CSotD: Is this an “old Bob Dole” moment?
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There was a moment in 1996 that seemed like that point at which the clank-clank-clank ends and the rollercoaster slips over the top of the first hill and starts into freefall.
Jay Leno started making wisecrack's about Bob Dole's age, and, sitting at home, I said, "uh-oh," not because I supported Dole but because, once Leno sank his teeth into something like that, it wasn't going to stop, and Dole was no more going to be able to control it than you could use a steering wheel, brake and accelerator on that rollercoaster.
And the American public wasn't going to give a damn about policy once Bob Dole was branded as "the old guy."
I have no idea what sway Jay Leno has these days. I'll admit that I tend to miss his monologue by about two hours, and the few times I've caught it, it pretty much felt like the same-old same-old. But same-old same-old is a bulwark of American television programming, so maybe he still swings a big stick.
But, in the hyperconnected world where 1996 seems like 1896, there aren't a lot of single bellwethers to track. It's more a matter of catching the general flow.
And here's the flow that made me think of "old Bob Dole" and Jay Leno:
Jack Ohman's cartoon today (above) shows some real wit, and it stopped me for that reason. It's a good cartoon, in and of itself, because of the play on the various meanings of "change" and the way Romney has flip-flopped on his own position vis-a-vis health care. Or "Romneycare." Or "Obamacare." Or whatever.
But then I moved on, and started encountering other cartoons, and the "uh-oh" began.
It's clear that the healthcare issue has both candidates scrambling for solid ground, and, whether you think their criticisms are fair or not, cartoonists have been commenting on this. For example, in this panel, Nick Anderson brands both men as trying to find and defend a politically tenable position:
There have been many such cartoons and there will be many others. But this isn't part of the uh-oh.
It's been three-and-a-half months since a Romney advisor compared him to an Etch-A-Sketch, and cartoonists have played with the idea ever since.
But in this bullfight, these have merely been bandilleras — colorful and certainly drawing blood, but providing more show than damage. It's the picadors who actually cut neck muscles, induce major blood loss and begin the process of disabling the bull so the matador can come in at the end and finish the business.
It is a brutal sport, but, as Peter Finley Dunne said, "politics ain't beanbag."
And this feels like the point where the picadors go to work.
Even this Etch-A-Sketch gag from Jeff Koterba has more edge than we've seen for that now-familiar meme:
And here's the thing: If you hit the link at Koterba's name and go back through his recent cartoons, you'll see that he isn't a liberal.
That's the Jay Leno factor in all of this: Leno was so outwardly Republican, even inviting Arnold Schwarzenegger to announce his gubernatorial candidacy on the show, that, when he turned on Dole, it was more than just some stand-up mocking the guy.
Similarly, the cartoons about Romney's shifting values are not all coming from the Democratic Peanut Gallery. Dana Summers, while not a partisan, is certainly a conservative, and he's also sounding an alarm:
As is Scott Stantis, a self-described conservative, albeit one with a very limited appetite for incompetence, inconsistency and hypocrisy and whose independent nature has been commented upon here in the past:
As for my own opinion, I've made no secret of my support for the president, though I may be one of the few progressives who isn't disappointed in him, since I never thought that he'd be able to do all the stuff that was expected of him, and said so.
But, while I think the breathless horse-race coverage is moronic and counter-productive (and Matt Bors spoke to that very well this past week), I am very interested in the chess game.
To me, this sudden flurry of negative cartoons — from potentially supportive sources, and which seem to target not a particular topic but which, rather, use that topic to make general observations about Romney's entire approach — are like watching a guy in a tight match suddenly lose his queen.
It ain't over 'til it's over, and it's way too early to start picking out a gravestone.
But I suspect that "not screwing up again" is going to be an inadequate response. He needs to counter by either taking Obama's queen, or else getting a pawn to the back row.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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