The Political Fiend

Bill Ayers. Yes, that guy. As much as I hate to admit it, Bill Ayers was the name of the game tonight. Let’s just face it. Maybe six months ago this would have been big news. Maybe at an earlier time McCain could have capitalized on the tenuous relationship between Obama and the former member of the Weathermen. But timing in politics, as in so many other disciplines, is everything. Tonight was too late. The moment Ayers’ name rolled off McCain lips signalled the death knell of his presidential aspirations. Sure, our recent financial troubles laid the lid on the coffin, but McCain’s reliance on Rovian attacks such as his Ayers rhetoric and Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” remark pounded in the nails.

None of these were smart moves, though they arguably became necessary after Obama started creeping ahead in the polls. Obama’s surge put McCain in a tailspin. He went negative to distract the public from his policy weaknesses; the less time he spent discussing policy issues, the more time he had to devote to negativity, and so a cycle was born. It rings of a Coen Brothers plot; blunders get covered by bigger ones until a hilarious tragedy results. Not so funny for John McCain. Especially since the biggest complaint among undecided voters is that McCain spends too much time on meanness, and not enough on actual issues.

Until McCain brought up the Ayers issue tonight, I’d say that he was winning the debate. Obama came off as nervous, cagey even. But he addressed the Ayers question in stride, visibly irritating McCain. Thereafter McCain wouldn’t let the issue go, and therein lay his folly. Bill Ayers was in no way a major part of the debate, as far as substantive discussions go. But he served as McCain’s breaking point, exposing his desperation, and more importantly, his frustration with a failing campaign built on a lifetime of legislative experience and political will.

And now, a brief rundown of the debate questions:

Question 1: How is your economic plan better?: Winner: Tie

• Obama relied heavily on his talking points, came off as over-rehearsed
• But he was able to lay out his tax plan in a clear concise manner

Yeah, I know, it’s Mark McGrath. Hear me out.

Today, I saw something that I should have expected, but was surprised by nonetheless. I get home from work, and turn on the TV. Extra is on. For the uninitiated, Extra is pretty much a televised version of US Weekly, and deals with such hot topics as what Maddox Pitt-Jolie had for breakfast yesterday, and who Paris Hilton just gave crabs to.

The second “report” on the show offered up a handful of “never before seen” pictures of Sarah Palin (old yearbook, prom… RAWR). Fine. The media treats her like a celebrity, so what? So everyone’s ignoring her qualifications, and focusing on her novelty. It won’t better not last. Next, they did a piece on how women are trying to copy Palin’s “look”, and how the glasses frames she wears are selling out everywhere. She’s already having a tremendous impact on improving the lives of women everywhere.

About fifteen minutes into the broadcast, I felt full force the effects of Sarah Palin’s entry onto the national political stage. Extra, the most shallow, sensational, bullshit laden, youth obsessed show on [network] television did a piece on how cute John and Cindy McCain are. My gag reflex triggered a little when they reported that Cindy McCain sometimes combs John’s hair in the morning. The thought of those bony fingers meandering through John’s wispy locks made the bile creep up into places it doesn’t belong. Sarah Palin has done the impossible, she’s made the McCain-Palin ticket a celebrity affair.

My solution? Fight fire with fire. Matt Damon might have started something today when he came out swinging against Sarah Palin. That “pittbull with lipstick on” sound bite? Pretty good. Here’s what Damon had to say:

I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago [. . .] I want to know that, I really do, because she’s going to have the nuclear codes.

See, I like that. If enough celebrities start coming out and making noise, America will notice, because we tend to notice things like that. The thing is, it’s gotta be the right celebrities. Nobody cares if Fergie or Martin Short start raising a ruckus. I’m talking George Clooney and Angelina Jolie; Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. I don’t even know if they’re all Democrats, but I’d be willing to wager on it.

So why Mark McGrath? Because, he asks celebrities questions on one of the few “news” outlets that actually gives credence to celebrity opinions. Matt Damon’s statement won’t get much play on the network news broadcasts, but it’ll make waves on the celebrity trash websites, and will get airtime on Extra, Access Hollywood, and Entertainment Tonight. Sure, their opinions are no more valuable or informative than anyone else’s. But we’re up against the Republican spin machine, and it’s time to take the gloves off.

Throughout this election cycle, the GOP has offered us the worst mishmash motley crew of potential execs since we were served up with Bush Lite in late 1999: Huckabee obliterates the competition at the Iowa caucus, and slowly emerges as a knucklehead with limited Bible Belt appeal and an insane plan to do away with the Federal Income Tax. Giuliani, of course, tried to ride the wave of 9/11, and wiped out in a big sort of way. I have nothing to say about Mitt Romney, or his hair. Thank goodness for Fred Thompson. Sure he didn’t have any palpable platform, but hell, he could talk. That man dropped more old timey, grandpappy-esque sayings than your crazy uncle Zeke after two mason-jars of moonshine, and he did it with style.

