Time To MoveOn Dot Org

The latest Rassmussen polling has John McCain enjoying a double digit lead over both Obama And Hillary. McCain is already into the general election, building an organization and even making the rounds in other countries. He's looking more and more like the right guy for this election, and the best candidate the GOP (in spite of themselves) could have picked given his likely opposition.

Meanwhile the Democrats are dealing with an entrenched battle, which won't be settled regardless of Pennsylvania. They're still dickering around with Michigan and Florida, and everyone is in a lather about the the Reverend Wright and whether or not Barack was in the pew that Sunday.

Keep on arguing, Democrats, if you want to see your chances for defeat get very gradually smaller and smaller. If you had any sense you'd convene a loya jirga of party elders and unify in favor of one candidate - likely this would be Obama, given his current base of support. And then you'd get to work on McCain and the challenge of nationalizing the campaign.

But in spite of a clear, on-paper advantage, we're looking at two rivals that won't give up. One is ahead, but the other will use every means at her disposal.

The outcome looks increasingly like a self-destructive civil war. Bad for the candidates in question - but a rip-snortin' good political season for those of us who enjoy the process as a spectator sport.

The Defection of David Mamet

David Mamet, beloved playwright and director, has declared in the Village Voice that he - in his words - is no longer a brain-dead liberal.

More about that below. First though, it's interesting to note that in all of the arm-flapping over this stunning defection, few may remember the origins of that phrase. It was first used during some very public hearings about the crime problems in in New York City that had worsened to a breathtaking degree, and which weren't being solved by the type of progressive liberal ideas for which that city is generally famous. In fact, the practical street-level reality of Gotham turned towards law-and-order "conservatism" (some would argue pragmatism) to clean things up.

Brain-dead make-nice platitudes - the kind routinely emitted gaseously from the benevolent ultraliberals, do not add up to any workable governing philosophy. But Mamet , clever fellow that he is, strikes at the heart of it, worth quoting at length and cleaned up just enough to maintain my family rating:

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the f*** up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

He goes on to explain rather elegantly how said Constitution provides a remarkably successful hedge against the vile side of human nature by distributing power among the branches and ultimately giving it to the mostly-decent people of the United States, where it should reside, and with maximum liberty. And this stands in stark contrast to a worldview which wants to centralize schoolmarmish federal power because people are stupid and endlessly in need of help.

He will be pilloried as out of touch, affluent, and (per the bumper sticker) not paying attention enough to be outraged. He will be schooled in all of the disinfopedia factoids one is supposed to have internalized in order to wake up in the morning seething properly about how "everything is always wrong". Many people will disavow any play or film he creates from this day forward.

Never mind that he makes it clear that there are plenty of at-hand examples of Rightward leaders and policies that he abhors. Never mind that he is simply taking the very centrist position that a country functions better as a marketplace than a schoolroom, and that we have, as a nation, made the world better with our ideas and culture and even (sacrilege!) our products and corporations. Everything is not always wrong - and perhaps if you cannot see our national, cultural good, you're the one not paying attention.

I intend to buy a ticket to his next production.





I look forward to his next play.

Fighter Pilot Chases Skirts!!

This is the best the New York Times can offer in their too-predictable delayed attack? A couple of disgruntled former employees claim that John McCain got a little flirtatious with a lady lobbiest?

If that's as far as it went, both in terms of the quid pro quo and the pas de deux - then I, for one, admire the guy more than I did yesterday. Any red-blooded American fighter jock with a "maverick" reputation who doesn't notice the ladies might as well move up to Soviet Canada with his wingman.

Something tells me Cindy McCain is nonplussed.

The New York Times is like a dinosaur stuck in a mud pit. Plummeting circulation and perennially dropping shareholder value will eventually force a fateful end to the venerable publication. But it looks like before the Grey Lady finally expires she's going to assert her relevance by turning a few cheap tricks in the back room.

The story this morning is how this effort by the NYT is laughably transparent. The other story I think we'll see developing is how the more the press goes after him, and the more he takes on the Democrats directly, the more Republicans are going to fall in to support McCain.

Buckeye Ugly

Looks like the Clinton shock troops are setting up a 527 in Ohio to churn out the truly nasty anti-Obama message. This is same type of legal entity as the famous "Swiftboat Veterans" from 2004. Technically these groups are supposed to be unaffiliated with the campaign, but they are almost always funded and organized by the most intense partisans.

