The Maverick Tribe - election_08

Pure soul

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:42:00 +0200

Donna Brazile (CNN contributor and Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000) gets personal about Barack Obama's electoral chances:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1827871374?bctid=1842741065

Questions for McCain-Palin

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:29:00 +0200

Sarah Palin has mostly avoided the press so far. Maybe a billboard will work...

The ultimate welfare mom

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:55:00 +0200

How Sarah Palin's Alaska is leeching off the rest of us.

Would a turd by any other name smell the same?

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:10:00 +0200

As the cacophony greeting Sarah Palin's arrival on the national scene settles into a familiar partisan chatter, I'm left with one question: What will George Bush's nickname for Palin be, given "Turd Blossom" is already taken?

Bush has a well-known habit of giving his associates, friends, and enemies fraternal nicknames (former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is "Speedy", Senator John Cornyn is "Corndog", six-foot-four White House correspondent David Gregory is "Stretch"). Most of these are pretty facile, which makes "Turd Blossom" - for Bush's dark-hearted political strategist Karl Rove - especially wry. But given the unavailability of "Turd Blossom", I'm hard-pressed to come up with an appellation as apt to describe the circumstance of Sarah Palin, the new lily - all fresh, resplendent, and ovarian - that just sprung up from a manure heap of GOP cynicism.

The cognitive dissonance surrounding the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate gives one a headache. When it comes to Barack Obama, experience is paramount, but apparently for Palin it is not. She claims to have said "No thanks" to the notorious "Bridge to Nowhere", except that she previously supported the bridge when it was politically convenient. Her opposition to earmarks apparently doesn't apply to her own conduct as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, when she hired lobbyists to secure federal pork barrel spending. Turns out she didn't sell the governor's jet on eBay after all. And she even has her own wacky pastor!

Even though her views on abortion, gays, and the teaching of evolution and sex education are firmly in the fundamentalist camp, I was prepared to give her a fair hearing - not for my vote (I'm pretty much attached to Obama at this point) -but for my respect. And indeed her speech at the Republican convention was a masterful performance: pitch-perfect as political theater and laced with snide digs at Obama (some of them even loosely based in fact!). But beyond that, I saw in Sarah Palin little more than the political slurry that gave rise to her: a Republican party that is ideologically pooped and completely motivated by the acquisition of power.

As just an example, there's this:

I guess being a small-town mayor is sort of like being a community organizer, except that it has actual responsibilities.

I have to say that this line got under my skin more than any other. First off, does the Republican Party really want to belittle community organizing after explicitly celebrating community service just the day before? And there is another aspect to this that is even more unseemly. Sarah Palin promoted her "small town values" repeatedly in the speech, an obvious tactic to appeal to swing voters in small Midwestern towns. But coupled with her dismissal of Obama as a community organizer, the comment exposes a crass racial ploy that, unfortunately, is routine in our politics.

Whether intentional or not, "small town" and "working class" ends up referring to white people, while, as we all should know, Obama's work in the South Side of Chicago principally served African-Americans. This is the ugly result of the habit of politicians and pundits alike to obsess over the needs of the "working class", the "middle class", "small town America", and "mainstream America". What they end up doing is promulgating a cultural chauvinism that confuses the political importance of these (mostly white) demographics with their moral importance. Just ask MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who once contrasted blacks with "regular Americans", or Hillary Clinton, who once inartfully proclaimed herself the candidate for "hard working, white Americans". These racist comments are blurted out not in the spirit of bigotry, but as the cynicism of politics overwhelms basic decency. Last I checked, black families in Bronx, New York, are just as important as white families in rural Ohio. Listening to the political discourse, you'd never guess that.

So here's something you'll never hear from the political professionals - a shout out to big city values. Dare I say, San Francisco values. For all those who are people of color, or gay, or for one reason or another don't experience small towns as the cuddly, idyllic places they're constantly made out to be, this one's for you.

And you "mainstream Americans" can keep your turd blossoms.