McCain of course was dead in the water. Now he’s the nominee and just orates like he’s dead. So what’s he do? He brushes ex-Dem Lieberman off his shoulders and goes with the anti-Hillary. What’s the point of this piece? To give a sideways look at the last 8 months, and to say that only Hillary can save us now.

Pundits are coming out and lamenting that it was a misstep for Obama to bypass Hillary for the veep slot. Of course, they’re only saying this now that McCain has drafted Palin. Had McCain gone with a more traditional running mate (see: “White Dude”), no one would have come out and said ditching Hillary was a mistake. Rightness or wrongness aside, I doubt she would have been part of the conversation, and the necessity of her loyalty would likely have been limited to her role at the convention. The DNC would have enlisted Hillary to sew up any wounds left open by the primary season, and that would have been the end of it. But that’s not going to cut it anymore.

Hillary Clinton holds the future of the party in her hands, but maybe not for the reasons that any of us would prefer. It will come down to this. We need Hillary because she is a woman, and because she is exponentially more interesting than Joe Biden. Simply put, the voting public IS that stupid. McCain’s biggest PR problem? He’s boring. He has zero tonal inflection; so he picks his opposite. Obama’s biggest problems? Race and perceived inexperience. In theory Biden was a good pick: older white dude who’s been around the political block. The problem is that voters get their info from local network news; as a result, I’d be willing to bet that the average American now thinks they know more about Sarah Palin than they do about Joe Biden. By skipping Hillary, the Dems walked into the most well laid bear trap.  What strategist could have foreseen the Republicans playing the sexism and elitism cards?

How did Sarah Palin become bulletproof? Because of America’s twisted way of dealing with gender and race issues. You are a racist if you discuss the issue of race. You are a sexist if you discuss the issue of gender. While questioning Palin’s decision to go on the campaign trail in wake of her son’s birth was undoubtedly sexist, questioning her handling of her daughter’s pregnancy was decidedly not, as it is intimately intertwined with her stances on abortion and contraception. Biden, unfortunately, will not be able to touch this issue, because he’s a man, and the issue is bait for sexism spin. Joe Biden has the impossible task in the VP debates of simultaneously being both merciless and slight. If he makes a meek showing, he’ll be criticized for being patronizing. If he comes out swinging, I guarantee the RNC will spin things to make Palin out to be the victim of a bully. Either way, the allegations will fly, and people will buy it.

Where’s that leave us? Three letters. H.R.C. She needs to take the gloves off and wail on Sarah Palin, without mercy. For the good of the party, and the good of the country. Even if it means temporarily overshadowing the ticket itself. Many of my friends are getting nervous about the chances of a Democratic victory in November. But it’s only been a handful of days since the Palin shakeup. So relax, everyone. Atticus Finch had this great line in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, possibly one of the greatest, simplest, truest things a father could say to his children in the face of a crisis: “It’s not time to worry yet.” And it’s not, because Hillary has not yet begun to fight.

Photo by Matthew Reichbach used under a Creative Commons license.

Today the New York Times ran the weirdest story. I couldn’t tell if the Times was reporting on McCain’s sexcapades from back in the day, or from today, or tomorrow, or what. The whole tone of the article kept trying to imply that McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman, who looks like like Fergie’s conservative cousin, had engaged in, well, you know… flirtation.

Yeah. Flirtation. At best. There’s no evidence that there was ever anything particularly sinister going on. But it sure was implied. You’d think that in our post-Lewinsky America we’d need something a little more provocative to grab our attention than the mental image of a 71 year old man engaging in casual banter with a 40-something blond. But hey, that’s all the Times had.

Basically, the Times reported that McCain’s aides started freaking out a couple years ago when Ms. Thang started coming around the office… a lot. The closest thing we have to a scandal here is the fact that McCain’s aides were worried about the appearance of impropriety. And yet the article is presented in a way that tries to insinuate that McCain’s been naughty. And maybe he has. For someone that claims to be immune to special interest pressure it doesn’t look too good to let a lobbyist into your ranks. It would have been fine if the Times had focused on that. But it remains that McCain replaced Iseman with yet another lobbyist, and the Times didn’t make much fuss about that, now did they? The authors of the article were really grasping at some thin air, and the tone of the piece borders on tabloid trash; they were really, really trying to make something out of pretty much nothing.

In the end, McCain will triumph by railing against the Times’ hokey article, and he’ll ultimately draw more conservatives to his cause by playing, as always, the good soldier under fire.

Photo by Jim Greenhill used under a Creative Commons license.