Politically they operate like an autonomous terrorist cell, communicating with headquarters using methods that are difficult to trace. One expects Mark Penn to have a stack of disposable cell phones nearby.

The Clintons do vicious politics better than anyone. But exit polling from Wisconsin suggested that Hillary suffered a pronounced ill effect from the last round negative advertising. They must somehow think it will work in Ohio.

But it's the transparency, stupid. Hours after this 527 was set up the news ricocheted through the political troposphere, with the names and numbers of all of the backers. Every nasty-gram they send via direct mail is going to be scrutinized on the nightly news. You simply can't play these dirty tricks under the radar anymore. And as I said before, this is a pronounced difference from 1992, one of the many ways our civic life has been transformed.

They're going down. And they're going down ugly.

Wisconsin Cheese and Change

First of all, a prediction: In another four to six weeks much of the consternation from conservatives will have started to fade, and the Republicans will fall in line behind McCain.

No, I'm not saying "suck it up". I'm saying, as this thing firms up against an opponent (looking like Obama) - many GOPers will feel much more affectionately towards the old maverick. His themes are going to be slowly changing, and there was a preview of that in his Wisconsin victory speech.

As for the Democrats, the media wants another change in the fundamental dynamic. The want an Obama bubble to burst so Hillary can make a real contest of the final stretch. But I think something different is happening with the general Democrat public, which is slow to awaken, and which moves with a great deal of weight and inertia.

They don't want Hillary Clinton. It seems like a dismal restoration. The only people she's winning are the people who don't know very much about the choices. According to the Wisconsin exits, the only group she's winning are over 50 women who haven't been to college. Herself, but with less education.

The Democrat Party elders are watching this go down. And they're watching the trial balloon "cheater" strategies the Clintons have let fly in the media. Are you going to tell me that a supposedly independent arbiter like Al Gore wants these Bill and Hill on the 2008 ticket, and back at the helm of the Democrat Party?

Nope.

The Obama Rapture Arrives

On March 4 the Buckeye State will once again play a potentially pivotal role in the national election. Even while national polls continue to suggest that Hillary Clinton has a solid lead among likely Ohio voters there are some signs that Obama-Mania(TM) has come to this corner of America.

This breathless post from 'Buckeye State Blog' (HT Bizzyblog) paints a picture of an overflowing organizational meeting for Obama that took place yesterday in Cincinnati:

In all my years of political activism and volunteerism, I'd never seen anything like it. We weren't coming to a rally, and we weren't coming to vote. We were coming to offer our time and our support. And to do that, just that one simple act of participation, we sat in a traffic jam on a miserable February day, we slid across treacherous ice, and ruined our best work shoes in the grey city snow. And we did this, with less than 24 hour notice, in the most incredible numbers I've ever seen for a primary election. A primary! And in Cincinnati, the Republican bastion of the state! I've never even seen a crowd half its size for the first volunteer meeting for a general election!

Deep breaths there, fella. I'm sure it was tremendously exciting - and I'm willing to concede that we're looking at a powerful new force in presidential politics, one which threatens to swamp the Clinton machine.

One quibble, though. You and many other Democrats and Lefties continue to insist that Cincinnati is the GOP "bastion" of the state. I realize it's been the currency of conversation for many years - boring old normal Cincinnati with it's 19th century morals. And Republicans did own the city electorate as recently as 10 years ago.

But now the city proper is a boring old behind-the-times Democrat town. All of the Republicans moved out to Butler and Warren counties.

This is not a trivial point, and it's one that will haunt you if you get it wrong on the basis of facile assumptions. The John Kerry campaign weighted the map incorrectly in 2004 when it came to demographic shifts, and put to much GOTV effort into the wrong counties. You are free to make that mistake again at your own peril.

The Obama campaign, one hopes, has a better map - and will send people out knocking on doors in areas that do not plan to vote for him already.

White Catholic History Month

The demographics of the Obama win in last night's mid-Atlantic states are stunning. It's not just the English department, undergraduates, and black people that are voting for the guy - although his numbers in these areas are phenomenal. He's now pulling down Catholics, white males, even massive inroads into the Latino community.

