No More Mr. Nice Guy

I’m tired of being a peacekeeper. I’ve tried to maintain some dignity throughout this campaign season by finding some sort of middle road despite my favoritism towards the Democratic candidates and the party in general. I’m well aware of the many miscues, scandals and shameful associations connected to Democratic candidates and I feel that those negative nods have, for the most part, been properly vetted out, or are now in the process of. But, I feel I’ve reached my breaking point. It’s painfully clear to me that people, in general, are all about image. It’s what has won or lost elections for two hundred years. I’ve finally succumbed to the level that the opposing party wants me to reach. Because if Barack Obama can actually win this thing, every ounce of my being wants to stand up and scream, “ Neener, neener, neener!!!” and, “See…you can dish it out, but you can’t take it, now, can you?“

With McCain looking like he must overcome an imposing deficit, the haters and blamers from the right are out in force. They are saying and doing ALL of the things they mocked the Democrats for, both 4 and 8 years ago. I realize that desperate times call for desperate measures but must it be at the expense of common sense and dignity? John McCain happens to be a decent man caught in an uncomfortable web of frantic politics. It’s his last stand. His last hurrah. And naturally he wants to win. But you can see in his speeches, his debates and his rhetoric, that whenever he utters an accusation towards Obama and the Democratic party…he doesn’t believe it. At least, not all of it. He knows he must say anything at this point (Although “anything” has been reduced to a small handful of talking points that are barely rousing even the staunchest of supporters).

I live in Arizona. Although I don’t know him personally, I have seen him more than most. On the local news and in the local newspapers for years as our favorite Senator…our beloved Senator…our war hero. Yes, even as a lifelong Democrat and after many grievances towards his politics there has always been an honor and respect when speaking about McCain. Obviously, despite the bureaucratic bullshit of both the Vietnam War and whatever surrounded the Senators' prisoner-of-war status, spending 5 years of your life in a jungle prison carries an enormous amount of sympathy, honor and clout. He may not have been the best husband or even man he could be in his early life, but there is plenty of room for fallibility for a soldier who was tortured for years fighting for you and your country. He’s always had that "forgivable imperfection card" that he’s never abused…until know.

Arizonans know when McCain is speaking with conviction…and when he is not. When Senator McCain is speaking from the heart he stands firm, his face unchanging, his confidence steely. Although he was never the best public speaker, he still garnered the respect of a man who believed what he was telling you. Even if I disagreed with him, I knew that he believed with all his heart that what he was fighting for was for the best. But not anymore. As an Arizonan, his posture now tells me he has doubts, his facial contortions tell me that he hates to say these things about men and women he has respect for…and his confidence is barely there, if it’s there at all. So many folks are saying that McCain is different than he was before. That he’s not the Maverick he once was, or was he really ever one?

I still believe that John McCain is a good man. But if he loses this election, it won’t be because he’s changed. It will be because the GOP wouldn’t allow him to be the man he really is, which is not a "Maverick"…it's a "survivor". Allowing himself to be debased into name calling, character attacking and picking a horrifically under-qualified running mate with an image that was sure to overtake his own was a dicey move. And it crapped out. With the state of the union as it currently is…perhaps a “survivor” was the only image the GOP needed. Someone they could show has the fortitude to get past the worst of times. Instead they have a poorly devised campaign strategy to match a laundry list of poorly devised policy strategies of the now shamed Bush Administration, making McCain look exactly as Obama has painted him. A carbon copy.

Call me a bleeding heart liberal, I don’t really care…but if the Republicans come out the winners on the morning of Nov. 5th when Obama conclusively "leads" the polls just a week out, it will be less about a victory for McCain and more about the fears and prejudices of the American people.

Time to Eat Crow

This election season, as it’s been one of the most important and monumental elections in decades, I have continued my argument that Republicans have lately waged the nastiest and dirtiest campaigns in American history. Directly from Karl Rove’s playbook, the GOP have been on the delivering end of some of the most shameful ads and talking points and those negative voices truly had results. In 2004, John Kerry was certainly “swift-boated”, though no credit was ever given to the official Republican party and now Obama is being “Ayers’ed”. I have also always attained that the Democrats comparatively engage nearly as much in negative advertising, just not with as much veracity. 'The Republicans are a mean and nasty bunch', I‘ve always said. Like the Oakland Raiders of the 70’s. They should be punished.

