Wednesday, September 10, 2008

What is the sound of one tooth gnashing?

Something like this: CLUMP-SCRAAAAPE “Ow my fucking gums are bleeding again!”

I haven’t written about politics for a while because, good lord, what is there to say? Americans are stupid, and we’re getting ready to prove it again.

I said at the beginning of the primaries that I liked Obama a lot, but I thought he’d benefit from some seasoning. I saw a picture in my mind’s eye of him being sworn in with more meat on his bones, some gray in his temples, after having been senator for a term or two, then governor of Illinois. That guy looked like the first black president to me.

And who knows? I may still be right.

It’s not even that Obama’s a bad candidate this time around. He’s not lightning in a jar, but he’s not John Kerry or Al Gore circa 2000, either. He gives great speech, but his great speeches are in the mold of the great speeches of old. They inspire and challenge the listener to lift him- or herself up to the standard of the speaker’s rhetoric. And as a country, we’re just not up to putting in that kind of effort anymore. These days, even when we go to war, we’re not asked to sacrifice anything - on the contrary, our leaders tell us the patriotic thing to do is go shopping. Which we can do from home, at our computers. Being a patriot used to take effort. Ask John McCain.

Garrison Keillor wrote a typically well-thought-out, well-researched piece on the subject of the nasty turn in recent polling, with this thesis: “Hello? Do you see us out here? We are not fruit flies, we are voters, we can read and write, we didn't just fall off the coal truck.”

Wrong! Yes we did. At least the so-called Independents have if the shift in polls since Gov. Palin’s convention speech is any indication. Keillor then goes on to de-bunk all the lies the campaign has been repeating about her daily, but so what? Nobody cares! All he’s doing is flinging around boring facts, he might as well be prepping us for a history mid-term. Do you honestly think John and Jane Q. Hockeymom are gonna stick around till the paragraph starting with, “When you check the actuarial tables…”?

Fuck, no. Mr. Radio-guy is just lording it over everybody how smart he is, what a snob, how elite. Christ, isn’t he on Public Radio? What else do you need to know about his “leanings?”

Back when I was doing speed, I hung out a lot of your basic truck-drivin’, gun-owning types, and one of them finally pulled me aside one day and told me I was rubbing people the wrong way with my highfalutin’ vocabulary (the result of an educational zeal that didn’t take me a single step further than the mandatory minimum 12 years). I learned real quick that Regular Folks don’t like it when they think you’re trying to show off your intelligence, because that’s not something they even have respect for in the first place. What they want to know is, Can you field-dress a moose? And while we’re having that beer together, how’sabout you flash us them titties?

Keillor's misread of the electorate reflects the same mistake the Democratic party keeps making; we keep nominating Richie Cunningham while the GOP keeps running The Fonz. Gosh Mrs. C, that’s not much of a contest, is it? Your Bill Clinton type – who is both policy wonk and affable skirt-chaser you’d like to have a beer with – only comes along once in a generation. Apparently.

The only reason the GOP at first decried Obama’s celebrity (remember their creepy “The One” commercial, where he shared screen time with Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and various giant phallic symbols?) is because they were scared of it. They’d run on it themselves and pulled off two increasingly improbable election wins in a row with it, and this time the other side had the telegenic goods in the bag instead of them.

But now that that they’ve got their own literal beauty queen on the ticket, they’re back in the pink and as a nation, we’re poised to screw the poor, hapless pooch yet once again. I don’t even think running Hillary against this Palin woman would have done the trick. Hillary’s no hockey mom, and that’s what the rubes are buying this year.

Are we really on-track to bestowing the presidency upon the Oldest Living Candidate ever who, in between multiple bouts with skin cancer, still found time to rubber-stamp most of the Bush administration’s nation-busting policies for the last 8 years?

Yes, we are.

Do we really think it’s a good idea to put a totally unknown quantity with scant executive and no legislative experience one heartbeat away from the Oldest Living Candidate ever, just because she can read a teleprompter and has a white-trash melodrama playing out in real time that the rubes in the hinterlands can relate to?

Yes, we do.

We can’t really be getting ready to keep executive power in the hands of the same party that has aggrandized and squandered it so rapaciously for most of the last decade, devastating us at home and humiliating us abroad, can we?

Yes, we can.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Calm down, Fang. Yes, McCain has gotten a bounce from the convention and from his VP pick, but don't forget this isn't a national election. If it were based simply on the popular vote, then Squatter Boy never would have began his eight-year reign of terror and stupidity.

I'm not saying I feel comfortable. I never have, even when things seemed more certain. But if you look at the states that are in play, Obama still has a clear advantage. For chrissakes, Montana is in play! I doubt Obama will win it, but it's close enough to make McCain nervous, especially since Ron Paul is on the ballot there.

And do you know where most of McCain bounce has come from? The fucking South! Like we ever were going to win there anyway.

National polls are pointless. All they do is provide a snapshot of who's currently up in the news cyle. That has an effect, of course, but it's not nearly as important as who leads in which states. What I find encouraging it that is entirely feasible this year for the Dems to lose both Ohio and Michigan and still win this damn thing. If they take New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, and Nevada, it's there. All but the latter seem highly likely.

Of course things could change. But we have to stop our hand-wringing of the palpable stupidity of or countrymen and do something about this election. Perhaps phone-banking, if you can stomach it. We've got to push Obama over the top in those above-mentioned states and build upon his slim leads in Pennsylvania and New Mexico.

And, shit, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama wins Florida after all.

Besides, if we lose, then 1) McCain inherits Bush's awful mess and 2) we continue to push for strong Democratic candidates, not the feckless pack of mealy-mouthed candy asses who currently dominate the party.

Keep the faith.

1:55 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

P.S. This is Dowdy. Sometimes I'm logged into my other Gmail account.

1:56 PM

 
Blogger Fang Bastardson said...

You know, The Missus and me were talking just this morning about volunteering to phone-bank for Obama to some of those Gawd-fearing backwater hellhole states. I reckon I can pass for a New Mexican.

2:17 PM

 
Blogger Fang Bastardson said...

PS: I always know who you are. Nobody else writes like you. Relax.

2:18 PM

 
Blogger Mark Dowdy said...

You mean there is recognizable "Dowdy-style"? Fuck yeah!

Oh, and I fucked up in my long comment above. I meant to say that we might lose Florida and Ohio and still win -- something unthinkable before Dean's 50-state strategy.

2:35 PM

 
Blogger Heather Clisby said...

So, whattya saying, Dowdy? Not in a betting mood this year?

4:49 PM

 
Blogger Mark Dowdy said...

Absolutely not!

Although I'm hopeful, I can't afford to lose even a meager 50 bones. Also, it is apparently bad luck for me to bet against lying, incompetent demagogues in presidential campaigns.

Are you really so certain McCain is going to win this thing?

4:52 PM

 

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