Old News is Good News

So, I had a few emails come in yesterday that were pretty insistent that I weigh in on that Eliot Spitzer story. That’s the one about the NY state governor who got caught in a call girl sting operation. Another “surprise” investigation of a Democrat governor (shades of Alabama) by a GOP controlled Department of Justice that has been in the headlines in the last couple years for politicizing the legal system.

To me, it’s a clear case of an idiot with his own money, blowing some of it on a hooker while on a business trip. Nothing spectacular, except for the fact that he’s the guy who ran through Wall Street like the Black Death, and then turned that holocaust into

A Blue State Strategy

Okay, so when was the last time planning a fall presidential general election around the traditional Blue States campaign strategy for a Democratic nominee actually worked out to give that candidate a 51% majority of the votes cast? If you say 1996, then you’d be wrong. Remember Ross Perot? Yep, Bill Clinton never broke the elusive 51% barrier in either wins, and we all know what happened to Al Gore and John Kerry – framing that sea of red with isolated smatters of blue for back to back losses against a pretty weak GOP offering. George Bush had his core constituency, but the man was no Ronald Reagan when it came to electrifying the electorate across ideological lines.So again, when was that old standby – the Blue State Strategy – ever a winning strategy for the DNC?The answer is – never.The truth is that this idiotic reaction to the easily disrupted GOP political strategy that leans entirely on nebulous and unattainable goals like Christian family values, morality in government, and the Holy Grail of “Right-To-Life” legislation, has

Oh… And One Other Thing…

I was going to do a piece today about Richard Nixon, the notoriously legendary 18 minute audio tape gap, and the miserable state of healthcare in the USA, but the last couple days have put such a sour taste in my mouth that I need to rinse and spit this one last bit here before I can clean up and get on with issues other than the DNC primary circus that blew through our area earlier this week. I promise. Just a few small items and then this Greek tragedy can playing itself out, and I’ll be content to have had my

Ugly America

It happened again on Tuesday. The Bush/Cheney politics of racism, fear and reaching within us to uncover the worst we’re capable of has ruled the day, and our future just got a lot darker as a result. Yeah, Hillary won three of the four states on Tuesday, and normally I’d be happy to see her survive this latest last-chance challenge. This time, however, it came at an expense that I’m not sure we can afford anymore. Hillary may have won this round, but going forward, we may have all just lost for good. She’s been rewarded for

Tactics, Strategies and Decisions

I really thought it was going to be different this time around. At least during the primary. I mean, I knew it’d get real dirty once the general campaign took over and the corporate-funded GOP sank its poisonous fangs into the effort to derail whatever version of change had survived the semi-finals in this contest to determine America’s future for the next 4 to 8 years.It’s not like I’ve seen it all before, but with the facts that exist surrounding our plight as a nation, and the deafening roar of the threat that bears down upon us as we prepare to

Choosing a President – Rev: 08

I remember back when GW was battling Al Gore for the White House in 2000, and the pundits kept bringing up the notion that what the American people really wanted was a president that they would be comfortable having a beer with at a backyard barbeque.

That notion seems kind of bizarre as we head into this campaign season, what with all that our backyard barbeque beer buddy has brought to our lives over the last 7 years. I guess that using that now infamous litmus test to determine this year’s choice for most

Obama’s Secret Service Problem

Michelle Malkin’s America — and Mine

A friend of mine sent me this link Michelle Obama’s America–and mine

With the comment “I need to add no comment to this editorial…”

Now, knowing my friend to be an arch conservative, in the vein of Newt Gingrich and the

The Ghosts of Dealy Plaza

On Wednesday, Februray 20th, in Dallas, the Secret Service suddenly shut down the screening for weapons at the entrance to the Barack Obama rally being held at Dallas’ Reunion Arena. For the next hour, no checks were made by police or Secret Service personnel for any bombs, guns, or anything whatsoever, as the thousands poured through the turnstiles and into the arena where the Democratic presidential front-runner, and the first African-American to ever stand on the verge of becoming America’s Commander in

A Word to the Right About McCain

Photo by Wigwam Jones

I just read the latest from Ann Coulter about the 2008 election. Seems that she’s softening up a little on Hillary Clinton. Well, as it relates to the candidacy of John McCain anyway. I guess that McCain has become the new evil empire in the eyes of the vocal rightwing of the GOP. Almost to the point where I’m taking a good look at him to see what there might be abut him that I’ll like. After all, if he drags nails down Ann’s psychological blackboard, then what’s not to like about him?

Just a thought here about John McCain, going out to my frantic friends on the far right as they hunker down behind the delusional sandbags of a tax-free, Jesus-led Christian America in panicked opposition to what looks like an inevitable centrist ticket.

