I began this post before the Sarah Palin veep pick became news, but it fits in, nicely. This is about what we can expect to see at the GOP convention next week.

What we can expect to see are cartoons.

Today’s Republicans are not serious about governing, as John McCain broadcast loudly with his Sarah Palin choice. The GOP convention will be intensely negative, and also intensely juvenile. I don’t know what this year’s version of the purple band aid will be (are the righties over the tire gauge thing yet?). But most of the energy of the convention will be poured into ridicule of the Dem ticket. At the same time, the convention will be vague if not dishonest about the extremely right-wing GOP platform.

The GOP wins presidential elections by turning the Dem into a cartoon (and suppressing votes). They did it to Al Gore; they did it to John Kerry. They tried to do it to Bill Clinton — well, in a sense, they succeeded, but unfortunately for them they turned him into Bugs Bunny and themselves into Elmer Fudd.

So far, John McCain has been running a Karl Rove-style campaign, meaning one that’s not serious about governing. Rove himself never got the governing thing. The fact that your candidate, once in office, at some point has to actually govern is a point that still eludes him.

As Kevin Drum said of Obama’s acceptance speech,

This is an iron fist in a velvet glove. Or is it a velvet fist in an iron glove? Whichever it is, he’s calling out McCain in plain language not just for running a nasty, Rovian campaign, but for running a fundamentally unserious campaign. By tackling this head on, Obama has put a serious dent in McCain’s ability to continue campaigning with dumb soundbites and too-cute-by-half innuendo. This isn’t a teenager’s campaign for junior high school student council, he was saying, it’s a campaign for president of the United States and you’re old enough to know that you should damn well treat it that way.

They won’t, though. Just watch.

There is a comment at The Fix by Lawrence Hawkins that I can’t link to directly, so I’m going to paste it all here. I hope Mr. Hawkins doesn’t mind.

Amazing. As I scan through the comments above I see the the same sad insults. “Socialism” cries one. “Jerimiah Wright” cries another. “He can’t/won’t change a thing.” And let’s not forget the the eloquent, “I HATE HIM.”

This all goes past the point of being sad. This is psychologically unhealthy for those that feel this way. Be honest with yourselves. You are afraid.

Honestly you need to confront your fears. Barack Obama is a guy with a rocky upbringing. Thank God he had people like his mom, and his grandparents in his life to set him straight. He worked hard in school, got a law degree, passed the bar, which in itself is an accomplishment, and went on to get married, to a woman, and started raising a family. No absentee dad, he. You want a man who shows the system works? Here he is. You want someone who was given lemons and made lemonade? Here he is. Do you want an example to show the world that America works? You’ve got him!

Jerimiah Wright is a jerk. But he’s not running for president.

Face your fear. Grow past it. Barack Obama, despite Rush et al, is not the Bogeyman. He is an American that wants the best for America.

If you’ve got a problem with his tax policy, let’s discuss it like adults. If you have a concerns about abortion and a women’s right to make choices, let’s talk. But this type of reasoned debate can only happen once you get past the fear that cripples your thought process. I guarantee you that once you’ve thought it all through, you’ll vote for Obama/Biden, because at the end of the day, it’s a vote for yourself.

If you’ve got a problem with his tax policy, let’s discuss it like adults. If you have a concerns about abortion and a women’s right to make choices, let’s talk. But this type of reasoned debate can only happen once you get past the fear that cripples your thought process. Spot on.

Sometimes people criticize me for not debating righties. They don’t see the several years I spent wasted attempting to debate righties. I had facts and logic; they had puerile taunting. I gave up; I have more entertaining ways to kill time.

It’s rare to find someone on the Right with whom one can have a serious conversation about a serious subject. The Left has its share of clowns, too, but IMO there is a bigger percentage of us who are not clowns and who are willing to listen to serious, fact-based argument when it is presented to us. Today’s “conservatives” seem congenitally unable to present serious, fact-based arguments, however.

So next week the GOP will get together, and they will put on a great show of hate and ridicule and derision, with occasional breaks for displays of the jingoistic nationalism they confuse for patriotism. What you won’t see them do is get serious.