CSotD: Analyzing the Ftang-Ftang Factor
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As noted before, Bad Reporter's Don Asmussen regularly faces a challenge of coming up with three good gags on a topical issue.
Which he has done here, not only meeting that challenge but also the additional challenge of being more ridiculous than the reality he parodies.
That's quite an accomplishment.
Last night, Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi indicated that they wanted the most radical possible agenda presented to voters this fall.
The conventional response to that is that they are making it that much easier for Obama to be re-elected, and it could be that the more the "Barking Mad Voter" element becomes evident between now and November, the more it will bring the "I'm Too Hip To Vote For Imperfection" people down to earth and out to the polls.
And it certainly does seem that the GOP is making a concerted effort to alienate women voters, perhaps because they fear that alienating the Hispanic vote won't be enough.
I cannot fathom their strategy — this apparent reach for ideological purity at the potential expense of voter support is starting to make the McGovern campaign look like a model of Machiavellian pragmatism.
And the low turnout for their primaries suggests that they may be turning off their own base, though it's not enough of a drop to be terribly reassuring in that regard.
But here is my prediction: If this turns into a contest to see if GOP voters are more disappointed in their nominee than Democratic voters are with Obama, it's anybody's game.
I've already noted that Obama is a study in what RFK's presidency might have been like if Sirhan Sirhan hadn't stepped up and let him remain forever a golden promise. It would have been clearly impossible for Bobby to do all the things his supporters expected, just as it was impossible for Obama to live up to the expectations of his most ardent followers.
The difference is that Obama has been put to the test.
But, cynical as I was and cynical as I remain, even I'm disappointed that Obama tried to play a game of conciliation when he should have simply used his initial legislative majority to ram home more of his agenda.
His policy of seeking bipartisan support on everything was like the first-time parent who asks a toddler "Are you ready for your nap?"
You don't have to just scoop the kid up, throw him in the crib and slam the door, but — come on, man! — don't ever, ever ask a yes/no question if you're only looking for one of those two responses.
Add to that his surrounding himself with the usual suspects as economic advisors and it's been a pretty disappointing three years, even for someone with my low expectations. I realize the True Believers are even more disenchanted.
So there is something very attractive in the notion that the GOP is apparently dead-set on nominating somebody who will scare the hell out of the most jaded semi-progressive, semi-thoughtful voters and send them screaming to the polls, not to re-elect Obama so much as to prevent the end of freedom and democracy as we know it.
Unless it doesn't happen. Then the notion of having the Christian Taliban in power becomes very scary indeed.
When George Wallace launched his independent campaign in the '68 elections, we were pleased because it meant splitting the conservative vote. And then Richard Nixon won.
We also joked that we were supporting Wallace because his election would ensure a revolution. This from a group who believed that, if we all sat down and talked, all the nations would beat their swords into plowshares and we could concentrate on feeding the hungry.
One was as likely to happen as the other, we now realize.
I remember, when my very-rural school went to Washington on our senior trip, I went to dinner one night with a buddy for whom this was his first time in a major city. As we walked towards the restaurant, I commented on the traffic and he said it bothered him the first day, but now he just stepped out into the street on the theory that they would probably stop.
Putting Romney, Santorum or Gingrich on the ballot on the theory that the voters will probably reject them seems like a similar strategy — it works really well if it works at all, and, if it doesn't, you get splattered.
And, to specifically address today's issue, I don't know how conservative women are seeing all this.
You'd like to think that, even if they don't speak up in outrage, they would tell the exit pollsters and their husbands and their religious leaders that they had faithfully voted Republican but that, in the privacy of the booth, they had quietly voted their own interests.
It would be nice to believe that the same women who sit in the pews hearing about the evils of birth control on Sunday but taking the pill the rest of the week would base their vote on what they do, not on some unrealistic ideal held up for them by others.
On the other hand, it always seems that the fellow who speaks most forcefully against things like fornication and gay rights is the one who turns out to be having an affair with a busboy or fondling children or with a second family in a neighboring state.
In those cases, a conflict between what you profess to believe and what you do in your private life is exhibited not as low-key honesty but as even more strident hypocrisy.
I guess we'll see how it all plays out, but at least I think we can safely say this: The John Carter movie really does suck.
And, if the jaded progressives don't wake up, election night is going to be like this:
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