Did it ever occur to you that the reason that he’s made it this far is that the American public is sick and tired of divisive politics, and that the 1994 Gingrich Revolution, and the hard-right vs hard-left stalemate it brought with it, is dead and gone?

I know it’s gotta be tough to hear, but after the Terry Shiavo embarrassment, and the Mark Foley embarrassment, and the Tom Delay embarrassment, and the Macaca embarrassment, and the Larry Craig embarrassment, and the Jean Schmidt embarrassment and the Ted Haggard embarrassment, and all the other smaller embarrassments involving members of the ultra-conservative wing of the GOP, it seems pretty clear that the rank and file of the mainstream GOP has had enough of the people they used to refer to as the “crazies” until Newt rallied them to hijack the party in 1994. I mean, winning elections with rigid voting blocks is great and all, but having to govern is something completely different, and those Evangelical snake oil salesmen and backwoods bug exterminators just never got that end of the whole “getting elected” thing together.

I think the grown-ups in the car have finally had enough of looking the other way on behalf of lockstep unity, and have quietly decided to take their place at the wheel. Sure, it’s been a thrill ride since the kids grabbed the controls, but there are just so many trashed mailboxes the party faithful will tolerate as they careen through the countryside on the brink of disaster. Responsible motoring is what’s needed now, even if the biggest backseat crybabies still wanna go “Weeeeee” to the peril of the rest of us belted in with them.

John McCain, and his blend of centrist notions seem to be a lot more in-line with what the rest of the nation sees as the best way to actually accomplish something in this country. The Ann Coulters of the world, on the other hand, are behaving more like political suicide bombers, intent on staining the streets with their own blood rather than give an inch on behalf of workable solutions, and it’s about time that the rest of the GOP finally came around to seeing people like her and Limbaugh as being the relentless troublemakers that they actually are.

You see, the left has its troublemakers too. Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, and Cynthia McKenna are just a few. but folks don’t follow their lead so much as encourage them to battle it out with your troublemakers, since they’ll do it anyway and why bother stopping them if it gives both sides of the crazy a little distraction. When it comes to actual governance, no one would have those folks actually directing choices in leadership, and would never allow them to force their support away from a political candidate that appeals to them. They can suggest, but they know better than to demand something like that.

I’m a centrist, and even if it seems like I’m way far to the left on most things, it’s actually more indicative of how far to the right the public imagines the center to actually be. It hasn’t gotten as crazy as the pundits would have us believe, and the real people of this nation have had enough of the childish demonizing, and the cartoon righteousness of the last 16 years. It’s finally coming to an end, and hopefully there is still time to undo to damage of this long protracted, and pointless, culture war.

You fundamentalists will never be able to have the “Christian America” that you envision, and I’ll never have the America where everyone really does have the same shot at economic success as everyone else, regardless of how their brains are wired or what their last names are. We’ll both have to accept this, grow beyond it, and do our best to be positive members of this unique society – with its own personality that neither of us would have crafted if given the mandate.

Let Ann Coulter be her own version of the Gong Show and let Rush sit there and carry on as the bloviated buffoon that’s earned him his fortune. Just don’t let either of them actually affect the way you address the challenge of making a responsible decision as a member of a widely diverse society.

They make a living off pitting you against people like me. It fattens their bank accounts when you get entrench and uncompromising. It also feeds their egos. In fact, while it does nothing to serve your needs, it gives them everything they need to thrive as the professional antagonists that they’ve chosen to be. Rightwing dissent is big business in this nation, and it has been for years, although it’s been tough recently as those great bumperstickers have inspired actual policy that’s failed spectacularly. The rightwing cheerleaders want those heady days of raging against the machine back again. They know that if they can succeed in fracturing the GOP this fall, they will have many years of happiness as the leading voices of dissent in a new centrist political landscape, while you have only resentment and frustration to look forward to as a face in their crowd of the angry disenfranchised.

That’s right. Losing, for them, is winning. It’s impossible to be a celebrated dissident in a society where folks agree with you. As the back-bench bomb tosser, you get to rage against the status quo instead of having to take responsibility for the policies you’ve enacted. For folks like Ann and Rush, railing against is what it’s all about. For them, this conservative collapse – losing it all and having to start over again – is a dream come true. And folks like you are falling right into line to make it happen for them by refusing to give an inch to the folks who actually make up the majority of your beloved Grand Old Party.

John McCain works to bring things to the center, where that majority lives. In their world of give and take, no one wins everything but no one loses everything either. And in a society as aggressively diverse as this, that’s all you can ever hope for. One thing you can be sure of is that if John does get to be president, he’ll sure as hell take the job seriously, and in the end, that’s saying a lot more than you can say about most anyone else in your party that is in the position to land the job.