McCain Courts the Fickle Left
By Larry Durstin
Created Jul 9 2008 - 9:46am
- from the Cleveland Current [1]
With a campaign bereft of ideas, energy, focus and just about anything
else
you can think of, John McCain has turned to his last best hope for
victory:
the tendency of many on the ideological left -- in their righteously
self-defeating pursuit of dogmatic purity -- to abandon the Democratic
standard-bearer for not telling them exactly what they want to hear during
the general election campaign.
Listening to McCain and his surrogates lately, it's clear that they have
decided to emphasize how Barack Obama is "just another politician," who's
"not who you think he is," who does not have any real solid core beliefs
and
is "triangulating" (just like those hated Clintons), and who never could
have won the Democratic primary had he revealed his true manipulative
colors. In other words, he can't be trusted by the hardcore anti-war folks
and the traditional lefties, let alone those innocent, inspired young
people
who think they are getting something special in Barack and will only have
their trusting hearts broken with every inching, yet inexorable, move he
makes to the reviled center. Which is why, instead of voting for Obama and
waking up on January 21, 2009, to find he's a fraud, McCain is saying,
"Either stay home on Election Day or keep in mind that Ralph Nader is
running again."
Of course, the usual suspects on the left don't need any prodding by
Republican spinners to sound the alarm about the dangers -- absent a
series
of public blood oaths towing an ideologically pure line-- of sup****ting
Obama in the fall. The mercurial Arianna Huffington has received lots of
face time recently threatening Obama with defeat if he dared to stray from
her preferred orthodoxy, whatever that may be this year. [Personal
disclaimer: I haven't trusted Huffington since she was magically
transformed -- following her lengthy marriage to a super-rich,
super-conservative, pur****tedly switch-hitting Republican politico -- from
a
high-living GOP Stepford wife into a fire-breathing semi-socialist. And
when
she acted in such a desperately silly manner in a California gubernatorial
debate that the insufferable Terminator gained sympathy votes, my decision
to not take what she says seriously was reinforced.] And of course, not to
be outdone, the aforementioned Nader, apparently believing he has some
kind
of soul-brother street cred, dissed Barack for "talking too white." Oh,
the
humanity.
The list goes on and you know who they are -- and so does the politically
bankrupt GOP. That's why at the same time the Republicans can go after
Obama
as the "most liberal senator in Congress" they can tout him as a
clandestine
centrist. It's called running it up the flagpole to see who salutes it.
Well, Arianna and Ralph have already re****ted for duty, sir. But they
aren't
the only ones, of course, and there may be plenty to follow, especially if
Obama continues on the tricky, yet necessary, strategic course of trying
to
broaden his appeal while maintaining the energy of his base.
In the past, Republicans have been smart enough to know which side their
bread is buttered on when it comes to presidential candidates. The best
example of this was the 2000 campaign of George W. Throughout the entire
process, he billed himself as a compassionate conservative; a uniter who
would work across party lines; someone who didn't have a litmus test for
judges; someone who would never act unilaterally but would embrace a
sup****tive role in the family of nations, etc., etc. And even though these
positions were downright anathema to many of his core constituencies, not
a
peep was heard during the campaign and the faithful turned out in droves
to
sup****t this apparent apostate. (While, at the same time, enough
left-leaning Dems to change the outcome of the election and the course of
American history, voted for the wacky seat-belt guy because he told them
Gore was no different than Bush.)
What many on the right, especially the cultural conservatives, understand
is
that, to a large extent, it doesn't matter what the candidate says leading
up to the election. Their rationale is that is that if they think that a
candidate is generally predisposed to their beliefs on most of the issues,
they're not going to sweat the stump speeches and debate performances.
Because they understand that, ultimately, it's what they themselves, as
voters and as power blocs, do to pressure that person once they are
elected
that matters the most. And that's something many Democrats haven't
learned.
The election is not where the work ends, it's where it begins.
So no matter how far George Bush strayed on the campaign trail, the
religious right-wing pressure groups turned the other cheek, knowing that
they would make sure he toed the line when he got in office, or all hell
was
going to break loose. The result: they got their conservative Supreme
Court
and federal justices, their stem cell ban and their holy war, thank you
very
much.
Since, in the pursuit of a better world, there is no such thing as a
shortcut, I'm afraid that many on the left are a little too lazy (or lack
the confidence, sophistication or foresight) to do the hard work needed to
compel a seemingly flawed but generally sup****tive elected official to do
their bidding, Instead, apparently, they choose to dissect every word on
the
campaign trail, looking for any hint of betrayal so they can eloquently
revisit how they've been tricked before and how they won't get fooled
again -- thereby living to long achingly once more for the day when the
perfect President will make everything better. At least that's what McCain
is counting on as he courts the left so transparently.
As any student of history knows, power is not possessed, it's practiced --
and in the case of a republic, this is done, most im****tantly and most
difficultly, after an election. So instead of waiting for a
candidate-savior
with unfailingly progressive tone and pitch to wash all of society's sins
away, many on the left need to wise up and elect someone who's generally
on
their side -- and then work tirelessly and endlessly to make him or her
into
their preferred image and likeness.
_______
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an op****tunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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