Racism and litigation

How very strange it is these days to hear Sen. John McCain and his surrogates constantly vacillating between calls for (undefined) "Reform!" and scapegoating condemnations of "Reform Now."

What do they want? Reform!

And when do they want it? Not now.

If you're not a racist bastard living in the fever-dream of a post-fact surreality, then you'll appreciate this summary of the confusions and distortions in the latest round of ritual attacks and scapegoating leveled at ACORN.

And no, it's not an overstatement or an uncharitable characterization to say that anyone swallowing this ACORN-scapegoating is insane and a racist bastard. This is a baseless assertion that begins with the argument that poor people and black people are the powers that be in America -- that they run the show. That's insane. It's laughable on its face to anyone not infected by the voluntary mental illness of old-fashioned American racism.

It's also worth pointing out that former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez may one day wind up in prison for his role in promoting this crazy racist lie. His Justice department, at the behest of Karl Rove, tried to enlist the nation's U.S. Attorneys to help promote this myth of the All Powerful ACORN. Eight of them -- all Republicans -- refused because these "voter fraud" allegations were baseless and there seemed to be no legal point to them, only a political attempt to intimidate black voters, scaring them away from the polls.

This is the kind of desperation move you only resort to if you're convinced there's no other way for your party to win at the polls. It's not surprising, then, that the Republicans are pushing this ACORN nonsense now. They're looking at the same numbers as the rest of us, and what they saw during the primaries had to have them spooked.

Here, in graph form, are some figures from the primary season earlier this year (all from here). First, a look at total Republican votes cast (in red) vs. total Democratic votes cast (in blue) in six swing states:

I'm not cherry picking six lopsided states to make this look worse than it is for the Republicans. If I'd had more time, I could have made many more of these. I find all that blue rather delightful.

Here's another pie chart showing the total Republican/Democratic votes cast in all six states, plus one that's even worse news for the GOP. The graph on the right below shows the total votes cast for the Republican winner vs. the total votes cast for the Democratic runner-up. So, yes, that's right -- throughout the primaries, the candidate who lost the Democratic primary still received a lot more total support than the winner of the Republican primary.

In these six states, in fact, the Democratic runners-up received more total votes than all of the Republican candidates combined (3,882,147 to 3,875,813).

So what's a Republican campaign strategist to do?

First, of course, you have to try to increase the size of that red portion in terms of absolute numbers. You have to try to increase Republican voter turnout by getting voters who lean your way more excited about your candidate.

That's part of what it seems the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate was intended to do. For at least one block of GOP voters, I think it worked. Evangelical Republicans were, at best, tepidly supportive of John McCain. Some were openly hostile to him. Palin's Pentecostal roots and -- more importantly -- her credentials as a zealous abortion opponent helped to fire up evangelicals and to get them behind John McCain.

Unfortunately, that doesn't change the dynamic reflected in the graphs above. The red portion of those graphs isn't just John McCain's supporters, but all of the Republican voters in those primaries -- including the Mike Huckabee-supporting evangelical voters now reclaimed by the selection of Sarah Palin. Firing up the base doesn't change the dynamic reflected in those graphs because what they show is the gap between the size of the Republican base and the size of the Democratic base.

Just consider the example of Ohio. More than 600,000 new voters registered in Ohio to participate in the primary elections. As the graph above shows, these new voters were overwhelmingly Democratic. It's as though the entire population of Vermont just moved to Cleveland. Firing up the Huckabee faction by choosing Palin doesn't do anything to change that, which brings us to Strategy No. 2.

The next hope for Republican strategists was that the Democratic primaries would leave their opponents so fractured and divided that some of the blue portion of the graphs above would turn red. Sure, it's devastating for the GOP to contemplate that the Democratic runners-up still outpolled the combined total of the entire Republican field, but what if the supporters of those runners-up could be peeled away and added to that Republican total?

This isn't a terribly plausible scenario, once you start to think about it a bit. The Democratic primaries were hard-fought, but nowhere near contentious enough to cause core members of the Democratic constituency to turn away from all of the issues they care about and support the other side out of spite. The idea here, essentially, is to fire up the other side's base in the hopes that they will then switch sides. Not a promising idea.

