A sequel to “Don’t Cry for Me, Sarah Palin.” Enjoy.
Utterly Unrelated Update: Today’s best headline — “The Joy of Sachs.”
Category Archives: elections
Devolved
If you want to know how the American Right came to its current pitiful state, consider: Bill Kristol will be awarded a $250,000 Bradley Prize from the the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Yeah, that Bill Kristol.
Eric Alterman and Joan Walsh are both appropriately snarky. They both compile sampler lists of the many times Kristol has been wrong. And not just wrong; stupefyingly, jaw-droppingly, what planet does this guy live on? wrong. I don’t need to repeat all that here. Let’s just say that if stupid were an art form, Kristol would be the Mona Lisa.
In any other context but the American Right, Kristol would be buried in obscurity. Since he’s a white man with a college education one assumes he would rise to a middle management position somewhere, in spite of his obvious handicaps. However, in a true meritocracy he’d be put to work doing something that involved simple, repetitive motions but no sharp objects.
Yes, Kristol graduated Harvard magna cum laude in three years and has a Ph.D., his biography says. But, folks, stupid is as stupid thinks. Either Kristol was dropped on his head post-Ph.D. or Kristol’s professors were paid off. There are no other explanations.
But then there’s Jonah Goldberg, both badly educated and intellectually incoherent. His silly cognitive misfirings are published in the Los Angeles Times and by Doubleday. And if Michele Bachmann belonged to any other party but the GOP, party leaders would keep her locked in the attic and out of public view. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the drift.
I want to call your attention to a section of Thomas Franks’s book The Wrecking Crew published in the August 2008 Harper’s.
For some in winger Washington this is an idealistic business, but what gives it power and longevity is that it is a profitable business. I mean this not as polemic but as a statement of fact. Washington swarms with conservative ideologues not because conservatives particularly like the place but because there is an entire industry here that supports these people—an industry subsidized by the nation’s largest corporations and its richest families, and the government too. We are all familiar with the flagship organizations—Cato, Heritage, AEI—but the industry extends far beyond these, encompassing numerous magazines and literally hundreds of lobbying firms. There is even a daily newspaper—the Washington Times—published strictly for the movement’s benefit, a propaganda sheet whose distortions are so obvious and so alien that it puts one in mind of those official party organs one encounters when traveling in authoritarian countries.
There are political strategists, pollsters, campaign managers, trainers of youth, image consultants, makers of TV commercials, revolutionaries-for-hire, and, of course, direct-mail specialists who still launch their million-letter raids on the mailboxes of the heartland. Remember the guy who wrote all those sputtering diatribes for your college newspaper? Chances are he’s in D.C. now, thinking big thoughts from an endowed chair, or churning out more of the brilliant usual for one of the movement’s many blogs. The campus wingnut whose fulminations on the Red Menace so amused my friends and me at the University of Virginia, for example, resurfaced here as a columnist for the Washington Times before transitioning inevitably into consultancy. A friend of mine who went to Georgetown recently recalled for me the capers of his campus wingnut, whom he had completely forgotten until the guy made headlines as the lead culprit in a minor 2004 scandal called “Memogate.†Later he worked for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, teaching democratic civics to Iraqi politicians.
There is so much money in conservatism these days that Karl Rove rightly boasts, “We can now go to students at Harvard and say, ‘There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives.’â€
Consider the conservative movement since the early 1950s — Russell Kirk to William F. Buckley to Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan to Newt Gringrich/Grover Norquist to William Kristol/Jonah Goldberg. Whether you agreed with them or not, Kirk and Buckley at least fit the definition of intellectual. Since the 1950s, however, there has been a steady regression of cognitive ability on the Right; a march from reason. And now the entire conservative movement is collapsing into a puddle of utter imbecility.
I am no social darwinist, but I can’t help but think that one of the reasons for this biological devolution is that the money supporting the Right has buffered its specimens from the “survival of the fittest” rule. A “movement conservative” has no need for intelligence or accomplishment, only connections.
We come to it at last: George W. Bush. Removed from his cocoon of privilege he might have clawed his way up to an assistant mangership at the Crawford Wal-Mart, but only because of his ability to bully the employees. He not only never performed the job of President of the United States; I remain unconvinced he understood what his job was. Like Kristol and Goldberg, we’d have never heard of him but for his pedigree.
