Secret Agenda? Another Inane Conspiracy Theory

For years, many of the elite conservatives were happy to harvest the votes of devout Christians and gun owners by waging a phony class war against “liberal elitists” and “leftist intellectuals.” Suddenly, the conservative writers are discovering that the very anti-intellectualism their side courted and encouraged has begun to consume their movement.

I have a hard time believing that conservative intellectuals are surprised that the above situation is happening. This conservative intellectual criticism has been a building trend this election with one after another coming out of the closet to either endorse Obama, criticize Palin, and/or question McCain.

Conspiracy Theory Alert Ahead …

The fear of the Republicans this election year was that the base wouldn’t come out to vote because of their deep suspicion of McCain. I think that was an empty fear when, while they may hate McCain, no way would they stand for an Obama presidency either. So there was no need to pander to the base with the Sarah Palin pick. As long as they stayed away from Lieberman, any of the other picks would have been fine and the social conservatives would have come out in the end.

But the independents had already started turning towards Obama during the Democratic primary season. Conservative intellectuals started to smell defeat. Their candidate was old and had eight years of mucking up his record on the national stage. The social conservatives weren’t playing along but any attempt to oust them from the party at this stage would be too obvious. So throw Palin in the mix and the social conservatives are mollified once again that they’re the true base of the Republican Party.

But what if it was all a trick? A strategy to schism the party and return the GOP to its economic conservative roots?

Like my earlier crackpot theory about Sarah Palin as the tool to discredit women, this one rests on the premise that the Republicans know they are going to lose this election and so decided some good must come of it, for them. By picking a member of the religious right wing as the VP, McCain seems to be acknowledging the religious conservatives’ crucial role in the Republican Party, but perhaps it’s just to set them up as a handy scapegoat when he loses. Was this plan all along?

If McCain loses (and today’s projections are more dismal for him than ever with Obama polling at 354-375—depending on which electoral vote mapping site you use), conservative intellectuals will blame the Palin pick. The social/religious conservatives will blame McCain and the conservatives who tanked Palin in the op-eds and endorsements. With the Democrats in control of the executive and legislative branches of government, the Republicans could actually have the breathing room to fix what’s gone wrong in their party. And they need to.

It’s already happening, the RNC is pulling out of races where hardcore social conservative candidates are having trouble (Bachman and Musgrave—far right conservatives—most notably) and the social conservatives are threatening to pull money from the RNC. They should. The Republican Party has done nothing to reward this group for the 2000 and 2004 elections. If Obama wins, Roe v. Wade will not even be in play for another 30-40 years. What will they run on then? The Republican Party does not need, in a post-Obama administration, the rabble rousing over abortion and gay marriage. They need to hunker down to the ideological roots of their party, fiscal conservative economics.

It does not say good things about our country that the race for the leadership of the free world devolves into such petty attacks as we have seen. We need to expunge the fringe politics from our executive branch and put them where they belong, in the Congress.

Green Party members, Libertarians, and extreme social conservatives take note. You are never going to win the executive branch and actually enact your policies while under the umbrella of a major party (what’s George W. Bush done for you lately?). Far-left liberals, Nader is never going to win the White House. The better bet would be for all these other movements to disengage from the two major parties and start actively supporting candidates for Congress under their own label. Let the two major parties continue to duke it out for Senate and the White House, start infiltrating the House. The House is supposed to be the party of the people and should have all the bickering, fighting, compromise, and deal-making that people do. Start building the foundations of your own parties in the House of Representatives and make the House truly represent the people.

Naturally these smaller parties would caucus with one of the two larger parties. Or even, gasp, with each other on certain issues that they can agree upon from time to time. From that stage, under their own labels, they could have a larger voice than the position they are now in, buried under the umbrella of the major two parties. But these groups must be realistic and know that the White House, or even the Senate, is not in play and won’t be for decades or centuries to come.

In the meantime, I will happily sit back and watch the fighting happen starting November 5. Coming up next, my virtual shopping spree where I try to come up with a $150,000 wish list at Neiman Marcus.

The Empress's New Clothes

… if voters aren't turned off by Palin's many other egregious missteps, I doubt a stack of designer receipts will sway many minds. And really, should it?

No, it won’t. And no, it shouldn’t. This story is something to write about given the lack of anything else.

Like it or not, the long Democratic primary season released everything there is about Obama. Hillary did a bigger favor to Barack than I think anyone gives her credit for. Ayers, ACORN, Rezko, Wright all yesterday’s news. McCain can try what he likes in bringing it up now, but all of us have heard it before. We heard the questions asked, we heard the answers, we’re satisfied. We heard it ad nausea then. The media was all over it. Maybe Republicans weren’t paying as much attention then, but the rest of us were, Democrats and independents. That’s why we aren’t interested now. We decided we could forgive or forget those associations.