But Republicans gave it their best try. They spent months pushing the narrative that huge numbers of disaffected Clinton supporters were somehow up for grabs. This culminated in a weird ritual interview conducted dozens of times over at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The reporters all set out to find some of these disaffected Clinton supporters and, failing to do so, they wound up interviewing people who had voted for Hillary in the primaries but who were now, like Clinton herself, squarely backing Obama.

"Still though," the reporters said, "in theory, you must agree that it's possible that somewhere there might be Clinton supporters who are so angry after the primaries that they're now willing to vote for a candidate who disagrees with them on every issue just for, like, revenge or something."

"I guess, in theory," the interviewees all conceded. "It's possible that such people might exist. I just haven't met any myself."

Dozens of interviews like that in every newspaper and on every cable news program. The idea of peeling away Clinton supporters was thus a runaway success as a media meme and a talking point for pundits. As an electoral strategy, though, it turned out to be a miserable failure.

The last gasp of that strategy was also apparently the idea that the Palin selection would help to win over those who had voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries. The idea seemed to be that, you know, they're both, um, women?

In that regard, the Palin pick was a disaster. It turns out that Clinton supporters weren't charmed by the insulting insinuation that their candidate had nothing to offer beyond her gender. And the contrast between the two women's respective qualifications and talents did not flatter the McCain ticket.

So with the failure of strategies No. 1 and No. 2 to change the lopsided dynamic seen in those graphs above, what's left for the GOP?

Well, they could try to win voters on the merits of their policy positions, but such an attempt doesn't seem to have occurred to them. It's just not the way Republicans run nowadays. "Who do I look like," they ask, "Al Gore?" And anyway, let's give the voters some credit -- the graphs above likely reflect that voters have already evaluated the policy positions of the two parties and their preference, in that regard, seems to be clear.

So what else is there? Not much. There's personal biography and character. Unfortunately the graphs above already account for that as well. When this long, long campaign started, voters generally regarded John McCain as an impressive guy, but they still weren't going to vote for him.

So that leaves the GOP strategists, apparently, with race-baiting and dirty tricks. And that is where we find ourselves today.

Thus, in the midst of an unprecedented and vastly consequential global financial crisis, we have witnessed a Republican campaign dominated by conspiracy theories about 1960s radicals and the flagrant racism of the cyclical ACORN two-step. Ugly, low, dishonest and dishonorable.

And probably also counter-productive.

The only other arrow that GOP strategists seem to have in their quiver is litigation. The Ohio GOP has now sued to force a massive re-verification of all 600,000 of those new voters in the Buckeye State. The goal here seems to be to intimidate and/or burden those new voters to keep them away from the polls. If you can't win by a straight up vote, then litigate and disenfranchise.

That sleazy strategy worked in Florida in 2000, but it's a trick play and those become less effective the more you rely on them. In 2000, with Nader in the mix, Florida was close enough to swing by purging 40,000 voters whose names were the same as those of felons. The army of obstructionist GOP lawyers working in Ohio in 2008 faces a much more difficult task. Dirty tricks might help to whittle down the blue side in those graphs above, but -- barring something even more egregious and illegal -- the gap is simply too large to litigate away.

I've been watching the unraveling of John McCain for the past several months with some fascination. His campaign has worked its way through the list of strategies above, using up ever more of their candidate's credibility until the account was finally overdrawn.

What scares me now is this: I don't think they're done yet. Just because I can't imagine how McCain and his surrogates could sink any deeper into the sleaze and the race-baiting muck doesn't mean that his strategists -- odious professional liars like Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis -- have reached the limits of their imagination. Each time one of their previous strategies has failed to gain traction, they have responded as though it would have worked had it only been more dishonest and just a bit sleazier. So they roll out the next plan and drag their campaign even lower and John McCain approves of the newest ugly message and Sarah Palin enthusiastically embraces the next inflammatory lie and Obama's lead in the polls gets even bigger.