The only way

The Beltway Tuesday Blues

Today the Beltway votes. Half the supposedly "strait" news staff and most of the chattering bobbleheads that populate the political round-tables on on Fox and MSNBC and CNN have zip codes in North-West, Georgetown, and Chevy Chase - the tonier neighborhoods of the states and districts that are participating in today's Chesapeake Tuesday.

This is my home territory. Prior to relocating to Ohio I grew up in 'DC' - the natives almost never call it Washington, except when making categorical statements about it's unique culture - and I make it back there a few times a year. In many respects I call Ohio my home now, but there are often times when I'm reminded that, at heart, or perhaps by virtue of my disposition, I'm an East Coast guy.

As I've been watching the coverage today I've noticed a certain soul-searching tone. David Gregory looks a little less spry, and Andrea Mitchell seems to be wringing her hands more about Hillary's ultimate prospects. It occurs to me that these folks have had, or will soon have, a moment of truth in the intimate confines of the voting booth.

And the media blues may be related to the fact that we've been grinding away on the same stories for a while. To the extent that the media can muster any interest in the GOP side, there are two tired memes: McCain versus talk radio (Part LXXVII) and the likely-meaningless Hucakbee protest vote.

Everything else is Obama and Hillary. The Clintons have set very low expectations. This is done so that they can either chide the media for wrongfully covering a non-story - because Obama was supposed to win anyway - or they can chide the media for getting the story wrong, because she pulled off an upset. The common feature of both tacks is that the Clinton campaign has a choke collar on the fourth estate and a spiked heel on their back (just ask David Schuster).

One thing is for sure - this temporary stasis pattern cannot be tolerated. The media cannot abide the same political story for more than a week. Momentum has to shift in ways that make a headline. That means Obama pulls far ahead, or Hillary retakes the lead, or Huck somehow solves the math problem. Or a celebrity dies, or a bomb goes off. Something. The beast must be fed.

These February doldrums cannot be allowed to last.

The 5 Stages of McGrief

Reading some of the posts lately in the Right-o-sphere I think it's
pretty easy to chart the Kübler-Ross model for dealing with the John
McCain tragedy.

Denial: "Well, who's left? Huckabee, Paul? Somebody forgot to take
Rudy off the ballot? As far as I'm concerned, it's still three weeks
ago dammit!"

Anger: "This backstabbing, media-loving, treacherous, snickering bastard expects to have my support? Never!"

Bargaining: "Maybe he won't pull that maverick crap about taxes and judicial appointments. If he can just be a bona fide conservative on those issues I can, you know, deal."

Depression: Why bother? Better to buy a few firearms and stay in the family compound, since Hillary's going to win anyway. Nothing will change until the country truly goes to hell."

Acceptance: "

Pronouns, Money, and America

Barack Obama is up against a mighty opponent. The Clinton machine is a network of mafia-like dues and obligations that has had thirty years and a presidency to extend itself. Obama has effectively side-stepped this, and gone right to the heart of our political process. The people.

It may seem like some weepy, romantic concept along with the hype about "hope" and "change" - but it's a concept that's on track to deliver 30 million dollars a months into the coffers of the hope-monger's campaign - all with, potentially, the nomination itself, while Hillary upends the cushions at the Chappaqua to look for cash.

Can you imagine any Republican anywhere fueling a bid for the White House on $25 and $50 checks? One reason campaign finance reform is anathema to Republicans is because the grassroots model would never work. If your world is mostly corporations, from your employer to the sub-development to your home full of products - it's a natural assumption that the culture of GOP politics would include big donors and corporate special interests.

The small-scale donors that have fueled the Obama effort are in line with the rhetoric that is emitting from the podium, which relies heavily on the first person plural. Unlike the first person singular, "I will do everything FOR you" bromides of his opponent Hillary - which have grown increasingly tiresome (not to mention condescending) in the past 40 years - Obama asserts the national "we" as the only means to accomplish anything politically.

Against "yes we can" the GOP is sending in John McCain. Even his detractors will admit he's a fighter, although usually against his own team. He certainly seems to own his pronouns, "us and them" per the (say it with me) transcendental challenge of our times, militant Islam.

Obama's first person plural might seem like socialism to some people, who may think such let's-do-it-together concepts should be banished to harmless, impractical places like Kindergarten or Church. Ours is a world where one must man up and carve out a slice of the American pie - and if our rivals lose a finger or two in the process, those are the breaks. Hate the game, not the player (said Shakespeare, I think).

