Grow Up and Get a Clue!

You, like me, know this coming presidential election could well be a watershed event for our country. That's about as low-key and Clark Kent-mild as I could phrase that. I sure wish I had some political karma and/or zeitgeist to fall back on based on exposure to a little tear-gas back in the '60's and some out-of-the-box voting on occasion. That's not going to help here. I don't.

I was young and naive in the '60's, never having a clue what to do with the wild rhetoric of the left, whether SDS, Black Panthers, or others. I knew VietNam was a huge fuck-up and our government through multiple administrations was lying to us. That was the major sad revelation.

I'm sure I'm still naive. But less young.

So, despite the gas, I have mostly just my life-experiences rather than a political history to bring to this sadly huge event. Frankly, it feels like it could be a choice between (hopefully) a very dramatic move back to a system that conforms to the scheme our visionary forebears assembled (that would involve, e.g., elected officials being obeisant to the public and abiding by our laws), or continued motion towards dictatorship, oligarchy, even more extreme corporatocracy, or full-on fascism.

There's little doubt that John McCain is fully-subscribed to those latter dark paths; this man is conspicuously desperate for power and prepared to suspend whatever tawdry code of honor he has left at this point in his life to get what he thinks he wants. Not to disturb your sleep, but please freeze for a moment and contemplate that image of McCain embracing Bush on stage, not all that long after Bush's operatives had savaged McCain. The definition of a Desperate Man. Woe be to them who help to elect this psycho.

Not time to do the linkage here, but there is plentiful evidence that McSame is asininely clueless on foreign affairs, never heard of a war he didn't want to initiate, does not do economics, and, most sadly, he has a free pass with the MSM. The print and video press seem to be more or less bragging that he was so fun last time around that it's okay for him to lie and equivocate, as they will let him get away with shit the other candidates would be strung up for.

Given that, it doesn't take more than avg intelligence to realize that we have a problem. Undoubtedly there are numerous benumbed folks (some to the point of stasis) who have no clue that what they see or hear on their (very narrow, commonly self-chosen) mainstream media bandwidth bears little connection to facts or reality. They are still back in the "trust government" infantile state of development (despite the fact many of them also probably subscribe to the "drown it" program, somehow stupifyingly unaware that they will be early drainees!).

With that as backdrop, those of who believe big-time change is essential need to face a problem. It is thrilling to have both a woman and a person of color as our candidates. Why are we intent on taking ourselves down through petty squabbling? John McCain's politics are absolutely heinous! What sort of low-life venality and pettiness could lead any brain-endowed creature to even consider a voting-box choice that would aid him?

From Josh at Talking Points Memo (TPM):

To follow up on the emails I posted last night, it's worth saying that over the last couple months, during each campaign's moments of extremity, we've had supporters of each candidate (probably in roughly equal quantity) writing in and saying they wouldn't be able to vote for the opponent in the general election. In general I just think that people are deeply invested in the campaign (which is a good thing), and in moments of disappointment and frustration need some outlet, even if only expressed within themselves, to put some contemplated action to their angst. Threatening to upset the applecart in November is the most emotionally satisfying way to do that. Certainly too, when a campaign gets this intense and hard fought, there's just too much cognitive dissonance for people to be on the one hand seething at the other candidate and then also contemplating working for and voting for the same person.

So I see most of these promises as the emotional equivalent of things friends or lovers can say in the midst of heated fights -- the vast number of which they recant later and wish they'd never said.

Clearly though there are some people who really do mean it. A very small fraction I think, but there nonetheless. And there's really no better example of emotional infantilism that some people bring to the political process . One can see it in a case like 1968 perhaps or other years where real and important differences separated the candidates -- or in cases where the differences between the parties on key issues were not so great. But that simply is not the case this year. As much as the two campaign have sought to highlight the differences, the two candidates' positions on almost every issue is extremely close. And the differences that do exist pale into insignificance when compared to Sen. McCain's.

That's not to say that these small differences are reasons to choose one of the candidates over the other. But to threaten either to sit the election or vote for McCain or vote for Nader if your candidate doesn't win the nomination shows as clearly as anything that one's ego-investment in one's candidate far outstrips one's interest in public policy and governance. If this really is one's position after calm second-thought, I see no other way to describe it.

First followup from TPM:

We've gotten a number of very interesting replies to the post below about Democratic primary campaign supporters who won't vote in the general or will vote for McCain if their preferred candidate does not win the nomination. One of the dissonant aspects of reading the emails is hearing from each side's supporters explain how the other candidate has demonstrably crossed the line into political perdition, etc. etc.

But one point has come up enough times that I think it's worth clarifying. A number of people have read what I wrote as saying that because Clinton and Obama basically agree on policy issues, they're interchangeable. So get over it.

But that's not what I'm saying.

Presidential leadership is not simply about policy stands. Certainly that's not the case in how elections actually work. Nor is it how things ought to be. There's a lot about the presidency beyond policy positions. And character does count. The problem is just that in this country we routinely seem to confine it to matters of sexual ethics and whether you happen to say something that can be distorted beyond imagining by sundry right-wing agitprop freaks.

In any case, I'm not saying they're interchangeable. Whichever you prefer, they're actually very different candidates. What I am saying is that no one can run away from the choice every American with the franchise will face in November. The next president will either be John McCain or the Democratic nominee. That's an immovable fact. Not voting or voting for some protest candidate doesn't allow anyone to wash their hands of that choice.