But just as I demand the facts, please, from the right…I cannot allow myself to be so ignorant as to assume that the party I stand behind isn’t capable of the same rhetoric. And to not keep a watchful or analytical eye on that possibility would be nescient and irresponsible, at best. I prize my integrity, like anyone, and do not wish it to be half-hearted or contrived.

So with all this being said, I did a little overdue homework and had to take a long disappointing look at the river bank I currently stand on and admit that the Republicans have not become the monsters that I have previously painted. Unlike Fonzie, I can honestly say…I was wrong. The truth of the matter is that the only monster responsible for such reprehensible behavior in election campaigns resides solely within each and every one of us. We are the monsters. We are the ones who either dish it or allow it. And it has permeated the political landscape since, very likely, the beginning of time. In fact, there isn’t a more perfect example to prove the existence of evolution than dirty politics. It was always mans initiative to conquer and he did so, primarily, with a club, then a spear, a gun and then big guns. But a different war could also be waged when man picked up the pen. And it was discovered that often, not every time, but often…he could accumulate just as much power with language and persuasion than he could with an army. Often much more effectively, with less destruction and death. This psychological transformation from animal mentality to that of higher understanding is one of the building blocks of Darwinian theory.

And so it goes with a non-totalitarian government that in order to appear higher in prestige than your opponent it might make sense to lower his…and the 'rumor mill' is the best weapon of choice to accomplish that objective. Although our forefathers established a rule of law that states that a man is innocent until proven guilty, human nature tells us otherwise. We are all, everyone of us, guilty until proven innocent. The foremost assumption only stands true for someone you know and love. And though it’s an honorable sentiment, it’s not very realistic.

In 2004 the Republicans took the “hero” out of John Kerry’s war service leaving him publicly scarred and painfully silent when he should have fought harder to take the states that suddenly swung right. Legitimate concerns over purged votes could have turned the election but Kerry effectively turned over and accepted defeat. George W. Bush continued his reign. How could we allow this?

Well…how did we allow the Democrats “daisy” commercial in 1964 sway the country from Barry Goldwater? You know the one, where a little girl is seen holding a daisy while a voiceover counts down from 10. When the voice utters the number “zero” the image of an exploding atomic bomb appears and then you hear…”These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live or to go into the dark … Vote for President Johnson on November 3.” Although the despicable add only ran once…enough people saw it to either illicit outrage…or fear. It can’t be supposed that this one event changed the election, but it does show how the negativity wasn’t created by Karl Rove. He may have honed it better than most, but he didn’t invent it.

In fact in 1800 when, during the Thomas Jefferson-John Adams presidential race, the Connecticut Courant wrote that if Jefferson won, "murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes." New Englanders, Advertising Age noted in an editorial last April praising negative campaign ads, "reportedly hid their Bibles for fear that the infidel president would declare them illegal." Or vintages such as 1828, when supporters of presidential candidate and incumbent John Quincy Adams called opponent Andrew Jackson a cannibal and a murderer. The previously married Mrs. Jackson got off easy; Adams's supporters merely accused her of being a whore. [1]

The fine tradition of negativity and attacks goes back to the nation's founding document. By the count of political scientist John G. Geer of Vanderbilt University, 70 percent of the statements in the Declaration of Independence are not uplifting promises of more-just and democratic governance, but attacks on England and George III ("He has obstructed the Administration of Justice," "He has dissolved Representative Houses" and, of course, "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people"). These criticisms "provided the basis for thinking about abuses of power and the centrality of certain basic human rights," Geer writes in his 2006 book "In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns." "Without such negativity, the argument for establishing a new nation that 'derived its just powers from the consent of the govern[ed]' would not have been possible."
While that may be hyperbolic, focusing the colonists' minds on the nefarious doings of King George III undoubtedly advanced revolutionary fervor from Massachusetts to Georgia. [2]

So ultimately, negative campaigning is the norm, rather than the exception and should be expected to be a part of politics for years to come. No, it is not right. It is not fair and it is not honest. It is there because it works…plain and simple. Most people can be swayed. You and I prove it at the checkout stand when we buy that pack of gum or that silly magazine we never would have bought in the first place if we didn’t have that “impulsive” gene in our DNA. There was something about that wrapper of the gum or the picture and layout of the magazine cover that prompted your mind to say, “ I like that…and I want it” So you bought it and didn’t even know why. You were swayed by your sub-conscious. When people hear “dirt” on a candidate…they can’t help but file it somewhere in their mind.

