“So many questions in the aftermath of an ongoing exercise in excruciating national embarrassment. But the most important one remains unanswered today. With 14 candidates left in the field and the actual primaries just a couple months away, is anyone going to make like Scott Walker and go back to screwing up his or her regular day job?”
Read the full post on the Contemptor website.
No matter on which side of the ideological spectrum you sit, it’s difficult to avoid political engagement this week. The Republican National Convention, which resulted in the official nomination of the Romney/Ryan ticket, has been followed thus far by the blinding spectacle of the Democratic counterpart. A thought occurred to me last night after the conclusion of Bill Clinton’s return to convention glory, a nomination speech punctuated by a virtuoso display of GOP myth debunking that must have left leaders from the right reaching for the Neosporin.
The thought was this: not only do the 2012 Presidential election and the respective nomination fetes offer a”clear choice” that candidates and pundits love to discuss, but moreover there is a clear dichotomy in the motivations of the two conventions themselves. Simply put, Mitt Romney and his team sought to recast their robotic candidate as a human being with middle class appeal(a goal that arguably fell totally flat). The idea, after a brutal primary season in which the former moderate sold his record as a compromising Governor, for the opportunity to appeal to the dogmatic Tea Party zealots which now represent GOP leadership, was that Mittens hadn’t moved so far to the right that he’d lost touch with regular middle-of-the-road America.
Contrast this with the mission of the DNC. A report from my hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, shared the results of a Reuters/Ipsos poll yesterday which indicated that the POTUS doesn’t have any trouble with popular appeal. To quote the article, “The online poll showed that voters found Obama more likable than Romney by 50 percent to 30 percent. Forty-one percent said they believed Obama ‘understands people like me,’ while 28 percent said that about Romney.” It’s only natural that voters would tend to gravitate toward a man of modest beginnings, with the power to elicit action and emotion with relatable personal anecdotes and a wondrous oratory gift. It’s almost unfair to place Barack Obama’s considerable magnetism and think-on-his-feet intelligence next to a wooden, scripted man who looks like the enemy from Wall Street and admits to loaded offshore bank accounts. No matter how hard he and his team try to prove otherwise, Mittens is not one of us.
Nevertheless, Barack Obama faced a considerable challenge heading into this week’s events in Charlotte, NC, one faced to a lesser degree by Romney. The President and other scheduled speakers had to re-energize the Democratic base, the disillusioned who voted for “Yes, We Can” in 2008 only to see the slogan perverted into “Yes, We Can…But Only if House Republicans Cooperate.” Over the last four years, hope and optimism have taken many hits in the face of unprecedented Congressional gridlock that seems to worsen with each important issue requiring decisive action.
Though one may disagree with the right on many, many issues, no one doubts the party’s commitment to unseating the President by any means necessary. For reasons ranging from respectful academic disagreement to the worst kind of racial intolerance, there is little doubt that the GOP can anticipate record turnout at the polls this November. However, there is ample reason to suspect that some of the interest groups which carried Obama to victory in 2008 – voters under 25, women, the gay community and the impoverished – may not be motivated to complete their registration applications this round. In addition to disappointment in the Obama agenda’s success already mentioned, nefarious attempts by Republicans to disenfranchise minority groups and the poor have already met with a great deal of prosperity.
Against this backdrop, the primary goal of the DNC must have been abundantly clear to Team Obama: get those 2008 voters, many of whom cast a ballot for the first time, back to their polling centers. See San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro deliver a rousing speech about his immigrant family and the hard work and sacrifice required to make it in America. See Michelle Obama, the most capable First Lady since Hillary Clinton, humanize her cerebral husband with tales of date nights in a rusted out automobile. See Elizabeth Warren’s massive appeal to the 99 percent with a stirring repudiation of the GOP’s obsession with treating corporations better than people.
And last but not least before the current POTUS has the opportunity to address his constituents directly, see former President William Jefferson Clinton bring a convention center and millions of voters to their feet with the answer to all our disillusioned liberal prayers. Bill Clinton is considered a political genius for many reasons but his ability to meld lofty policy discussion with a relatable, folksy charm that doesn’t talk down to Americans…well last night’s speech was simply a master class in connection. All that was wanting was a microphone drop to complete the President Emeritus’ triumph.
I am one of those voters who has occasionally felt letdown by the conflict between the theoretical Obama of 2008 and the practical limits of governing. However if the endgame of this week’s convention is a restoration of enthusiasm, and a renewed commitment to ensuring a second term for the President, then mission accomplished. Whatever the roadblocks of the past four years, the current Commander-in-Chief is the only candidate who cares about the recent decline of the middle class and possesses the policy tools to put it back on the road to success. I’d like to thank Bill Clinton for the impassioned reminder.
A little over two years ago, I began my life on this blog as “Becky Boop,” anonymous, citified political commentator known for her thoughts on the peaks and valleys of the Obama agenda and slice of life pieces on day to day existence in a big metropolis.
I came out from behind my pen name in an effort to be as real a writer as I am a person. The death of a close friend, a long bout with unemployment, an impending divorce and surgery this past Tuesday for Stage 2 cervical cancer left me with a sudden desire to stop hiding behind a pseudonym. All in all, I feel I am better for it. Becky Boop may have been a lot of fun, but she was certainly no reflection of “me.”
However as I go over some of my posts from the last six months or so, I have a hankering for some of Becky Boop’s former silliness, the journalistic joie de vivre that seemed to come so naturally to my alter ego. I have gotten pretty far away from aiming my torpedo at the cultural and political movers and shakers who depend on bloggers and the media to state the obvious, to shout with definitive clarity that the Emperor, is in fact, walking around naked.
