Assessing the '08 race to the white house
This build up to essentially our vote is like one of those mobster movies or one of those big casino hit movies. In the beginning the actors have to plan out what the major target is. Then plan how they're going to get it. It might involve sophisticated gadgets, deception, or some form of “mobsterism.” Either way enough talking about what voters are thinking will induce a self-fulfilling prophecy (candidates and party strategists believe), which will ultimately take the prize in a firestorm... leaving us (the one's with the vote remember) enamored as to how person A, B, or C got there in the first place.
We have to understand who all of us (the voters) are...
In 2004, I couldn't believe as Bush swept parts of my college colleagues (a community college on the west coast) in some blind understanding that students (my age) felt like they were part of some Republican team. Baffled, this prompted some sort of long drawn out thinking which ultimately landed “the real question” in my mind, “How is it that in 2004, there were 20 somethings that intended to vote for “social conservatism” and for 4 more years of the seemingly flawed Bush doctrine?” There was something in the neocon cool-aid drenched trap that even now I have to admit to falling for...
Lets go back to 2000... The Clinton administration pulled off 8 amazing years leading our country through potential conflicts that if it was anyone else in that office would have landed us in either A.) More Cold war (as in convincing Russia to go back to communism) or B.) Absolute isolationism ... Republicans, after Bush Senior, thought that he would land a second term in '92 entered the 2000 elections (double-ott) with both barrels loaded. In order to create a Republican friendly environment they had to create a new image of the GOP. A “neo” conservatism that would be a mockery of Regan conservatism, but basically create a football-team like atmosphere and would set the political caucuses up as the home games to pitch football team-like mockery at the dems. Bush's team was fighting first to get the nomination. Among candidates in his own party his team of bandits had to create an aura of determinism that included a strategy to basically annihilate good people like John McCain who was a real republican. Needless to say.. Something that in its entirety would seem like a giant joke with no hope of working... actually worked and worked almost too good. A 50/50 polarizing split among us Americans set all of us at odds with each other like some civil war football game against the Ducks and the Beavers.
I remember back in 1999 as a young freshman in high school thinking that Bush was going to win, because that's just the way it was going to be. Furthermore, I remember that the brutal attacks against McCain was necessary and that this vicious campaigning is what the winning candidate has to do to win against the seemingly established democratic party. The strategy dictated that you needed a pack of wild dogs or a stampede of Elephants to crush the opposition making everything (even lies) fair game to throw like mud at your opponents. To do this you also had to demonetize Al Gore, make him and his followers look like absolute crazy nut-jobs, thus making Bush supporters “rational thinking Americans.” This all formed a new group of unknowingly independent non-traditional, non-voting Americans a part of this neocon-Christian Republican base which re-shaped the landscape to bring about grassroots Republicanism. What's absolutely mind blowing was that to pull it all off you just needed a simple formula of campaigning like a WWF wrestler (i.e. taking a tip from Stone Cold Steve Austin's “What?” chant) and then continue your dehumanizing of whoever opposed you (Political Opponents, Dems, the “liberal” press, democratic voters, environmentalists, pro-choice women, gays, etc.).
Unfortunately democrats had no choice but to play along if they wanted to play at all... which is now their downfall. Americans identify their states and themselves by some sort of school color (Red or Blue) and use basic labeling (e.g. Flipflop, Liberal Nut Job, Neocon, etc.) as some sort of secret code for energizing us as though we were a team of cheerleaders hyping each other/ or booing each other like a crowd at a game, after a touchdown. Red or Blue? Liberal or Neocon? Flip or flop? this isn't rational thinking here! This isn't true critical thinking on the part of college educated individuals. Honestly, I would and you would fail out of college in the first semester if you used the “flip flop argument” as some critical point to convince your professor that your side of the debate was the more rational one. Yet, use it in a crowd of (perceivably) smart and rational people, and you win?!
How long can flip-flop theory, Strategery, or Stampede politics last? Milking the strategy for even more is now both Democrats and Republicans with some sort myth that the same thing that made crazy-heads out of politics will work once more.. Perhaps prompting more of us voters just turn off politics all together and vote for the person with the best shoes (Fred Thompson) or the best hair (John Edwards).
“Change” is to argue on a rational educated platform that properly debates the issues in scholarly journals, analytical PEER-REVIEWED books, in college sponsored halls, somewhere other then a non-hyped fan-frenzied media blitzed debate that quite frankly makes all the candidates look like fools for a seat unsuited for anybody at this point.
Unfit for duty.. pleaz..
~J Out
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