Of course, not everyone in conservatism was given a hand up by mommy or daddy. Rep. Bachmann appears to have had humble roots, as did Sarah Palin and many others. For that matter, let’s think about Tom DeLay, John Boehner, and that entire generation of Republican politicians. These examples show us that to be successful in the GOP these days requires stubborn ignorance combined with unscrupulous ruthlessness.
In other words, you’ve got to be dumb enough (or, at least, intellectually lazy enough) to mix with the “legacy” conservatives (or want to, for that matter). But it also helps to have the kind of feral hunger for success that aristocrats rarely muster.
In the case of conservative “journalists,” it strikes me that the older generation — e.g., Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan — had enough brains to be genuinely shrewd. They could be infuriatingly disingenuous most of the time, but when these two were in their prime you knew they knew exactly what they were doing. Current right-wing media stars like Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck are, alas, merely pathological.
Writing about Kristol and the state of journalism, Joan Walsh points out that when Kristol’s Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation award was announced, “a Pulitzer Prize-winner in Mesa, Ariz., had already been laid off from his job,” and “a newspaper journalist who was recently shot in the line of duty lost his job a few days ago as well.” Yet Kristol bombs spectacularly at the New York Times and gets a $250,000 award.
One suspects the next generation of movement conservatives will find it challenging to eat with a fork.
What the Referendums Tell Us
There’s one sad news item today, which is that it appears California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, has passed. I don’t know if it’s been officially called yet, but the numbers don’t look good. Last night voters also passed anti-gay marriage amendments in Arizona and Florida. Arkansas voted to ban adoption and foster parenting by gays.
On the plus side, yesterday three states had initiatives on the ballots that would have limited abortion rights, and all of them failed.
- Colorado voters defeated a referendum that would have criminalized abortion and some forms of birth control by defining human life as beginning at the moment of conception. This failed big; a not-final tally had the votes at 74% to 26% opposed.
- South Dakota defeated a measure that would have banned abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when there was severe risk to the life of the mother. This was a slightly tweaked version of another initiative that South Dakota rejected two years ago. The not-final tally is 55% to 45%, which seems pretty decisive to me.
- California’s parental-notification referendum also is failing, although I don’t think the results are official as of this morning.
I’m not 100 percent certain this is true, but I have read that, since Roe v. Wade, no state referendum limiting abortion rights has ever passed. I’d also like to point out that yesterday’s election was between a candidate with a 100 percent approval rating from NARAL and one with a 0 percent approval rating from NARAL.
Notice who won. Notice who won big and easily.
The message that I hope is not lost on either party is that it’s time to stop catering to the Fetus People. I’m sure there are states and localities in which being opposed to reproductive rights can still help a candidate win elections. But those are exceptions, not the rule. It appears to me that an enormous majority of voters, including voters in conservative states like South Dakota, are either mostly pro-choice or are more concerned about other issues.
In short, the anti-reproductive rights movement has no political clout except in the most conservative localities. And in those localities, conservatives probably don’t need the Fetus People to win elections.
The message to Democrats is that they don’t have to be afraid of the anti-choice vote. Say it loud — we’re pro-choice, and proud. And the message to Republicans is that being against abortion is not the wedge they thought it was. In fact, on a national level, being opposed to abortion rights seems a huge liability.
We’ve all heard the story that John McCain wanted to choose Joe Lieberman as his running mate and was overruled, entirely because Lieberman is pro-choice. Another veep candidate who might have helped McCain, at least in Pennsylvania, is Tom Ridge, also pro-choice. Sarah Palin may have “energized the base,” who one assumes would have voted for McCain anyway, but she drove away independents and conservative Dems. She probably didn’t lose the election for McCain by herself, but she sure as hell didn’t help him. I think a McCain-Lieberman or McCain-Ridge ticket would have been taken much more seriously by more voters.
But the GOP feels compelled to cater to the anti-reproductive rights movement, and so it gave away whatever chance it had to win the presidential election.