John McCain, right now, is hoping that Barack Obama will make some massive mistake in tonight's debate -- an epic gaffe for the ages. I don't expect that to happen.

McCain's next best hope -- and I mean for his soul, not for his electoral prospects -- is to have someone like Bob Dole sit him down and explain what's at stake in the three weeks he has left. Bob Dole should explain to McCain that even though Bob Dole never got to be president, Bob Dole is OK with that, because people remember Bob Dole as an honorable man and not as a lying, dishonorable, race-baiting windsock willing to say or do anything in pursuit of his ambition for power.

Comments

[KnightHawk]

Bob Dole approves of this message.

[KnightHawk]

Bob Dole approves of this message.

[Jen]

I honestly liked McCain before all this. But now he's being led down a trail it sounds like he doesn't entirely enjoy. But he complied, and so here he is.

[Mumphrey]

At this point, I have to wonder if McCain even gives two damns about his soul.
I find this hard to believe, but there was a time, as lately as maybe 4 years ago, when I kind of thought highly of McCain. I never would have voted for him, but I wouldn't have been fearful for my country if he had won the presidency. I think that I was just taken in by a big scam. I don't think there ever wwas any such "honorable" or "upstanding" John McCain. He just faked it all.
I almost feel morally stained, having fallen for this creep...

[thirstygirl]

I watch this election process in horror and fascination. NZ is also currently in the run-up to an election and it's likely to go to the centre-right party [because we seem to think it's Their Turn] but there just isn't anywhere near the level of electorate hijinks happening.

Of course this is also a country where the Prime Minister and all the leaders of the various parties regularly show up on our public radio to get grilled and there's just not the disconnect with the politicians necessary for this sort of dirty pool to work. [This isn't a compliment for us- we're just too small]

[Jared Bascomb]

The McCain campaign has been so disastrous that I'm starting to believe my initial, far-fetched theory just might be correct: he's sabotaging his campaign for the express purpose of rendering the neocons and religious right-wingnuts irrelevant, and restoring the GOP to what Barry Goldwater - who was far more libertarian, especially in his later years - intended. McCain is destroying the village in order to save it.

That's my good angel talking. My bad angel says . . . well, what everyone else thinks.

[David]

I find this hard to believe, but there was a time, as lately as maybe 4 years ago, when I kind of thought highly of McCain. I never would have voted for him, but I wouldn't have been fearful for my country if he had won the presidency.

I've heard this same thing, almost word-for-word, from most of the people I've discussed the election with. It's true of me too. Granted, I'd be a little more concerned with the financial crisis now, since I think the economic policies of 2004-McCain would have worsened the fallout... but this is a whole different category now.

[Mumphrey]

A side note: my father grew up in Pennsylvania, in a family that had been with the Republicans since the Civil War. He was the first person in his family to vote for a Democrat (Roosevelt in 1940) since the Civil War, and his mother, father, brothers & aunts were all scandalized. He never voted for a Republican again in his life, and he followed politics assiduously, becoming in the 1990's a hard-core C-SPAN junkie. He said something about 6 or 7 years ago that I still quote today: "I just can't understand Republicans; they're for everything that's bad, and against everything that's good." I think that pretty well sums it all up.
Anyway, in 2000, he actually sent John McCain $100 in the primaries. He never would have voted for him over Gore, but he was truly scared about Bush, and I guess he knew the vote would end up being tight in November, and if the Republican ended up winning, he'd rather have had McCain than Bush...
Anyway, he died last November at 91, and I dearly wish he were around today so I could hear what he'd be saying about McCain today. Whatever it would have been, I damned well know I'd be quoting him on that, too, for the rest of my life...

[lsn]

@thirstygirl: NZ has the same "don't let the bastards think they've got a mandate" switching strategy as Australia then? :-) Although we mostly do it on a swapping parties at State and Federal level, just to keep the checks and balances going.

I was watching an item on the "Bradley effect" on SBS news last night - I take it Obama's now so far ahead this is unlikely to be an issue?

