Obviously, in a rational country with a grasp of actual issues, the Democratic ticket, flawed as it is, should be running away with this. They have a golden opportunity to hang Republican failures around McCain's neck, but can't resist the stupid urge to preface their attacks with tedious, predictable caveats about what a great guy he is. Perhaps a diagram would be in order.
It's as if the poll panickers are worried that yet another dirty Republican victory would, at long last, irrefutably confirm their sneaking suspicions that in the aggregate, we are an impulsive, ignorant, easily misled gaggle of miscreants. Well, duh.
This is not a terribly rational country: there, I said it. Look, there's a teevee show premiering tonight called Hole in the Wall, where contestants valiantly try to keep from being swept into a pool by, um, a moving wall with a cutout. I imagine this is Fox' bold attempt to counter the inherently elitist trappings of Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?. It makes sense that a large number of people would be at least momentarily distracted by the shiny penny of Sarahcuda Palin. Such people regard politics as just another iteration of Survivor anyway; actual policies and positions have fuck-all to do with it.
And there have been all too many horserace stories profiling the face-in-the-crowd donut-head, wowed by the newbie's rapier wit and borscht-belt schtick, claiming to have been an Obamanaut but converted literally overnight to a McCainiac. Friends 'n' neighbors, this is what we small-town folk call a crock of shee-yit. Such a person is by definition lying, ignorant, or completely delusional. In any case, good riddance. I think this story provides a more considered profile of what the hotly contested Vaginal-American demographic actually think about McCain's transparently cynical stunt-casting.
Trish Heckman, a 49-year-old restaurant cook and disappointed Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter, watched last week as the country's newest political star made her explosive debut.
She followed the news when John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, paid attention to the raging debate over her qualifications, even tuned in to watch her dramatic speech at the Republican convention.
But when it came down to an issue Heckman really cares about -- sending a daughter to college on $10.50 an hour -- her desire to see a woman reach the White House took a back seat to her depleted savings account.
"I wanted Hillary to win so bad, but I saw Sarah, and it just didn't work for me," said Heckman, taking a break in the empty courtyard of J. Paul's restaurant in a downtown struggling to revive. "I have no retirement. Obama understands it's the economy. He knows how we live."
That's it in a nutshell -- The Economy, Stupid. All the major polling sites have accounted for these polling anomalies, and even Real Clear Politics, whom no one is going to confuse as being in the tank for Obama, calls this one for him even on their no toss-up map, which has McCain taking Ohio and Virginia, when one or both are likely to squeak to Obama. Most of the current electoral models have Obama with over 300 electoral votes.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight has probably the most reasoned current analysis of what's going on. All conventions, no matter how dismal or meaningless, get some sort of bounce in some poll or other. But it takes some time to see if the bounce is consistent across the spectrum, and the pick of an unknown running mate has thrown the signal-noise ratio out of whack, which is exactly what it was supposed to do. And the media pounce on these things because they have a vested corporate interest in keeping things close. You've been watching this reality show for two years now, folks, gotta stay tuned in for the big season finale.
But they can't hide her in the tundra forever, and while she can warm up her interview chops on the usual chumps and hacks, at some point someone will ask a question she won't like and can't deflect. Palin's record clearly indicates someone who doesn't handle dissent or disagreement well, whose self-styled reformist credentials are bogus, and whose actual executive expertise is grotesquely padded.
The media weasels, because they instinctively went after the soap-opera angle of her family rather than matters of policy, are temporarily thrown off. But a lot changes in two months, especially in the accelerated pressure cooker of the campaign homestretch. The main danger is excessively lowering expectations, thus enabling her to exceed them easily, which is what happened with Fredo. It will be enough to catch her in her lies and misrepresentations, emphasize the increasing unemployment rate, and ask people if they can get over themselves just long enough to not vote against their own self-interest for once in their misbegotten lives.
And if not, if their shameless lies and comical gestures work yet again on the goobers, and you get another round of the same boss? Hell, I dunno. Disengage. Opt out. Get yours and move on. Heighten those contradictions. I still think the system has failed and we are essentially where the British were a hundred years ago, by and large, but at least the Democrats are somewhat more likely to cushion the blow a tad for the peons. If the system hasn't quite yet failed, it most certainly will with clowns like McCain and Palin in charge. And a catastrophically diseased, debauched system will and should ultimately fail on its own terms, so instead of trying to further stand tall against the tide of stupidity in such an aftermath, look around for a board and ride the wave.
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