Con Street Cred
Apparently it has become a test of one’s conservative street cred to actively oppose the election of Obama. OK, I’ll bite…I hope Obama loses.
(And, just for shits and giggles, I would not be at all surprised if he does. Running an “elite” campaign on a left wing platform as a black man in America is likely to mean that the polls are a tiny bit inaccurate.)
Which is not to say I have much time for McCain. About as much as I had for Bush. Which is to say very little. However, faced with alternatives such as Gore or Kerry or Obama, I find it pretty difficult to embrace the Democratic Party.
My own sense is that Sarah Palin is going to shift a lot of votes – both ways. She will energize the Republican base and the red state rural voters in a way that McCain simply can’t. And she picks the noses of the blue staters – Dem and Republican – in a way that not even Dick Cheney can match.
The choice Americans face at the moment is whether they want a deeply experienced, but flexible, man and an inexperienced but close to them woman as President and Vice-President or if they want an inexperienced, man with deep radical connections and a rather thin resume with a bumptious hack for those offices. And it is a choice being made as America teeters on the edge of what could be a devastating recession and, potentially, calamitous collapse of the American currency and banking system.
Normally I would say this was an easy choice: in the face of uncertainty go with the people who have a clue. The problem with that analysis is that it is not at all clear that either Obama or McCain have even the glimmering of a clue. As for Biden his only clue is who paid him off last.
Mrs. Palin is unlikely to be deeply intimate with the LIBOR rate or TED spreads. She will be marginalized in a McCain White House and has no deep rooted levers of power in Washington. At best she has her faith in God and a fairly keen sense of housewifery.
My fond hope is that we all get through the current economic crisis by dint of listening to people who really do understand credit and assets and currency; but I suspect none of that is going to work. The crisis is likely too deep and the re-adjustment too radical for the old rules to apply. I said to my pal Robert Bick that the argument for Obama is that he is young enough and smart enough to understand the situation and to respond to it. I think that is right assuming that the situation remains within what might be called “normal” parameters. The problem is that the situation is showing signs of jumping the normal fence.
If the situation goes past normal America is going to need leadership. Leadership which actually understands what Americans are dealing with. The ‘29 Depression was “managed” by men who had not the slightest clue what an ordinary family was dealing with. Hoover and FDR were, essentially, American aristocrats.
John McCain, admirable as he is in himself, is the son and grandson of military aristos and married to a gal who happens to be worth about 100 million dollars. Obama is an all Ivy lad who, somehow, found he and his wife making 600K a year for not doing terrifically much. Biden, many, many years ago was a working class kid who was pretty smart and made it; but he has been an American Senator for most of his life and, I’m afraid, that does not expose you to how Americans live save in passing.
Sarah is a pretty successful mum married to a pretty successful guy. But nothing in their lives is impossible for the average middle class American to understand or achieve. And if the American and world economy goes down the tubes, Palin will be able to actually understand what it means to those average middle class Americans. From that may come leadership.
One of the great consolations of the 30’s was Eleanor Roosevelt tooling around America visiting the afflicted and reporting – in her lovely patrician way – on the need for coats and food and jobs out on the breadlines. She gave hope and she consoled fear. FDR c ould make speeches, she could actually go where she was needed.
I fear that Obama and Biden faced with a real crisis would revert to Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain.” And I suspect McCain would do much the same.
Sarah would serve soup.
Because that is what conservatives do.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:30 am
“Sarah would serve soup. Because that is what conservatives do.”
God love you but I have never ever been struck by that as a conservative trait. Like the claims that the military, too, is full of conservatives. Nothing more than bragging oneself up.
People who serve soup in my experience tend to be people who consider serving soup far more important than political ideology. People of faith quite often – and from the entire range of faiths and denominations.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Regarding your opening parentheses: It’s aggravating that the possibility that polls will overstate Obama’s support gets ascribed to racism on the part of voters who mislead pollsters.
Leaving aside the fact that a white man with Obama’s resume and attitudes would be a laughingstock, people reliably mislead pollsters by misrepresenting their preferences in favour of the more fashionable candidate.
Back in the day, polls always misreported the Reform Party’s actual support by 2-4% on a base of less than 20%, for reasons that had squat to do to do with race—rather, if there’s no good reason to appear unfashionable to a stranger, people won’t say what they really think.
In this US election, there’s a huge social premium to voting for someone whose salient qualification is being African-american. This could be interesting.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Alan, I should think Sarah qualifies as a person of faith as well.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Sure she is – but if she were to be a soup dispenser that would far more likely be the reason, not her conservatism. I doubt we’d see too many atheist or agnostic country clubbing Republicans leaning over a pot and ladle as opposed to at a swanky party fund raiser.
And would the same not be true of those conservatives who claim faith but then lobby for restrictions on who can foster and adopt, leaving the ranks of those who will shrinking? How is that suffering the children? One has to be wary of false prophets in these times.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I think, like many, you tend to sell Sarah a tad too short. Having watched her very closely, and reviewed her resume in some depth, I think many confuse her “housewifery quotient” with her innate out-country civility and courtesy. These used to be common traits for Canadians and most others whose lives have always had a basic respect for the other guy. Palin has demonstrated that when she needs to pull the trigger, she can and she will. but unlike apparently most of the lower 48, its not the default position taken – she watches and listens to see which way the quarry will run first, and gives it the benefit of the doubt if its not to be dinner.
Simply stated, I think we’re seeing someone who views the world with far fewer pre-conceived biases than most she’s up against, and accords a simple civility largely lacking in the uber-urbanized denizens of democratic America. Given that the veep is largely a training position, I think Mrs Palin would be a superb, if occasionally unconventional, VP. These same characteristics make her a particularly “dangerous” reformer, also. She’ll take her time to make the shot, but when she does, the target will go down.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I too predict a McCain victory. The polls are not to be trusted.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Frankly, I hope Obama is CRUCIFIED in the upcoming election because BARACK OBAMA IS A TERRORIST. Sorry, but people DO judge one by the company one keeps. This has NOTHING to do mwith “race” whatsoever. But I would hasten to add that Americans are likely to keep “mum” about their true sentiments for racial reasons.
Canadians would keep “mum” on the issue because Canadians are scaredy cats without any moral or ethical fibre. It wasn’t always this way, but it’s this way NOW.
Canada and Canadians are SO SCREWED. The USA will remain the world’s beacon of freedom and democracy. Canada will remain a second-rate, also-ran jurisdiction of absolutely NO POLITICAL IMPORTANCE on the world stage.
Happy now?
October 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I agree with what Skip said… completely…. Palin is a rising star to be watched. She has the MSM turned up-side down… they have not the slightest clue about her political skill and acumen. She will prove to be the wonder ticket next election. She Rocks. She is also the governor right next door to me. I’ve been following her career for some time. She kicked the corrupt incumbent Republicans out of her own party…. she set things right based on good ideas and morality…. she is more of a maverick than McCain will ever be. She got the job DONE. She has been so underestimated by the chattering classes and the media…. it’s to their own peril they have sold her so short. God help them in the future… she is taking names and gonna kick ass in the next round.
Obama is the biggest empty shirt ever to seek the highest office in the land… his race has absolutely NOTHING to do with the reason he so out of his depth… he is just not ready to be the most powerful man on the planet earth. Not by a long shot.