[Kutsuwamushi]

And no, it's not an overstatement or an uncharitable characterization to say that anyone swallowing this ACORN-scapegoating is insane and a racist bastard.

I have no doubt that this is true of many people who are perpetuating this disgusting and anti-democratic lie, but I think you're overestimating what the "average person" knows about ACORN.

If I tried to form an opinion on ACORN based on what I've seen on TV, I'd have no idea what ACORN is. I don't think I would even know that it even advocates for low income and minority voters. All I'd have is a vague association: ACORN democratic voter fraud mickey mouse.

I think that the people pushing this are counting on my ignorance. They know that they can link ACORN to voter fraud despite the facts because most people will never learn the facts.

It's the same reason Sarah Palin feels like she can get away with saying that the Branchflower report completely exonerates her. Anyone who reads the report will know it's a bald-faced lie, but the vast majority of people won't. She can at least create the impression that there are two sides.

[thirstygirl]

@Isn- less 'don't let them think they have a mandate', more 'you've played long enough, it's someone else's turn to bat now', helped along by a dose of 'I'm bored now, can't we change the tape?'

We don't have different branches of govt so there isn't a swap of which one has control over upper/lower house, probably because we're completely unprepared to pay for more than 120 politicians.

HOWEVER we seem to have heartily embraced the intentional chaos of MMP, consistently returning a range of minor parties to the House so that the two major parties don't get too swollen-headed and have to learn to play well with others.

Attempts to start smear campaigns are generally sneered down with a tone of 'don't try pull that nonsense, do you think you're American or something?'

[Ursula L]

I don't think that the lopsided primary returns mean much. The Republican primary was settled - there was no point in showing up to vote. The Democratic primary was unsettled, and votes counted, so people came and voted. In states with open primaries, Republicans could and did show up and vote Democratic, since there vote counted there, but would have no effect if they voted on the Republican line.

It represents the unusually long active primary for the Democrats, as a result of the proportional representation at the convention, and the presence of two unusually strong candidates.

For the actual election, when it is a matter of the vote counting whichever party you belong to, a totally different dynamic applies, and the lopsidedness won't be there to anywhere near the same extent.

Of course, it is something to be happy about in that having more people who can be involved being involved is a good thing, and a lot of people got excited about Democrats because they actually had a chance to cast a meaningful primary ballot, in many states for the first time.

[Drake Pope]

At this point, I have to wonder if McCain even gives two damns about his soul.

Jeez, guys, it's an election. Yeah, it's sad that he's letting this happen to himself and his Party, but I doubt that his actual soul is in jeopardy.

I find this hard to believe, but there was a time, as lately as maybe 4 years ago, when I kind of thought highly of McCain. I never would have voted for him, but I wouldn't have been fearful for my country if he had won the presidency. I think that I was just taken in by a big scam. I don't think there ever wwas any such "honorable" or "upstanding" John McCain. He just faked it all.

Dude. He's like 72 years old. Are you saying that he faked his entire personality that he's had for the past 70 or so years and is only now, a couple of months into a rather contentious election, displaying his true personality. That's insane. Maybe the truth is that McCain is a person who has made choices in order to win an election.

[Mumphrey]

I don't know; he's playing around with some serious shit with all the "kill him" loonies at the rallies and his running mate talking about "palling around with terrorists" crap and stoking the crazies. You play around with that kind of shit and you're playing with something awfully bad. And for what? The presidency? I don't know, the presidency is a big prize, but, what the hell, seems to me somebody once said something like "What profiteth it a man if he gain the world but lose his soul?"
Lord I wish I could recall where, but I read as good an explanation of McCain as I've ever seen within the last few weeks: McCain has been running on his "honor" since 1982. It's all been an act. That's why he's so desperate: he has nothing to lose. If he loses this time, there won't be any more shots, so he doesn't have to worry about keeping up the front any more for the "next time".

[Hawker Hurricane]

Bradley Effect: not only may it not be an issue, it may work in his favor...