There's much about Obama's politics that I find alarming, and even dangerous. But it seems to me there's much appeal in the notion of an inclusive, uplifting "we" at this time in our history. And it wouldn't be the first time, either - come to think of it, if I recall correctly, it's the first word in the Declaration of Independence.

Romney Bails

There have been times, in the past few weeks, where the expression on Mitt Romney's face just seems incredulous. He's been saying all of the right things, doing all of the right things - playing hard for the nomination. And yet ... the media hates the guy, the other candidates hate the guy, the grassroots seem to care less. What's a brother gotta do?

Turns out it's a hill too steep to climb. He won over a motley bunch of country-club Righties and the conservative commentariat, scored a couple of states, and spent a pile of cash from the Romney family fortune. But as a good businessman he probably can look at the numbers, read the environment and the risk and reasonably conclude: It isn't going to happen.

Some have suggested that the time has come for the stop-McCain coalition to throw their efforts behind Huck for the final round of "last pseudo-conservative standing". That might make as much sense as anything this election season, were it not for the fundamental math problem with regard to delegates, the fact that Huck has limited, regional appeal - and the likelihood that he has been guaranteed the second seat on the Strait Talk Express.

Romney might be playing the long-term game. With all this talk of Reagan, one possible option is to pretend it's 1976 all over again, and we need to wander four years in the darkness of Carter-like weakness before a spiffy new conservatism ascends.

Because it's 'game over' for this GOP cycle.

Suicide Voters And Extremists

Now there's a provocative image, from Charles Hurt in the New York Post (emphasis mine):

The depressing GOP field that has paved a path to victory for McCain also gave surprising wins last night to Huckabee in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as in his home state of Arkansas.

Still, McCain has so radicalized key conservatives that some have vowed to turn themselves into suicide voters next November by pulling the lever for Hillary Rodham Clinton over him.

It resonates because some conservatives don't want their ideology tainted with the mess that the expect will ensue if John McCain takes the nomination. Better to protect conservatism at the expense of the country - even if it means lefty judicial picks, federal expansion, and the Bill Clinton bathtub ring that will need to be scrubbed off the preidency all over again.

While others might be ignorantly going about their business in the marketplace of democracy, these folks are willing to strap themselves with explosives in the name of the cause. And if you listen to hard Right pundits, there an eerie resemblance to the tapes we sometimes see from TV Al Qaeda. It's hallmark is an intense animosity to the moderates and compromisers that are seen to have sold out the One True Ideology. The objective is never consensus, but instead unqualified defeat, or nothing.

This analogy only goes so far - but if you truly believe voting is a meaningful, definitive civic act, where we are obligated as patriots to act in the best interests of our country, then we shouldn't be playing games.

Supertuesday Postgame

Just the bullet-points. There's no flow.

• Looks like it's McCain-Huckabee. Depressing.
• Obama couldn't score California, also depressing.
• Hillary won the coastal Democrats.
  
• But ... Obama really cleaned up a huge variety of different states, from Alaska to Georgia to Missouri.
• Romney can't seem to land a punch. He's finished.
  
• At what point do all of the radio hosts look like disloyal Republicans? The schadenfruende begins at 12:06 on AM radio.
• They say the late-breakers went Obama.
• Hillary's speech was abysmal. The same old "I am just SO excited ..." constructions.
• For that matter, Obama's wasn't very good - for him.
• The right-wing blogs are simply unreadable.

Late returns + the storms that raged in my part of the country late last night = very tired blogger.

On to Tidewater Tuesday.

All of Your Base Are Belong To Us

Pity the average Republican and Democrat.

They simply go about their business most of the time, and then, if they are motivated to vote around the primary season, many of them scan the list of names and cross of the ones that don't look familiar. Thus we have the apparent resurgence of John McCain and the so-called "inevitability" of Hillary.

Now it's all out of whack. Now radio hosts are responding to McCain's winning streak by bellowing indignantly about the true nature of conservatism - which must seem like a much more stringent standard then average Republican Joe considered, offhand. And all of the folks on Hillary autopilot are being begged by their college-age relatives to consider Obama, instead of sending us backwards into 4 to 8 years of everyone screaming at each other constantly.