Now one reader, TPM Reader KK, wrote in and said that he supports Obama, isn't a Democrat, actually doesn't agree with a number of Obama's policy positions but believes he could change the tenor of politics in the country and through his election help shift the rest of the world's view of the US. For KK, if Obama doesn't win the nomination, I guess there really might not be any particular reason he'd vote for Clinton over McCain.

But I do not believe this is the case with the great, great majority of readers of TPM who are supporting either of these two candidates. I think most are Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents who ascribe to a series of policies now generally adhered to by members of the Democratic party. People for whom that applies have to decide whether the alleged transgressions of either candidate or their differences in tone, political style and so forth are so grave and substantial that they merit electing John McCain who stands on the other side of basically all of those issues.

I subscribe to the idea that the earlier we have a single Dem candidate the better. Obviously I am not one of those truly poor sports (that's being too kind) who have lost sight of what is going on and are now somehow engaged in a political equivalent of the Idol show or whatever it is, with only one Dem candidate they could possibly support. For them, apparently democracy as so desperately conceived and cobbled together way back in the 18th Century is an irrelevance. "My candidate or nuclear meltdown" seems to be their mantra. Please extract your head from that orifice and renew your patritotic vow.

(From TPM commenter):

TPM Reader PJ shares his most feared scenario ...

Here's the scenario that I'm worried about...

Let's suppose that Hillary has a very good day in Pennsylvania, perhaps a 15-20 point win. If that happens, there is no way the superdelegates are going to move to lock it down for Obama. It's likely that she will also do fairly well in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky, chipping away at Obama's lead. She probably won't overcome his current margin, but she will be close enough to be able to make the case to the superdelegates that she has the momentum, and that the Pastor Wright mess renders Obama unelectable.

Thus, we go into the convention with a bitterly divided Party, with tensions running high, and both of our potential nominees battered and less able to take on McCain in November. The superdelegates will be in the very uncomfortable position of having to risk alienating the newly-inpspired and huge African-American and youth components of the Party if they hand the prize to Hillary Clinton. If they give the nod to Obama, the Clinton faction is going to raise all kinds of hell and may not be supportive of Obama in the general election.

IMHO, we are headed toward a very unhappy ending, and if I were a superdelegate I'd be inclined to slam-dunk it now for Obama. The Clinton camp would have no cause to complain; they started this campaign with 96 committed SD's who didn't even bother to take a look at the other contestants-- they were in Hillary's pocket from the start. It is also worth noting that the Clinton team was saying that they expected to wrap this whole thing up by Super Tuesday, so they are in no position to claim that the Obama SD's acted in haste. At the moment, Obama leads by every conceivable metric-- pledged delegates, popular vote, states won, caucuses won, and yes- primaries won. The uncommitted SD's who have been patient enough to witness 19 debates and 40 primaries could easily justify their decision to line up behind a nominee so we can begin to consolidate support for our general election candidate.

The fact that those superdelegates haven't pulled the trigger yet make me inclined to believe that they are going to let the process run its course, and I'm betting that when we reach July we are all going to wish that they had summoned up the wisdom and the courage to end it back in mid-March.

On the hopeful side, I was interested to hear of this idea of a "mini-convention," with goal of getting the key business done much earlier:

Democrats, looking for a way out, are pondering a new idea: an unprecedented "mini convention" to bring their punishing presidential season to an early close.

The proposal surfaced during another week of pushing and shoving between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns and a growing concern that the party may be hurting itself beyond repair.

Without some resolution, they fret, Republican John McCain will win the presidency.

"If we continue down the path we are on, we might as well hand the keys of the White House to John McCain," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.

The mini-convention would bring together nearly 800 superdelegates after the last primaries are held in early June.

Given the current math, superdelegates - party officials and elected leaders - will decide the nomination, one way or another.

"There would be a final opportunity for the candidates to make their arguments to these delegates, and then one transparent vote," Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen suggested in the New York Times.

Superdelegates, both pledged and unpledged, reacted cautiously to the idea. But they all agreed that something needed to be done to bridge the growing gap between Clinton and Obama supporters.

"We've got to stop the bickering that's going on," said Leila Medley of Jefferson City, Mo., an uncommitted superdelegate. "There's no doubt about that."

"While you trade barbs, McCain is uniting the Republican Party," U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon wrote both campaigns in mid-March. "In the next six weeks, McCain can sit back, amass his war chest, concentrate his base and delight as you deconstruct each other."

That outcome seemed unthinkable just weeks ago, when record voter turnouts, the ongoing Iraq war, a slumping economy and a fat bank account convinced many Democrats they had a clear path to the presidency.

But new polls tell a different story: Some last week showed McCain beating Obama and Clinton, after he trailed both candidates just two weeks ago.

A focus on race and gender hasn't helped. Neither did more name-calling after Florida's Democrats, then Michigan's, failed to reach agreement on a plan to seat their disputed delegates.

And the party still hasn't figured out how its superdelegates should vote - as independent agents or as a reflection of the popular vote.

"It seems to me if we have a nominee come Labor Day with a very deeply divided party and morally exhausted party, I think we have a problem," Bredesen said.

He promised any superdelegate gathering would be "tight" and "businesslike," helping the party avoid "brutal and unnecessary warfare" this summer.

Obama called it "interesting." Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Charles Schumer of New York said the idea might have merit. Clinton, Bredesen said, did not reject the idea.

But several rank-and-file superdelegates in Kansas and Missouri called the trial balloon a lot of hot air.

"I'm sure there are a number of us who would get beat up behind closed doors," Medley said. "I think what we need to do is get the two of them in a room."