The Bradley effect is the (alleged) people lying to pollsters because they don't want thier neighbors to know what rascists they are. They say they'll vote for the black man in public, but in the privacy of the voting booth, they vote against him.
However, it seems in Certain Parts of Our Country, it is 'unwise' to publicly admit that you are voting for a man of non-European descent. Obama actually did better in the voting both than in the polls in 'those parts'.

thirstygirl, you made me smile with "Attempts to start smear campaigns are generally sneered down with a tone of 'don't try pull that nonsense, do you think you're American or something?'"

I'll be emigrating to NZ (from the US) in the next year or so-- I lived in Chch last year & I loved it. There is a world of difference in the political climate in NZ that is refreshing-- not perfect, but a damn sight better than this weird Weimar crap going on here. I fear for Obama's life.

p.s. I hope the Nats don't get in myself, but it doesn't look too good for Labour this time round unfortunately...

[Thoughtcriminal]

That was me above

[Naked Bunny with a Whip]

Are you saying that he faked his entire personality that he's had for the past 70 or so years

No, but he's not pretending to be repentent about the Keating Five affair anymore. He's slipped back to the way he was before being caught.

[Hob]

Drake Pope: Aside from his Keating contrition, which I never found all that convincing, and his skill at palling around with reporters, what kind of nice personality traits are you talking about that McCain has had for "the past 70 years or so"? The 2000 campaign was McCain on unusually good behavior and running away from the right wing. It wasn't typical of how he was before, and it didn't last.

[Hob]

About racist bastards in fever dreams: this year I've had the unsettling experience of watching someone I vaguely knew, a friend of a friend, turn from a cheerful, slightly obnoxious, basically apolitical guy with a slight "ha ha I'm so politically incorrect" shtick, but who identified as a socially liberal Democrat (like basically everyone I know around here)... to a cheerful, highly motivated Hillary Clinton supporter... to a vehement and increasingly unpleasant Hillary Clinton supporter who kept dropping hints about McCain being his second choice... to, now, a total wingnut who thinks McCain is a moderate and Palin is charming, and posts lots of articles about ACORN and "Islamofascism". He still claims to be a Democrat, but his new favorite source of information is National Review, and when people try to tell him that it's an unreliable right-wing rag, he says that's just one of those crazy lefty conspiracy theories. I know I'm sheltered over here in San Francisco, but I've never seen anything like it. But, for the record, there is apparently at least one Clinton supporter who turned out like this. And I'm not a big Clinton fan but I do think Hillary would kick this guy's ass if she could.

[Richard Hershberger]

"Are you saying that he faked his entire personality that he's had for the past 70 or so years"

I think that he is a guy who would prefer to take the high road, but is willing to be as sleazy as he needs to be to get what he wants. I'm not sure even he knew that about himself going into this. The turning point was when he hired the same Rove crew that had slimed him eight years earlier. In another universe that might have been the action of a winner, but it certainly isn't the action of a man of honor, or even self respect.

[DarcyPennell]

Ursula is correct: the charts from the primaries are highly misleading. Republicans didn't have nearly the incentive to vote in states like NC where their nomination had been locked up for months already. I'm a North Carolinian and I'd love to believe that 3/4 of our electorate votes Democrat, but it just isn't so.

[Nora Bombay]

Thank you for the charts. It makes me feel a lot better.

Chicago has early voting, and I got to do so Monday. So for me the race is just plain over.

So even if I am a part of the overwhelming landslide which is Illinois for Obama, I guaranteed that well, I'm a part of that landslide. I was a Florida absentee voter in 2000. And this has to turn out better than that did.

[Jason]

Mumphrey: You're remembering a line from "A man for all seasons" I think. Sir Thomas More. I loved that play. A martyr who does everything humanly possible to avoid having to be a martyr! But "My soul is like water in my hands, I dare not open them."

And there is those horribly unsecure vote tallying machines. Up here in Canada we have scrutineers from each party watching the vote counting after the polls close. They can challenge evaluation of 'questionable ballots'. More difficult a system to subvert, since the other parties never know who will be sent as scrutineer to any given poll for a particular party, and to have a significant effect you'd have to subvert huge numbers of people rather than just one computer program, and without even knowing who those critical people will be in advance!