As this campaign nears an end, McCain/Palin are likely to attack Obama’s character more harshly than before because being currently 11 percentage points down that’s the only recourse they have. They are not evil people…it’s just the only strategy that has a chance. Because for some voters on November 4th, the last thing that they hear at night is simply the first thing they’ll remember in the morning.








[1] [2] http://www.newsweek.com/id/163476?tid=relatedcl

Elitist jumps Maverick - checkmate, please!

OK…I’m biased. I admit it. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat and my beliefs and politics are, for the most part, liberal leaning. And I offer not a single apology for it. It’s my right as an American to think however I want, so long as I act within the laws of the land and rules of society. But, I consider myself a rational voter. Sometimes you have to judge a situation by assessing what the best possible outcome may be and in several cases over the years in my current city of Scottsdale, AZ I have voted for a local Republican because I felt that they were truly the best candidates for the job. You see, I’m not so partisan that I vote blindly across the board, although it can be selfishly tempting.

For me it all boils down to capability. And capability is not the same thing as experience. When I “discuss” politics with others, however infrequent, the one thing that can set me off are regurgitated talking points. For Democrats it’s about bringing “change” to Washington, for Republicans it’s “reform”. Can we drop the semantics, please?

There are so many real issues in this election…the economy is number one. Where are we headed? To what degree the next president can guide our economics will also dictate the other issues. Health care, education, the war or wars as well as some sort of peace in the middle east. Handling the instability in the region is something we cannot do alone, yet we must show the leadership that America has been known for and claw our way back from the precipice that the last 7 years has placed us on. And I say that not from a talking point but pure fact. The jury is not back, but, the very real plausibility that the Bush administration has been one of the most damaging we’ve ever seen in our nation’s history is virtually a shoe-in vote.

It was painful enough to watch W. slip into the most powerful seat in the world the first time as the nation voted for a “good ole boy”…a guy “ you could have a beer with”. A guy who, despite graduating from Yale University, scored the lowest acceptable passing grade on the pilot's written aptitude test for the Texas Air National Guard. He did graduate from Harvard with his MBA which didn't seem to aid him as several businesses financed by his father failed miserably. Again, I go back to the word - capability. We had the facts. We had the information. Dubya finally entered politics in 1994, just three years before Barack Obama. The rest as they say is history. The second time he was elected president I was resigned to say, “Alright, Americans…go ahead…try to have your cake and eat it too” After all, it’s the land of the National Enquirer and Dancing with the Stars who are apparently driving the boat, now. And despite the good doctor being a Bush supporter I wanted to invoke Phil McGraw and scream “Well America…how’s that workin’ out for ya’!!!!”

You see, according to the Republican talking heads, 9/11 was a result of Clinton’s failures, not Bush’s. Seven and a half years later our economic collapse is also Clinton’s fault. Oh, I see. Let me guess. Darfur must be Clinton’s fault, too. How about the Chicago Cubs. I knew it!!! Clinton, you bastard!

Yeah, well the blame game really is that ridiculous. You know what…it’s not just incredulous…it’s downright embarrassing. Yeah, I know…the Dems do it too. Everyone is accountable. The problem with America is not spoiled rotten, ungrateful kids who have no manners and serious entitlement issues. The problem with America is the complete lack of accountability from our leaders and all their talking heads. I can’t imagine that every whiny politician out here would tolerate this blaming game and double talk from their own children so why do they condone it for themselves? It’s true this nation has lost it’s compass but when everything that is wrong is the other guys fault, what the hell message do you think you are sending to America’s youth? You are saying it only matters that you win the game...not how you play. That end results trump integrity and character. How many kids do you really know who are actually saying “When I grow up, I want to be President.” Not my kids or their friends. And it’s not like I’m depriving them of political knowledge. We talk freely in our house and they know and have voiced their support (in words only, of course) of candidates that I vehemently oppose. I may be flabbergasted at it but truth be told, I’m jazzed that they even have an opinion about politics. Like any responsible parent, I trust that I’ll set them straight and get them to see my side…I mean after all…isn’t that what most of us do? Right? Anyone? Bueller?

