered that Joe Biden was wrong on several issues during their decades together in the Senate.
In his final statement, Obama summed up the campaign:
"I think we all know America is going through tough times right now. The policies of the last eight years and--and Washington's unwillingness to tackle the tough problems for decades has left us in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
"And that's why the biggest risk we could take right now is to adopt the same failed policies and the same failed politics that we've seen over the last eight years and somehow expect a different result.
"We need fundamental change in this country, and that's what I'd like to bring."
What Americans are facing will be longer and harder than Obama can admit or prescribe fixes for during a presidential campaign, but it's looking very much as if the average Joes are going to give him the chance to try.
Now that the debates are over, voters will wonder if they served any purpose. Let's leave the last word on that to tonight's moderator, who writes in his new book, "Bob Schieffer's America," that presidential debates are a 20th century invention and that "with the turn that modern campaigns have taken, maybe there is some merit in the nineteenth-century idea of just having the candidates stay home."
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