[LL]

I'm kind of amazed that people still go to the lengths (or depths) they do to become president. It's not even that great of a job. U.S. Supreme Court Justice seems like a much cushier gig (once you get past the idiotic confirmation hearing), and you don't have to worry about running for election.

[Matthew Austern]

Actually, I think Mumphrey is remembering a line from the Christian Bible. (Matthew 16:26)

What "A Man for All Seasons" added was "... but for Wales?"

[Zonko]

Thanks for giving me a clue what ACORN is, Fred. McCain brought it up in this last debate, along with the "You were in the same room as a TERRORIST" shtick which Palin has been spouting. Obama gave a calm, measured answer explaining that he only served on the same committee as that guy most young independent voters like myself have never actually heard of, and condemned wossisname's political stance.

McCain follows this with the brilliant, incisive and cunningly intelligent method of repeating "Yes but we- the American people- need to know the details of your association with ACORN and blah blah blah!"

It's aggravating that the style of debating McCain and Palin use appears to be 'repeat talking points stubbornly and aggressively until opponent or moderator moves on and disregard any valid points made.'

My parents voted for Bush both terms and are fairly loyal Republicans, but McCain/Palin just seems to be turning them off.

[Toby]

What Kutsuwamushi said. Total overstatement, and quite uncharitable. Chill.

[hf]

Are you saying that he faked his entire personality that he's had for the past 70 or so years

No, the media faked it for him.

This is a baseless assertion that begins with the argument that poor people and black people are the powers that be in America

More likely they call these people mindless agents of the Jews Illuminati Democrats.

[Nenya]

I'm kind of amazed that people still go to the lengths (or depths) they do to become president. It's not even that great of a job.

Yeah--on the one hand, I'm thrilled that it looks like Obama will get the job. On the other, dear God, I don't envy him the sleepless nights and greying hair the next four to eight years will give him. I think and hope he will do a good job, but, well--it's kind of like Fred and LB.

[Jon P]

Honestly, the argument from primaries is crap. Of the six graphs, the first two are meaningful, the rest aren't. Here are the relevant events in the Republican campaign, with the 6 primaries you highlighted interspersed.
Feb 5 (Uber Tuesday): Missouri
Feb 7: Romney drops out, leaving only Huckabee as a challenger
Feb 12: Virginia
Feb 13: McCain calls Huckabee win "mathematically impossible"
Feb 14-15: Romney and GHW Bush endorse McCain
Feb 19: Wisconsin
Feb 28: CNN cancels a Republican debate, because McCain has all but won.
Mar 3: Ohio; all networks announce McCain has secured a majority of delegates
Apr 22: Pennsylvania
May 6: North Carolina

The last three cannot be considered "contests" for the Republican race, so saying that not a lot of Republicans voted is hardly a surprise. For Christ's sake, Alan freaking Keyes won 2.7% of the vote in North Carolina. You can't claim that would happen in a competitive race.
Essentially, it would be like trying to make the conclusion that the US soccer team is doomed in its attempt to qualify for the 2010 World Cup because they lost to Trinidad and Tobago 1-2 last night. You just can't make that argument. They've already moved on to the next round, so they didn't really put a lot of effort into winning this game (and started a bunch of relative rookies). Same with McCain and the GOP at large between March and June with respect to the primaries.

[Jon P]

...apparently my skimming of the comments thread was insufficient. I see my point has been made twice before. Oh well.

[ajay]

Yeah, well, Bob Dole was an infantryman, and John McCain (like Bush senior and junior, like Donald Rumsfeld, like the startlingly corrupt Congressman Randy Cunningham, like B-1 Bob Dornan, like Joe McCarthy and Jerry Rawlings and Hafez al-Assad and Hosni Mubarak and Charles Lindbergh and Italo Balbo) was an aviator.

Stop electing aircrew, people! They're evil!

[interloper]

Princes of the power of the air, eh ajay?