I spent a large part of the week in post-op convalescence, and since it is the summer and most of the network’s regularly scheduled programming is on break, I made CNN my constant companion. Even in a haze of discomfort and drugs, it was hard not to notice that this was a pretty fucking strange week, politically speaking.
History is littered with the names of once promising, supposedly viable nominees for the nation’s highest office who had their hopes dashed under the weight of scandal and/or unreasonably high personal and public expectations. This is true of both parties from all relevant American epochs. A few examples include William Henry Seward, Gary Hart, Howard Dean, John McCain and current 2016 favorite Hillary Clinton. All these names and more have known the sting of presumed favorite status, turned bridesmaid humiliation, a sense of inevitability deflated.
Such is not the case with one Bernard Sanders, who announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination on April 30, 2015. While providing the progressive electoral jolt predicted by amateur pundits everywhere, even liberal media outlets such as NPR refused to take the Vermont senator seriously. Labeling his bid a “long shot,” conventional wisdom had Sanders as either (depending upon your side of the aisle) a fun variable forcing Clinton to move left, or an old, hippie, single-issue crank.
But a funny thing has happened over the course of the last three and a half months. Despite many fewer resources of all campaign kinds, Bernie Sanders is gaining steam. Earlier this week, the Boston Herald‘s Joe Battenfeld published an interpretation of the Brooklyn, New York native’s recent swell,Poll: Bernie Sanders surges ahead of Hillary Clinton in N.H., 44-37. Within the piece he characterizes Sanders’ popular momentum as “a stunning turn in a race once considered a lock for the former secretary of state.” In March the same poll in question, conducted by the Herald in conjunction with Franklin Pierce University, showed Sanders trailing Clinton in a big way at 44-8.
The Clinton campaign must be worried. It’s only natural. But my question this week: why don’t Republicans seem concerned about anyone but the former New York senator as a potential opponent? This is another in a long series of miscalculations from the GOP machine.
In fact, though our own Jason Easley reported that Bernie Sanders Was The Most Retweeted Candidate During The Republican Debate, that party’s representatives paid him no attention at all. While Donald Trump infought with Fox News debate moderator Megyn Kelly and anyone else who pressed him for actual policy positions, Sanders captured the social media zeitgeist by taking his trademark blunt ax to the foolishness: “It’s over. Not one word about economic inequality, climate change, Citizens United or student debt. That’s why the Rs are so out of touch.”
Trump, who has disparaged nearly every American in some outrageous fashion since announcing his own run, only got around to lambasting Sanders’ “weakness” a few days ago. On August 8, the Washington Post‘s Philip Bump wrote the somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Losers: A List by Donald Trump and Bernie wasn’t even mentioned. He couldn’t secure the same rhetorical ire as Glenfiddich Scotch, which isn’t even a sentient being.
So what gives? Why the rhetorical quiet from the right in the face of Sanders’ increasingly mighty roar? The answer is probably fairly simple. If Republicans fear another four (or eight years) of Executive Branch banishment at the hands of Hillary Clinton, they’re downright panicked at the idea of President Sanders. And the underpinnings of that fear are offered by Bernie’s now-ubiquitous GOP debate tweet.
With characteristic real-talk he identified four conservative untouchables that he’d have no problem confronting from the White House: economic inequality, climate change, the flood of money in politics and the crushing debt load of our country’s students. Though one man can only do so much without the active participation of Congress (just ask President Obama), Sanders as POTUS means the absolute end of business as usual. Even those who dislike the man know he’s authentic. He can’t be bought. Sanders’ refreshing lack of scripted phoniness, combined with a platform that promotes true democratic opportunity, is what’s warming public perception. That should scare the backward-looking, cynical party of Koch.
As they have in response to many of the country’s challenges, Republicans are choosing the fingers in ears approach to the threat of Bernie Sanders. If like the disparity of class and racial opportunity, environmental decay and gun violence, they ignore it, well then it doesn’t exist. And the party methodology is failing. Again.
I realize I am a few days late on this. As usual, I have been self-involved and monumentally busy coping with the last three days of my mother-in-law’s visit.
Let me start by saying, I am no fan of this chick. I was talking to our cousins, Cindy and Sanjiv, over the weekend, and we all kind of agreed the GOP’s attempt to ram the “Barracuda” down our throats as a Hillary Clinton replacement never sat right. On one side, I admire Governor Palin, slightly, I say slightly, for her rep as a loose canon. Anyone who gives old Republican stalwarts a headache warrants an occasional chuckle from me. But Palin proved herself an overmatched chowderhead on the 2008 campaign trail. This rather stymying resignation does nothing to change my opinion.
It would be one thing if I were able, somehow, to chalk up the coming end of her reign as a savvy political move. But to announce this the day before a holiday weekend, a virtual media blackout? And call me crazy, but if you do intend to run for higher office, like say, the presidency, doesn’t it help to have a steady job while doing so? Ask Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson if not holding an office did them any favors when they went after the brass ring. Why would a person repeatedly pelted with the label “inexperienced” so oft last year, pull the plug on the only avenue she currently has to gain knowledge?
The possibility that her resignation pre-empts some shocking scandal that was about to come out has been thrown around. But I really don’t like this either. If the juice is any good, we’ll find out anyway. John Edwards anyone?
So I return to my initial question: What is up? And moreover, do any of you care what Sarah Palin does next? For the meanspirited of our readers (like me), are you enjoying the summer movie implosion of the GOP favorites?
becky sarwate 