Palin comparison

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:10:00 +0200

Send the dogsleds! Minutes ago, the McCain campaign announced its selection of one-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin as its VP choice. TV commentators are frantically checking Wikipedia and settling into the pronunciation of her name (apparently it's PAY-lin, not PAL-in).

I don't know anything more about Sarah Palin than anyone else, but she strikes me as the choice of the Elisabeth Hasselbeck generation. Strong, young, beautiful, right-wing, pro-traditional family. Movement conservatives will love her. I can see Sean Hannity sycophantically flirting with her on Fox News right now.

What instantly strikes me is how this totally neuters Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential debates. We were all ready for him to eat a Tim Pawlenty or even a Mitt Romney alive. But a 44-year-old woman?

Still, it's another monumental risk for McCain. But if it spares me having to look at Romney's shit-eating grin for the next two months, I'm all for it.

Michelle to nation: I'm not really that interesting after all

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:20:00 +0200

If you missed Michelle Obama's speech last night at the Democratic Convention, here's an outline:

I. Me

A. Blue collar roots

B. Sick father

C. Has big brother

i. Coaches basketball

ii. Watches over me (but doesn't look down on me)

D. Just like you white folks

i. Am I right?

ii. Really?

II. Barack

A. Good

B. Romantic Husband

C. Inspiring leader

III. Other good things

A. Hopes

B. Dreams

C. America's promise

D. Children's future

E. Thread (connecting A-D)

IV. Coda

A. Cute kids

B. Intra-family banter via satellite

Having listened to the pundits' post-speech analysis, I've learned that Mrs. Obama really hit it "out of the park" with her speech, especially in the key areas of softened inflection, hairstyle, and dress color choice. I also agree that having cute kids was a shrewd political choice for Obama. Homely, untelegenic kids definitely would have undermined his message on capital gains tax policy.

But seriously, what a snooze. I'd take Strong Black Woman Michelle - the one with a playful flip in hair and attitude - any day.

McCain wasn't tortured

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:05:00 +0200

According to the current administration.

Dear Barack: I'm over you

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:45:00 +0200

Regular readers of this blog may be inclined to think that the New Yorker is composed entirely of cartoons - hard-edged on the front, open-ended at the rear, and all manner of intellectually droll and absurd on the pages in between. In fact the New Yorker also prints words - paragraphs of them, in fact, often organized into cogent, straight-faced, exhaustively researched articles and opinion pieces. Behind the current issue's right-wing phantasmagorical cover laden with turbans, fatigues, and automatic weaponry, one can find two such clear-eyed articles about Barack Obama: in one, Ryan Lizza documentshow Barack Obama cut his teeth on the ruthlessness and cynicism of Chicago politics. And in the other, Hendrick Hertzberg pens a characteristically sharp essayexamining the alleged "flip-flops" Obama has been accused of recently. Hertzberg writes:

Obama has been providing plenty of plastic for the flip-flop factories with the adjustments he’s been making as he retools his campaign for the general election. Under headlines like “IN CAMPAIGN, ONE MAN’S PRAGMATISM IS ANOTHER’S FLIP-FLOPPING,” the big papers have been assembling quite a list of matters on which the candidate has “changed his position,” including Iraq, abortion rights, federal aid to faith-based social services, capital punishment, gun control, public financing of campaigns, and wiretapping. Most of them are mere shifts of emphasis, some are marginal tweaks, and a few are either substantive or nonexistent.

He then examines Obama's past statements on each of these issues and fairly concludes that campaign finance and wiretapping are the only two with any substanse and worth crying about. Besides, goes the commentary, McCain has reversed himself on many more issues of consequence, ranging from tax cuts to offshore drilling. The bottom line: Obama is a politician, who occasionally does politician-y things, so stop your whining.

Since I agree with all of Hertzburg's specific points, why am I still sad? I am to be consoled by the observation that Obama is a conventional politician, but his demerits aren't all that serious? It's fine to downplay all the offenses he's committed since the start of the general election campaign, but what courageous or inspiring thing has he done to offset these offenses? I'm willing to endure a waffle here and a pander there as long as there's a good amount of nourishing stuff that moves the conversation forward.