[Izzy]

Watching the debates last night, I just felt sorry for McCain: he was a decent guy at the beginning of all this, and now, at the end of the road, he's sold out hard, he's become a caricature of himself...and odds are he's going to lose anyhow.

Bit like the end of "Macbeth," really. Complete with extremely unpleasant female sidekick. Speaking of which:

"It turns out that Clinton supporters weren't charmed by the insulting insinuation that their candidate had nothing to offer beyond her gender. And the contrast between the two women's respective qualifications and talents did not flatter the McCain ticket."

Heh, yes. I saw the SNL Tina Fey-as-Palin and someone-else-as-Hillary "sexism speech" last night. Funny, also kind of true. ("I think diplomacy should be the cornerstone of foreign policy." "And I can see Russia from my house!")

[damnedyankee]

Stop electing aircrew, people! They're evil!

Hoo-ah!

Confession time: In 2002 I actually did vote for McCain when I lived in Arizona. If the guy was represented then the way he is now, I never would have even considered it. The thing is, even if, somehow, this campaign is not "the real McCain", he signed off on it! John McCain approved this message! So I'm left with the choice to believe that (a) McCain has been faking it all this time and just moves wherever the political wind blows at that moment, or (b) he secretly disapproves of all of this mess and thus isn't really in control of his own campaign. Neither one of these options would give me great faith in a McCain White House.

[damnedyankee]

someone-else-as-Hillary

Amy Poehler.

[Izzy]

Also, Fred: hate to tell you this, but most people I know remember Bob Dole as "the erectile dysfunction Presidential candidate." I mean, quite possibly honorable, not *dis*honorable that we know of, but...he ran for President, and he can't get it up. Or couldn't get it up. Or was paid a lot of money to imply that he couldn't get it up without chemical assistance. If you asked my generation to name two traits of Bob Dole, those would be them.

Then again, my generation is a harsh and irreverent one.

[Geds]

Then again, my generation is a harsh and irreverent one.

Damn skippy. But, again, Bob Dole didn't get that association out of the blue...

[Tonio]

When my state's GOP opened its primary to nonaligned voters in 2000, I voted for McCain over Bush. At the time, McCain seemed to have a healthy independence from the religious right. Bush seemed to be too cozy with them without necessarily being one of them. Also, Bush seemed to be a figurehead candidate recruited by party oligarchs, like Sarah Palin eight years later, and that impression was strengthened when the party chose Chaney as VP. But I never could have imagined the damage that Bush wrought.

[MeanderingMind]

I'm kind of amazed that people still go to the lengths (or depths) they do to become president. It's not even that great of a job. U.S. Supreme Court Justice seems like a much cushier gig (once you get past the idiotic confirmation hearing), and you don't have to worry about running for election.

Basically, if you get the job you're set for life. People will pay to fly you places and talk about yourself, you're always the star of the show, everyone wants to meet you, your words perpetually hold weight in your party etc.

Unless you really botch the job.

[Fraser]

The media did a phenomenal job presenting McCain as the "maverick" whose very hypocrisies--like his switch on the South Carolina flag--somehow proved his character (yes, he pandered and lied--but then he admitted he felt really, really bad about it! What courage!).

Even recently, someone wrote an article claiming McCain is so devoted to being honorable that he can't imagine that anything he's doing is dishonorable, which somehow explains everything.

[Frenchroast]

Bob Dole makes me think of bananas. It was just a simple name association with Dole fruit...and then he started doing all those ED commercials.

And I wish I could believe Jared's good angel.

[hapax]

Well, I was a huge McCain fan back in the day -- or a fan of the image he presented, at least. I even used him as a model for Aral Vorkosigan in several pieces of fan-art.

But then, I supported Bush Sr. quite fervently in the primaries against Reagan. He seemed intelligent, pragmatic, with a great deal of experience, and I loved the line "voodoo economics." Then Reagan picked him as v.p. and he started mouthing the party line.