It’s time for politicians of both parties to tell the Fetus People to take their hate and misogyny and get lost.
Tonight: Open Thread
I’m going to be out tonight for return-watching. Feel free to discuss until I get back, hopefully not too late tonight.
Update: I’m home, tired but happy. My daughter has a liveblog here.
No Fear
North Carolinian Terry Mancour looks on the bright side of having his car keyed:
The anecdotal reports from our fellow Obamanauts have documented a string of petty vandalism across New Carolina, with cars bearing Obama stickers getting viciously hacked like this every day. It was an erratic and not particularly successful attempt at voter intimidation. At least I didn’t feel intimidated. And I tried to keep things in perspective.
A century ago there would have been lynchings and homes afire, doors being busted down at 4am, the kind of cruel guerrilla warfare one tends to associate with banana republics and Asian despots. Even a few decades ago there would have been angry meetings, axe-handle wielding thugs, vicious dogs and fire hoses. If the sum total of politically oriented violence in North Carolina was reduced to a few angry words, a scuffle or two and poorly worded public attacks, well, I had to count that as progress.
It’s progress on several fronts, I think. Four years ago I heard from several southerners who said they did not dare put a Kerry bumper sticker on their cars or a Kerry sign on their lawns, and petty vandalism was the least of their fears. Of course, according to righties, the only vandalism that went on was against people with Bush signs. And maybe there was more retaliation against people with Bush signs, if only because in many parts of the country it took a ton of courage to display a Kerry sign at all.
Maybe southerners are less fearful of openly supporting the Democrat this year. See, that’s progress.
Mancour continues,
“You don’t seem very intimidated,” he said, surprised. He was from California and he had been watching the circus that is southern politics with a mixture of amusement and anxiety. Clearly he had been expecting dogs and fire hoses and race riots by this point.
“I’m not,” I shrugged. “Like I said: they’re scared. And I’m not. I’m not even particularly angry. If my cherished ideas of political philosophy were getting flushed down the toilet every day, I’d probably be scared to. I guess it’s because I’m a parent. When I see stuff like this, it reminds me of my kids drawing on the walls. You can get upset about it, but they’re just kids.”
It may be that the most devastating thing you can say to a rightie is we’re not afraid of you any more.
Live Blog Tonight
Nuts and ACORN
The other big, bleeping deal on the Right today are allegations that ACORN is perpetrating massive voter fraud all over the country to steal the election for Obama. They’ve been on to this for a while, actually, and it’s easy to see they are setting up ACORN and voter fraud as the excuses for a McCain loss, should he lose. They so love feeling victimized.
In just the last week, we’ve had a phony stunt raid in swing state Nevada (where Acorn had been cooperating with officials for months, concerning problem canvassers they’d long ago fired); a Republican election official in swing state Missouri tell Fox News that she’s being besieged with fraudulent registration forms from Acorn (in a county where they’ve not done any registration work since August); a Republican sheriff in swing state Ohio, who, the very next day, suddenly requested the names and addresses of hundreds of early voters (with evidence of exactly zero wrong doing, but lots of Democratic-leaning college student in the particular county, and John McCain’s state campaign chair as a partner in the investigation); and a screaming front page headline in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post about a guy who claims he was somehow tricked by Acorn into registering 72 times (but read the article closely to note he says he registered at the same address each time, which, even if true, would allow him – you guessed it – precisely one legal vote.)
It’s an old Republican scam, but it’s never been carried out with more zeal than this year.
If Obama wins the election, they’ll be screaming their heads off that he’s not the “legitimate” president (which they also said about Bill Clinton, you might recall). As I said, they are getting their excuses ready.
Update: See Matt Yglesias.
Good News/Bad News
The good news is that yesterday House Republicans rebelled against Dick the Dick.
The vice president traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to silence a chorus of GOP complaints about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan. But House Republicans who walked into a closed-door meeting with Cheney steaming over the plan walked out just as angry, and they described what happened in between as both “a bloodbath†and “an unmitigated disaster.â€
The bad news is that House Republicans are going to play the partisan politics game with the financial crisis.