Because that’s what everyone has to do, regardless of whom they are supporting. Politicians don’t become who they are without making some bad associates or some bad decisions. What we the voters have to decide is whose sins are more or less acceptable. And everyone needs to understand what judgments they are making by doing this. Yes, a tenuous connection with someone like Ayers is not as big a deal to me as the fully unethical behavior of the Keating 5; flipping on every major issue in the last eight years in an obviously opportunistic manner; and picking an unqualified person as his VP in a blatant and cynical pander to Hillary supporters (like we’d really rally to someone from the fundy Christian right).

McCain and Palin aren’t throwing up new ideas nor are they making their policy proposals sound viable. What they are doing isn’t resonating with anyone except those who wouldn’t vote for Obama even if he literally turned water into Bud Light right in front of their very eyes.

Then McPalin hands us the perfect piece to fill up the time. My obsessive attention to the news during election cycles allowed me to literally watch the evolution of this story. It started in the blogs and stayed there until the furor became so great the MSM had to at least report that it was being reported upon. And it’s a damn good selling headline. The populist Jane Six Pack in Tahiri. The woman who claims real Americans only live in small towns sporting Valentino like a New York City society dame. The hockey mom sporting designer labels people only know about because of Oscar night.

That and the fact that McCain isn’t giving the media anything new to report on. They’re sounding the same old tired sound bites while Obama is kicking off foreign policy summits. They don’t realize that people, in quite possibly electing the first black president, understand that the low-income employees at ACORN trying to make quota are surely not the most egregious example of voter fraud in the history of this country. His very skin reminds us of what real voter fraud and suppression is.

What is McCain giving them other than Caribou Barbie’s latest antics? He cries that Obama is a socialist, which the MSM dutifully reports, but upon further investigation it turns out that McCain is for some even more socialist programs than Obama’s progressive tax distribution (a position that McCain once supported himself). Fake Virginians, fake Americans, and I guess anti-Americans are actually voters too no matter how much Palin wishes we weren’t.

So don’t blame the media for a hot story that has people clicking through slideshows. McCain and Palin need to provide something new. And if the only new thing they provide costs $150,000 at Needless Markup, well, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Buy vs. Own

There’s an adage saying that while you may be able to afford to buy something, can you really afford to own it? I’m attempting to apply this reasoning to the presidential election. I’m not sure I’ve got it right, but it’s an interesting exercise to go through.

I can afford to buy a boat. I mean a sailboat or a motorboat that requires moorage in a slip (not one that you can keep in your urban backyard). Those can start at about $10K and just keep going up. So I have lots of choices when buying a boat and the fiancé and I can definitely afford to buy some level of boat. But what I can’t afford is to own a boat. I can’t afford the monthly moorage costs (minimum $300 per month in Tacoma up to winning the lottery in Seattle). I can’t afford the upkeep and repairs. I also don't have the option of buying a small boat that fits in my backyard ('cause you can't get one in my backyard). Hence, I don’t get to buy a boat because I can’t afford to own the boat.

What about a car? I can afford just about any car. But can I afford to own the car? A Honda requires more upkeep than a BMW. But a BMW’s regular upkeep costs more per month/year than a Honda. However, after doing the cost/benefit analysis, I can both afford to buy and own the BMW (plus, my roadster is way too damned cool, but that’s neither here nor there).

Home ownership is the topic du jour. Bush told America that not only they should buy homes (remember the “Ownership Society”?) but also that they deserved it. What he didn’t tell everyone was that not only could they not really afford to buy it, they most definitely couldn’t afford to own what they bought.

Where this argument breaks down is in higher education. Most people can’t afford to buy it, but once bought, it’s trivial to own it. Higher education nearly always increases your purchasing power and personal wealth, relative to what you choice to study. And that’s because education is an investment, not a purchase. Something that is more expensive to buy than it is to own isn’t a purchase, it’s an investment (or a pair of Alexander McQueen shoes).

So where does government fit in? Can you afford to buy X vs. Y administration? Sure you can. It’s only a ballot. But can you afford to own it?

McCain said he would cut spending on everything but defense and veterans (but hasn’t exhibited that type of restraint regarding the bailout). But what does that do to the country? Crumbling infrastructure and ballooning war costs. Obama wants to invest in the nation’s infrastructure and reduce war spending, something that will immediately create jobs, generate incomes, and do what’s needed to be done anyway for our future. McCain wants to buy out the bad mortgages at the cost the banks incurred. Can we afford to own that? Particularly for homeowners that couldn’t afford to either buy or own what they did? Obama wants to raise revenues, McCain wants to cut them.

It’s interesting to think about in terms of buying vs. owning. The next administration, whoever it is, will not reduce the deficit, reduce spending, or balance the budget. That’s not realistic. How they own what we’ve bought is the real test. And I’m spending my vote that Obama owns the country better than McCain will.