But I always consoled myself with John Danforth; a genuine, principled, honest, sincere and ethical politician. Okay, he promoted Clarence Thomas, but that could be rationalized as constituent service. Then, yesterday, I saw that Danforth has been parrotting the whole ridiculous, racist "ACORN voter fraud" talking point.

And I'm left with... nothing. Are there no Republicans whom I can still respect while I disagree with them?

[Jeff Weskamp]

The ACORN "controversy" is just as fanciful and BS-filled as the whole "Obama went to school with that Weatherman-guy when he was nine years old/OMG!!! Obama pals around with terrorists!!!" scam.

If you want to know what kind of man McCain is, check out the current issue of Rolling Stone. There's an article that describes how McCain was one of the Keating Five, how he has ALWAYS championed the sort of deregulation that is destroying America's economy, and how hot-headed and short-tempered he is (he blew up and called his wife the "c-word" in public because she noted his hair was thinning). McCain hasn't just lost his character in the last couple years or months.

[Jeff]

Are there no Republicans whom I can still respect while I disagree with them?

Since all of them, without exception, repeated (or stood silent while others repeated) accusations of treason at anyone who would dare question Chimpy, I'd say not.

The few who seem to be the best of a horrid lot are Hagel and Lugar. I go back and forth on Schwartzenengger, mostly because he seems to vacilate himself. He essentially ran against the Republicans in the recall, then moved to right, then swerved back to the center when that proved a HUGE mistake. He seems to have handled the current budget crises as well as he could, knowing that there were few incentives he could offer Republicans.

But, by and large, I haven't respected a damn one of those a--holes who told us "my way or the highway".

Thanks for asking.

[JayH]

OK, so I'm a little worried about this "Joe the Plumber" thing.

Because they (NBC, specifically) ran an interview with Joe Wurzelbacher on TV this morning, and while he keeps saying he's undecided, everything points towards him giving McCain his vote, especially his professed values and his obvious eye-rolls when he spoke to Obama. His intent, if I have this right, is to buy a decent-sized plumbing business, which he fears would put him in the realm of Obama's tax increases. Or else he makes less than $250K/yr but told ABC he "worried that Obama would increase taxes for those making less." One of the two; either I'm getting the facts mixed up or I'm not getting consistent facts to begin with.

I don't think Joe's fears are particularly founded, but that's not the point... the question is, as the media focuses on him, can he, just by virtue of being (or appearing to be) a "regular guy" who's openly dismissing Obama, achieve what McCain doesn't seem to be able to?

I tell ya, I much prefer Obama over McCain in the Big Chair, and the sum of last night's debate + Joe's Garage Business* = me worrying.

*Shout out to the Zappa fans. Not that I really count myself as one, but I do appreciate the man.

[JayH]

Jeff wrote: The few who seem to be the best of a horrid lot are Hagel and Lugar.

Can I just insert that Lugar is one of the few things that I like about living in Indiana?

OK, that's it, thanks.

[practicallyevil]

John McCain is a terribly tragic figure, and deserves our pity. I mean he has sold his soul, but you can see were he went wrong.

John McCain always had father issues, (thus explaining why he's a republican), his father was an Admiral in the Navy, and never really spent time with little Johnny, he was always advancing his military career instead. John McCain either joined the Air Force in an attempt to be close to his father, or more likely was prodded into service by his father, as records show he did dismally in combat training with his instructors commenting on how little interest he showed in flying.

But he eventually did get cleared for combat and we all know what happened next. Apparently being a war hero was not enough to impress his father who then pushed him to be Senator, and set him up with political friends. Apparently John wasn't able to impress his father as a Senator either, and now hopes to live up to his father unattainable standards (even though I'm fairly sure his father is dead), by becoming president of the United States, not matter what the cost.

Utterly tragic.

@ Hob:

I've heard about people like you friend, please tell me he doesn't post on this website.

[Jon]

In tandem with the little blue pill ads, I think of Bob Dole as the creepy old guy sitting in the dark, alone (with his dog), scoping out Britney Spears on TV in that Pepsi ad. I wonder if the sight of her worked as well for him as the pills did?