But seriously, as I’ve told them all along…this election is going to be monumental for a myriad of reasons. Race, gender (let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that these aren't key factors in this race), and of course…the issues. But more than anything I’ve tried to explain to the kids and others about that word - capability. Do I want John McCain in the White House…of course not. Do I think he can govern or does he have the capability to serve…yes, he can. Did you hear that, everybody? No, it wasn’t a pin drop…it was me saying that John McCain is capable of being president. I wouldn’t like the decisions he’d make, but he is a capable guy. At least he is, now. As a young man, one wouldn’t exactly call him “driven”. Graduating 894th out of 899 isn’t exactly “summa cum laud”…or even “cum laud”. Heck, it’s barely a “good job, kiddo”. But as an under-achiever myself, I am no one to judge. But, then again…I’m not running for the highest office in the world. Which brings me back to that word, yet again.

We’ve heard the talking points about Obama’s lack of experience. Well, let’s look at his experience.

Graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School - Magna Cum Laud.
First black President of the Harvard Law Review. Yes, he was a community organizer (apparently, a now “shamed” title) for 3 years before he became a practicing civil rights attorney. Taught constitutional law from 1992 to 2004 at University of Chicago Law School while serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 - 2004. Elected to the US Senate in 2004.

Let’s look at John McCain’s experience:

Graduated US Naval Academy in 1958 - bottom tier of his class. Became a navy flier in the Vietnam War and was shot down and became a prisoner of war for 5 years. He heroically survived and retired as a Captain in 1981. Elected to US House of Representatives in 1982. Served two terms and was elected to the Senate in 1986 where he has served until today. Calls himself a maverick yet voted the Bush Doctrine nearly 9 out of 10 times when given the chance.

Is there a difference in experience between these two men? Uh…yeah. In fact John McCain has more experience than not only Barack Obama, but also, Mitt Romney, Rudy Guiliani, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson. Do you think the GOP would stand behind those other candidates had they won the primary? You betcha’!

Now let’s look at the experience of the VP candidates:

Joe Biden - Became a lawyer in 1968 in Delaware where he still resides to this day. Elected to the US Senate in 1972 and has been re-elected every term since. That should be plenty.

Sarah Palin - Attended 4 separate colleges before earning her BS in Communications-Journalism and becoming a sports reporter - which sounds light years more impressive than a community organizer (a smarky remark...that wasn't necessary). Elected Council member in Wasilla, Alaska (She won 530 votes to John Hartrick’s 310) from 1992-1996. Mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002. Elected Governor in 2006. She had chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004. Precisely one year of “energy” expertise.

After her performance in the VP debate, Sarah has been lauded for holding her own and exceeding everyone’s expectations. My question was and still is…OK great…she exceeded your expectations. So why is it that you have placed the bar so low to begin with?

I know I’m being snide but here’s my main point folks. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have been accused of being “elitist” during this whole election season. Well, for almost 8 years we have had to deal with the inadequacies, the over-whelming number of scandals and constitutional assaults and quite simply, the degradation of The United States of America in both the mirror and around the world led by a man who was elected because “he’d be great to have a beer with”. A man whose upbringing was as far from Joe 6-pack as you could get. And now they want to replace him with a team of a once-great American Hero and a woman so far out of her league that her hubris refuses to submit as she screams about character assassinations, a tactic that the neo-cons have perfected.

Perhaps it’s now time for a couple of elitists to help walk us out of skid row.

Post Procrastinator

Hi everyone,

As you may have noticed I have slowed down to a crawl when it comes to my posts on the blog here, lately. For my regulars, my apologies. Things have been pretty nutty around my neck of the woods and I'm hopeful that in short time I'll return to a more consistent deadline schedule. Again, and not to appear arrogant, but this blog is more for me than anyone else. It's my release, it's my therapy...it's my way of unloading. Foolish or not, it's a way to vent my opinions, albeit publicly, which leads me to stand on an issue or admittedly change my mind on one. Because of the openness of a public forum like this I also admit that not every single opinion, value or thought I have will make it to this page. There has to be some things sacred. But I pledge to make it to the blog more often and hopefully this public pronouncement will be the motivator.

Thanks for listening...and reading.

Michael