This is not at all about me being a lefty blogger upset that Obama is "shifting to the center". I've long believed that Obama had centrist and pragmatic impulses on many subjects - that was even part of his appeal for me. As the de facto leader of the Democratic party, I'd love to see him stake out some modernizing positions on, for example, affirmative action (less of it) and education (standing up to teachers' unions), two subjects on which he has suggested in the past he'd be willing to depart from the party line.

Obama is supposed to be fresh-faced, a reformer, who tells you "not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear". But his bluff has been called by McCain, an anti-establishmentarian with a record to back it up. So this campaign was supposed to be a contest between two unconventional candidates who would eschew the trivial and the petty in favor of an intellectually honest contest. Does Obama want to do weekly, unscripted town hall meetings with McCain? No, he'd prefer to stick to the traditional debate format, with all it's pre-programmed sound bites and theatrics. And so it goes...

The New Yorker cover

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:35:00 +0200

I go back and forth on the New Yorker cover. I can appreciate it as satire - this is the type of humor employed by Jon Stewart all the time. And it's important to remember that satire doesn't necessarily have to be "funny" to be successful. The New Yorker's style is more wry and clever than "ha-ha" funny.

That said, the meaning - even understood as satire - is still rather crude. If I were the Obamas - or anyone black for that matter - I imagine that I would find the cartoon - ironic or not - distasteful. Many did. Perhaps if they took out the afro'd Michelle and associated racial imagery it would be better.

What I do know is that I'm tired of both campaigns ritualistically taking offense at every off-color joke, insult, or otherwise crass commentary that comes down the pike. Barack Obama could be privately offended by the cover but refrain from getting bogged down with it in his public communications. I would have preferred his campaign to have put out a statement to the effect of "Senator Obama has a lot more pressing issues on his mind than an unflattering magazine cover." I thought that in supporting Obama I was getting a candidate who was thoroughly annoyed and bored with the usual petty tactics - using umbrage as a political tool is one of these tactics. Lately both the Obama and McCain campaigns (but more Obama's) seem to have been directed from that old mothballed playbook.

Can real people be politicians?

noreply@blogspirit.com (Jake) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:30:00 +0200

For the record: in the race for U.S. Senator from Minnesota - Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman - the Mavericktribe endorses Franken. And why wouldn't we? He's a fair-minded, smart, and perceptive man, who is genuinely passionate about public policy and progressive causes. He also happens to be a comedian. Or, more precisely, a political satirist. And he's been tossing out sometimes raunchy humor for around thirty years, yielding a treasure trove of material his opposition can use against him. As usual, Michael Kinsley, the best opinion writer alive today, best frames Franken's dilemma:

Franken (a slight but friendly acquaintance of mine) is in a quandary. He can't stop his campaign to defend every joke he's ever written that someone now finds offensive, or pretends to. Trying to explain a joke is notoriously pointless anyway. But Franken also can't let his opponent create the impression that he is some kind of sexist monster, rather than the long-married, deeply uxorious family man that he is, with the progressive views on abortion choice and related issues that you would expect from a Democratic liberal. If the voters of Minnesota would rather be represented by a hack like Norm Coleman than laugh off a few jokes that didn't work, then they should stop complaining about being stuck with professional politicians. And the real joke will be on them.

I'm beginning to understand that voting is one of the many practices in American life that remains unleavened by self-awareness. Americans say they want honest politicians, and then vote for the scheming liar. They want their politicians to be straight with them, and then rally around the sugarcoaters, the window dressers, and the pussyfooters. In 2000 and 2004 they elected a recovering alcoholic - it was he they'd rather have a beer with, after all. That's right, they want a regular guy, an average Joe, but wait a minute... Al Franken? Please, no coarse and/or sexist humor. (Which begs the question: what do regular guys talk about over their beers if not tit-and-ass jokes?)

Americans claim to want leaders who are courageous, unpolished, and authentic. Don't believe them - it's a trap.