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(from a thread in GD--but it sorta belongs here.)
John McCain should have been a great candidate. He has a tremendous personal narrative, years of service in Washington, a reputation for honesty and making up his own mind, the party be damned. He has a freewheeling, easy way with reporters and can really make people like him. He understands what people need to hear. He is uncomfortable when put in situations where he has to deviate from the truth.
He'd have made a good Democrat. But he is a Republican, and GOP party politics is a long way even from the Reagan days. Still more so from the Nixon days. Ike wouldn't recognize it. And here is why, and it's a dark, scary thing to think about. But it's a thing so weirdly "true" about the structure of GOP politics it totally can take a basically okay, just flawed and not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed, guy like McCain--and make him into a practicing dissembler, and force him to "ho" his own reputation out to lobbyists at every turn. It kind of goes back to Hoover and FDR.
We live in the shadow of the 1930's and 40's. Think about it--radio, comic books, cimema, the legacy of the Depresion and WWII. The Great Depression, the Hoovervilles of WWI vets and the little old apple-sellers, were laid at the door of Herbert Hoover, a nice enough guy for a "dry", and an honest to goodness hero in creating the rationing schedule during WWI (meatless, wheatless and sweetless days) that tried to keep resources available so people didn't go hungry. He was an intelligent man, and probably didn't deserve the infamy of being the guy who presided over the ship of prosperity floundering...
But FDR benefited. A lot. By saying he'd bring change, by dispelling fear and talking hope. Take a guy with Bush Senior's background and Clinton's charisma, and even in a wheelchair, that crafty fellow could get things done. But he got an awful lot done. And that was the problem. A certain group within the Republican party wanted him out.
(Seriously--this is going somewhere....)
Okay--Smedley Butler rocks, and the jackasses amongst whom was maybe Prescott Bush who went on to invest with some Nazi bank and yadda, yadda, yadda, have GHWB and such, all experienced a taste of epic fail, as in epic. FDR died of natural causes, we were kind of winning the war, wait, we won the war, we have the most dominant weapon ever and are a world power, our economy is totally back, and some haberdasher from podunkjubbumble is president.
It is a bummer to not be able to say your party was a big part in all that. But their party wasn't. So they found a war hero (who really was, like Hoover, a totally decent guy) Eisenhower, ran him in '52 (Dewey dissappointed so in '48.) And then whipped up a Red Scare. They had to be good at *something*, right? So they would be good at beating the Reds, who, uh, you know, were our allies in WWII, their armies diedby the hundreds facing Hitler's guys in the trenches, but so what, right? Communism was *bad*. Stalin was all about the mass graves and mass prisons, so, you should not be a Red. Or even pink. Beige was suspect. You didn't dare be ecru. And so up came McCarthy and Nixon and Roy Cohn...so they had eight miserable, awesome years to get disgraced in. McCarthy (have you no dignity--have you no shame?) made a spectacle of himself. And Nixon was Nixon, and he lost to Kennedy by looking dodgy on tv. Which was weird. Those eight years of Eisenhower were a post-war boom. It should have been gravy. How did they lose? Were they not tough enough on Reds and law and order?
Uh--hope and change happened. Kennedy was young, attractive, had an awesome heroic WWII bio and his speeches were all about the future. So he had to die three years later in Dealy Plaza...(fast forward)
Nixon accelerated the war he said he'd find a way out of, on Kissinger's advice, through 1972--believing that he would look weak if he did not. He'd come back from the hell of obscurity, and he would not let anything stand in his way, which is why the Plumbers....(fast forward)
Paranoid, taping every word, although eighteen minutes are missing... (fast forward)
"Bay of Pigs thing". (Note--Houston. Barbara. Zapata. Texas. The author has watched Oliver Stone movies and read too much Robert Anton Wilson. )
Reagan is a savior/father hero. He'll beat the Reds once and for all, right? He pulls out of Lebanon. He talks to the Soviets. He turns out to have had people in his administration deal arms to the dirty mf-ers who held our people hostage in 1979 so he could help some south of the border mf-ers fight their jungle war. WTF? The Wall falls. Yaaaaaayyy, Reagan. Or Bush. Or McCarthy. Whoever. Damnit....(fast forward)
The Reagan/Bush years dragged on and everyone was sick of Iran-Contra, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Grenada, and all the other little shitstorms these paranoid delusional righties wanted to do. They were out of touch. But then--
A guy came up from a town called Hope. He was going to change things, and he was young and attractive. His name was Bill Clinton, and he and another young guy, Al Gore, had a ton of ideas about what they wanted to do. They were going to build a bridge. To the 21st century. And it would be cool, because, you know, the future is where we have to look--right?
So they threw every dirty, sleazy thing they could at Clinton. They caught him on something dumb and impeached him. But he went out more popular than anybody. And they had also set to making sure that youngish, bright, idea-ridden, hopeful Al Gore never did get his hands on the office. They put in Bush, Jr.
(Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.) George Bush Junior sucks. A lot. He has full-blown paranoia that would make Nixon uncomfortable. He's disassociated from reality. His vice-president is a sociopath who shoots people in the face. His wars are almost personal--not in the nation's interest. He knows it's only a mercy he hasn't been impeached or forced to resign by threat...and Cheney is not a well man. He can't see this thing, thier thing, through. They need a soldier. So maybe McCain will extend their rule, the GOP rule...a little ways?
But along comes this guy, you see. He's young and charismatic and attractive. He's talking about the future. He wants to talk about change and hope....He's talking about those smart solutions again...
McCain, if he has any grasp of history, knows he will lose. He can't help but lose. He sucks every which way. His party screwed up and he is not on his own the guy who can fix it. But it's galling as hell. To be Nixon against Kennedy. Or to be Hoover against FDR. To Be George Bush staring down the barrel of a Bubba, and blinking. He'll do any dance. He'll say anything. But to just be one wrinkly senator from a screwed-up party with a bad platform and no way out, to face change and hope in a handsome, smart, form--history all over again?
Obama does not have to do a whole lot. You don't have to judge him by this campaign. He just has to show up and be the better man, which I think he can do. His policy compromises are like akido--where he yields to use his opponent's strength against him. Obama isn't backpedalling, he's showing openness. McCain cannot screw him on an issue if he can't find where to hit. As for the war he may be in flux about the timetable for drawdown--But we know where he stood on the invasion in the first place. Take off-shore drilling. McCampaign has spent much money putting out ads dissing Obama for being against off shore drilling. Obama says it isn't off the table. Now McCain is spending $140,000 a day to run ads that everyone knows aren't true. And it sucks to be McCain.
Short of the long--McCain's campaign sucks because suckage is all that's left. Smears and suck. "Willie Horton" and "Hands" and "Call Me" versus actual HOPE and CHANGE. They got nothing.
We got something--he's got something. I think Obama really has what it takes to be our next president. And it will take the GOP down another peg. Like it does, everytime that Hope & Change goes down.
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