So the conservatives are aligned in one last stand behind a guy who was widely diaparaged (in some corners) as the most loathsome type of moderate until about 18 months ago - Mitt Romney. And the Clintonites, who once upon a time grooved to the tune "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" are trying to fight the future, and twisting themselves into knots attempting to spin 1984-isms by claiming The Same is really Change.

Never has this seemed more apropos.

Tonight's the night. I will be semi-liveblogging, and trying not to stay up too late to catch the California results ...

Update: The brutality on the Right continues.

Obama Vs. McCain

Age versus beauty. Middies and independents are likely to drink the Kool-aid and throw their support behind the change monger. A large slice of conservatives will lack the passion to get out and vote. Obama will also have a towering advantage in debates and campaign speech rhetoric, since the maverick has shown a alarming tendency to rely on the same tired clever tropes that we've heard many times before.

McCain's only hope for winning this one - and it's a grim, awful thought, and obvious not a really hope - is an Al-Qaeda dirty nuke on the National Mall. If that happens many American will stop fooling around with fanciful ideas like hope and unity and support the guy who will bring hardcore war on the enemy.

Hillary Vs. McCain

All of the creatures of Middle Earth unite. Tribes of dwarves come down from the mountains,

The McCain Irony

The Republican Party has a very strong affinity for the establishment candidate. He's the white brother who has been standing around on stage long enough, the patient vice president who is given the helm after sticking with the company through twists and turns.

There have been some mild exceptions. Reagan was not a complete outsider - he'd been around a couple of cycles, and he had a few powerful backers. But he came out of the West, from the ruins of the Goldwater effort. He represented a difficult, riskier direction in the brief period of time before he became an unstoppable force.

And Dubya was only establishment by birthright. But that was good enough in 2000, when he seemed to be the dependable alternative to the upstart Arizona senator who was giving him hell in the early part of the race. Winning the presidency back from the other party was a deadly serious a goal, and outsiders were not to be trusted.

How things have changed. McCain has been standing around long enough in the minds of the voting public, and he's charging forward to the nomination. Until Florida the conservatives could loudly protest that "real Republicans" hadn't yet voted. Now that argument has been kiboshed - not that there won't be second guessing.

The irony is that McCain has become the establishment candidate, and he did it simply by virtue of endurance and patience. Conservative disgust towards him will endure, but it may become an echo chamber discussion; wonks need to be reminded that the average voter thinks the "Gang of 14" is a martial arts movie, and they couldn't pick Sam Alito from a police lineup.

The other irony is that, with the benefit of hindsight, McCain 2000 might have been a much more attractive president through the 9/11 era. Personally, I'd much prefer the outsider then to the establishment guy today. But that's all water under the bridge.

Update: It's possible to construct a scenario where McCain becomes, for GOP hard-liners, a better alternative to staying at home. First, as everyone has said, nominate Hillary. That will help immeasurably. Second - credit Jonah Goldberg on 'Morning Joe' - McCain should clearly and consistently articulate some key promises on issues that are very important to the base. Border security ahead of anything else related to immigration, for example.

Yes, yes - nobody will believe him at first - he needs to say it repeatedly, and possibly have it tattooed on his arm. Another promise might be to really make the tax cuts permanent, which he has made noises about recently, but which again, nobody finds very persuasive. Finally a very shrewd VP pick ... and it might be possible to win back a sizable enough portion of the base that will vote with the help of anti-nausea medication.

Let me add that I have a very hard time respecting Republicans who are taking the line "better to vote Democrat, so Hill or Obama gets the blame for the country going to hell". There's something about that that seems, to be honest, a little un-American, and I don't say that lightly.

We should vote for the right reasons, and we should support the candidate that we think is best for the country, or if you prefer, the least damaging. It's ultimately a serious responsibility - cleverness and resentment should stay outside of the voting booth. I don't want to see the United States of America go downhill regardless of who gets elected, and it's still our team, even if we don't like the current coach. And the Democrats might be gravely wrong on many issues, but they really don't want to destroy America, regardless of what you've been told - and I've even heard it whispered that some of them actually love their country. (Of course, civic, cultural and economic damage may be the net result of their policies - but that's something different.)

Flori-Duh

Can't we somehow detach this state from the union? If we can find some excuse to get rid of Florida, maybe we could nick Alberta and keep it an even fifty. They've got that impressive cavalry, and by all accounts they're the most pro-market.