Republican leaders are now hoping Democrats load the legislation with unrelated measures that would give them the political cover to oppose it, members and aides said. At the same time, party leaders are using back channels in the business community to gauge member support for a “clean†bill.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned his former colleagues that they would pay a price in November for backing the bailout now — and that John McCain could ride to victory over Barack Obama by persuading voters that the bailout is really the “Obama-Bush plan.â€
Maybe I haven’t had enough coffee yet, but I find it baffling that some Senate Democrats are waiting to see how McCain votes on the measure before they decide how they will vote. See also Digby.
Back to good news/bad news. The good news is that Obama has a clear lead over McCain in the latest Washington Post-NBC News poll. Much of this lead is coming from white women switching their preference from McCain to Obama. Obama now has a small lead among white women.
The bad news is that media are still going with the “white women don’t like Obama” story.
File this under “weird news.” Michelle Malkin blames illegal immigrants for the financial crisis. The girl belongs in a carnival freak show.
More weird news, although I’m not surprised. Pew Research says 57 percent of the public favors the Wall Street bailout. On the other hand, the latest Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll says 55 percent of the public is opposed to the Wall Street bailout.
The Pew poll told respondents that the government is “potentially investing billions to try and keep financial institutions and markets secure” and asked whether that’s the right thing to do. The Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll asked whether “the government should use taxpayers’ dollars to rescue ailing private financial firms whose collapse could have adverse effects on the economy and market, or is it not the government’s responsibility to bail out private companies with taxpayers’ dollars?”
I extrapolate from this that about two-thirds of the public doesn’t know what the hell is going on. Anyway, the good news/bad news I see here is that, politically, it doesn’t much matter what Congress does. All that matters is how it’s explained. This opens the door to the possibility that Congress could do the right thing without political penalty. It also opens the door to the possibility that Congress could do the wrong thing without political penalty.
Sort of bad news: The Right thinks the Fannie-Freddie issue can be blamed on Democrats.
The good news is that John McCain’s campaign manager has been on Freddie Mac’s payroll from the end of 2005 until last month.
Bring it on, righties.
Update: The McCain campaign is slamming the New York Times for running the story about the campaign manager’s ties to Freddie Mac. Not true, says Michael Goldfarb. Freddie Mac did pay a monthly retainer of $15,000 to Rick Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, but Davis himself did not take any of that money.
For the record, the New York Times story published a statement from the McCain campaign saying David is not receiving income from his company. The Times also said, however, that Davis “as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income.”
Goldfarb is having one major hissy fit and complaining that the New York Times has not published any nasty investigations into whatever nefarious things David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign manager, is into. Press bias!
David Isikoff at Newsweek is biased also, apparently.
See also John Cole.
The GOP Glass Ceiling
The GOP talking point du jour is about the Dems’ problem with women voters. Since Senator Hillary Clinton was not chosen to be on the ticket, the Dems have imposed a “glass ceiling,” they say. The usual tools on the Right and the Hillary Bitter Enders have picked up this ball and are running with it.
So let’s look at some numbers.
Eight women currently are governors of states.
Dem women governors: 5
GOP women governors: 3
I count 72 women in the House of Representatives
Dem women representatives: 52
GOP women representatives: 20
There are 16 women senators:
Dem women senators: 11
GOP women senators: 5
Numbers that lopsided are not a coincidence. And here are some more:
Number of GOP women who were serious contenders for the 2008 nomination: 0
Number of Dem women who were serious contenders for the 2008 nomination: 1
Number of GOP women who have been Speaker of the House: 0
Number of Dem women who have been speaker of the House: 1
Number of women the GOP has ever nominated to a presidential ticket: 0
Number of women the Dems have ever nominated to a presidential ticket: 1
Even as the McCain campaign sorts through its selection of rich white men for the veep spot, it has put out an ad asking why Clinton was “passed over” and showing clips of her smearing Obama during the Endless Primary. I’m sure the Hillary Bitter Enders will embrace the ad as more proof that Hillary should have been chosen the nominee.
BTW, current polls show Obama beating McCain among women voters by 12 percentage points.
… and they’re off …
Now people who are not politics nerds will begin to focus on the election. As I’ve said, I’m ambivalent about Biden, but I can live with it. See Howard Fineman and John Dickerson for commentary.