The Independent Voter ... You Can't Trust Them

The negativity escalates from the McCain/Palin court as more and more of the amorphous independents continue—at least according to thepolls—to decamp over to Obama’s side. I wonder if they’re genuinely confused as to why? The reason is in the systematic stupefication of the American electorate. Most Americans are lazy voters, we all know that. But the Karl Rove campaign style has, for years, been turning that general laziness into outright ignorance. The GOP couldn’t have cared less why Bush got the independent voters in 2004, just that he did. But ignorance as to the hows and whys of anything make it impossible to then repeat the experience.

When Bush won the 2004 election, his supporters swooned. Anyone who claimed that Bush voters were played, were stupid, or who voted for the wrong reasons were told this was the real America and the rest of us had better shut the hell up. Those same voters are now streaming Barack Obama’s way. The far right can’t believe the average America, the real America, could be so phenomenally stupid as to vote for the black guy with the scary name. Well, the far right and I finally agree on something. Because I couldn’t believe the average American to be so phenomenally stupid to vote for the guy who invaded the wrong country.

In the earlier stages of this election, I was quite critical of Obama, comparing him to Bush in some ways. I wanted people to vote for someone not based on charisma, but on real experiences like I believed HRC had. Didn’t happen that way, but I didn’t really expect it to. Presidencies are won and lost on personality, charisma, and perceptions. I think we’re getting lucky in that the personality, charisma and perceptions are founded upon some real intelligence, drive, education, and qualifying experience.

What I’m cracking up over is that the right is now frothing at the mouth over the behavior of the majority of Americans. Folks, these are the same voters you were swooning over four years ago. They are independent, unpredictable, and unreliable. You loved them four years ago, and you hate them now. Four years ago they had supposedly seen the light because they voted for your guy and now you denigrate them for exactly what you loved about them. They didn’t see the light with Bush and his cronies. They liked him and wanted to have a beer with him.

The current tactics of the McCain campaign will only drive these voters further into the Obama camp. Small towns are not the only pro-America areas of the country. The Democratic areas of Virginia are not a fake part of the state. Obama is not the sand.

I hated them four years ago and I still hate them now. Because while they will most likely put Barack Obama in the White House, I don’t trust who they will put in there next. Because we got lucky that there is actual intelligence, education, and diversity of experience behind the charisma. But we weren’t lucky four years ago and we might not be lucky four years from now. But at least I’ll get a breather (fingers crossed) for four years while I continue to vent about the idiocy that is this great country.

Chill, Baby, Chill

In the final months of a campaign large majorities in the country simply shut off all information that doesn’t confirm their own candidates’ superior virtue and intelligence.

This is from the wonderful back and forth between David Brooks and Gail Collins, this jumped out at me (this is Brooks):

It’s true. Rational arguments have gone by the wayside. People have either tuned out, are rabidly still promoting their candidate, or are rehashing old standards for/against their candidate. And I don’t believe in the undecided voter anymore. They’re not undecided, they just won’t answer publicly. Either they’re closet GOP’ers living in primarily liberal enclaves or families, or they’re voting for Obama but won’t admit it. Or they’re not voting at all and they’re too ashamed to admit they’ll be too lazy to make it to the polls that day.

So we’re basically done, we just have to endure three-ish more weeks of the back and forth. And like a flaming car wreck, we can’t turn away. Nothing I write is going to change the mind of someone who believes Obama is a terrorist Muslim and nothing they say is going to get me to vote for the angry old guy and Caribou Barbie.

It’s a rather sadomasochistic effort to even try. I have been trying not to. But then either McCain or Palin will do something so outlandish I’m simply flabbergasted that anyone would want them anywhere near the White House. But I’m renewing my efforts to be done. The election’s over, we’re just waiting for the results. It truly is more fun to read Pundit Kitchen than DailyKos at this point. Repeat that three times and it might sink in.

Or maybe not. Because then I see something like this. While it doesn’t matter whether the picture is of Obama or not, the resemblance is enough to get the message across. I still can’t believe there are people in this country that would do this, that would buy into this, or that continue to ignore this.

Breathe, relax, chill. Unsubscribe from the mailing lists. Delete the bookmarks. Yeah … right. Not gonna happen. Thanks to things like McCain’s airquotes about women’s health. As Salon put it, not only does he not care (we knew that) he doesn’t even seem to realize he’s supposed to pretend to care. But still the passionate outrage is waning. This campaign is no longer fun. I’m bored now, can we hurry up the voting? The signs are everywhere that it’s over, one way or the other. Even Ann Coulter (the video at this link is a must-see love letter to Ann Coulter) isn’t arguing for McCain/Palin, she’s reduced to spouting past election statistics about polling accuracy. When Ann does contortions to avoid promoting Republicans, you know it’s over. That either the Dems are going to win or the GOP hates its own candidate.