Let's cede the sunshine state to the AARP, Disney, and the Greater Miami Cuban Businessman's association.

They're on TV talking about voting irregularities.

And now Clinton is giving her "victory" speech - a bogus gesture. She issued a press release following her defeat in South Carolina, a vote where the delegates actually matter. Proof, once again, that Hillary is the candidate of choice for the ignorant and aloof - and you better believe Florida has a lot of folks who fit into those categories.

And it's looking like McCain might have won the GOP side of the race, much to the chagrin of Rush Limbaugh and the hard right. Honestly, it's almost eerie the way Romney can't get enough traction to win one simple state. I've heard it suggested that the press has a special degree of resentment for Mitt, because he looks like a fake 1050s dad, an authority figure who naturally arouses the ire of scruffy socialist journos.

Onto Tuesday. Let's be thankfully done with Florida.

Reagan and Darth Vader

Jack Kelly observes the carnage and brutality that have occupied the Republican field lately and concludes:

Both Sen. McCain and Gov. Romney are too flawed to reunite and reinvigorate a dispirited Republican party. There is only one candidate who can do that. And she might lose to Barack Obama.

As one who has followed the Obama campaign very closely, and as the son of a family of Kennedy Democrats who came to their senses to vote Reagan in 1980, I can say with certainty that something fundamental has changed again this year. The only question is how it plays out.

There are plenty of 50 somethings on autopilot, with hazy, thoughtless memories of the 1990s. If they show up to vote en masse next Tuesday - if nothing else has interrupted the dial tone politics - then there's every chance that Hillary continues her Vader march to the nomination. And anyone of a certain age can hum that tune.

But the rebel coalition is gaining strength, and unlike the faceless troops of empire , it's comprised of wookies, independents, idealistic farm kids, Admiral fish-guy, and boozer old semi-wise men from Nantucket (hey, even his staunchest opponents will admit Ted's a legislative genius). It's a motley crowd, and the odds are long, and there's a certain amount of believing in airy concepts like the Force that seems to be involved.

If Hillary wins the nomination she will be substantially weakened, because everyone will have been reminded so acutely of the smash-mouth partisan era to which we will be returning. If Hillary wins the nomination it will be the Republicans race to lose - but don't put it past them. With all of the seething anger over who makes the best pseudo-conservative, there will almost certainly be a segment that stays at home.

But that's later. At this point, the choice still exists between Obama and four to eight years of Death Star politics.

ABM and Romney Syndrome

Two local, respected conservative blogs that I track regularly provide a neat illustration of why this election has devolved into mutually assured destruction for the GOP.

On one hand Dave at Nixguy claims to have "gone ABM" - he's willing to support Anybody But McCain. On the other hand Tom at Bizzyblog continues to hammer away at the candidate he decries as "Objectively Unfit Mitt". And these are not mutually exclusive conditions. I suspect for instance, on the basis of things he's posted about in the past, Tom is hardly a McCain supporter either.

These are the two front-runners. Statistically, one of these characters is very likely to be the nominee. Rudy continues to crater, and everyone else in the field stands very little chance of re-gaining momentum in advance of Super Tuesday, which will carve out a massive hunk of the electoral chicken.

You will rarely see the Democrats categorically swear off the possibility of supporting the nominee if it goes to a rival candidate. Admittedly the Clintons are in the process of inspiring that level of acrimony with their ruthless attempt at a third term. But mostly you will hear harmonious talk about falling in to support their party.

It's still too early to write the full obituary for the post-Reagan Republican Party, but I've got the post saved as a draft. Meanwhile I don't ever want to hear anyone, anywhere claim the right wing marches in "lock step". Because those days are done.

The Future Versus the Past

The image below was taken from the Washington Post website today:

There's no way to prove it of course, but I think the picture and the headlines taken together are likely the result of mischief on the part of the web page designers, and not a planned editorial decision.

That aside, one of the great underplayed themes of this election is generational. Mr. Obama's claims that this election is not about the young versus the old, but the truth is he enjoys an unparalleled popularity among people under the age of thirty. Everyone I know in this demographic is incredibly excited about his campaign. And as I've said before, conservatism offers the young very little.

The Clintons in contrast represent the worst aspects of the Baby Boomers - a lack of self control, self infatuation, and themes that haven't changed since 1968. The generation that once admired Camelot has become the entrenched establishment, willing to stoop to anything to win.