the republican brand

The McCain campaign (if not John McCain himself) is as emotionally stable as Alex Rodriguez when he's in a room with Madonna. It's (he's) angry and resentful at one moment, then respectful and civil at another. Which McCain will show up at the final debate? Palin is comfortable with an attacking style and doesn't seem worried about the consequences (as her actions and inactions concerning the Alaskan trooper indicate). She is an appealing attack dog, whereas McCain comes off as a grumpy old man when he goes negative. For that reason, I suspect McCain will not try to ayersize Obama Wednesday night. If he does, it will be the final misstep in a campaign which will become the textbook on how not to run for president.

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It has to be dawning on McCain, the son and grandson of four-star Navy admirals, that he has a good chance to lose the race to Obama, raised by a single mother (who was an anthropologist). Can an October Surprise such as the capture of Osama Bin Laden reverse McCain's fortunes?

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If Obama-Biden are elected I think the low level political slime artists will slink back to their safe houses: talk radio and think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. In the face of a national economic emergency, FoxSpace might change its tune if Rupert Murdoch's rapprochement with Obama holds and Roger Ailes is canned (not a likely scenario though). However, in the darkness of political defeat, a dozen foetid conspiracy theories take root. What is remarkable about the chattering class of Republicans is how they spent the 1990s trying to undo the outcome of two presidential elections. Will they spend their precious resources to undo this election if it doesn't go their way? 

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The Republican party would face a serious choice in the wake of a defeat. Does it become the party of Palinoconservatives, i.e.,  a party of anti-intellectualism, an anti-government party that gives people reason to be anti-government when Republicans are in charge, a party of unrealistic libertarianism, a party of moral minoritarians whose unchristian behavior belies their professed faith? Or does it move towards the center and reclaim for the Republican brand a more rational and less apocalyptic version of conservatism?

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Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh will continue to entertain their audiences and will be well compensated for it. But they don't rise to the level of significance that someone like Father Coughlin did during the 1930s. I think more serious opposition to an Obama presidency could emerge from House Republicans (as it did in the 1990s). The Republicans also have two congenial figures to draw on to rehabilitate their brand: Huckabee and Gingrich (whose fall from grace seems to have been forgotten).

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Since economic issues will be central for the foreseeable future, I'd expect the moral minoritarians (i.e., James Dobson and Tony Perkins) to become increasingly irrelevant. Unfortunately for Obama (if he's elected), the economic reality he'll face is being shaped by Bush and Paulson.  

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Alaska is a tiny state: population 670,000. Wasilla, AK is a blip on the Google Earth screen: population 9,780. 62,000 people live in my neighborhood; 2.5 million in my borough. Palin's "executive experience" doesn't qualify her to run a neighborhood block association much less the country if McCain were stricken.  Palin will have to add some substance to her record to be viable as a national candidate in 2012 (obviously she feels -- erroneously -- that running the Congress as vice-president would help on that front). She will remain viable within the Republican party no matter what she does. Every Republican fundraiser will want Palin on their program. However, if she remains governor (i.e., survives the abuse of power charges) she won't enter the 2012 Republican primary season in the same position that Hillary Clinton did in 2007, as the presumptive favorite. I expect Huckabee, Gingich, and Romney to be back. Palin would face challenges from these types even if she is the sitting vice-president.

supertroopers

Now that the troopers have come home to roost, we know who wears the Dick Cheney mask in the Palin household: Todd. However, I've noticed that the McCain campaign blames Obamayers for forcing Todd "to use the governor's office and the resources of the governor's office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired." Family First! That One wouldn't know anything about that.

call me irresponsible

A message of intolerance goes over much more easily when it comes with a smile and a wink. The "he's not one of us" theme seems ready-made to appeal to the baseness of the Republican base. Hence, the shouts of "kill him" (i.e., Obama) and other slurs heard at McCain-Palin campaign stops are not surprising. The crowds seem less interested in hearing about what McCain will do in office and more interested in "chowing down" on the red meat thrown from the stage. What's interesting is the contrast that is created between Palin as a devout Christian and Palin as an innuendo-mongering candidate. Hence, the question the McCain campaign -- in the absence of any coherent political program -- raises vis-a-vis Obama rebounds on the vice-presidential nominee: do we really know the real Sarah Palin?

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Obama has said he won't play the politics of personal destruction, and he hasn't. Even when he criticizes Bush, he does it in a more temperate way than the people at MoveOn.org would like, focusing on flaws in Bush's policies and not Bush's motives. I think the situation for the Republican candidates is similar. There are elements in the Republican party who want, who desire, to be inspired by hatred and fear. McCain and Palin have a choice to make: either to give in to this element or not. It seems they have decided to give in, to campaign in a full rich negative position, and are not concerned about the byproduct of this: "kill him." McCain has charged that Obama would do anything to get elected. McCain is now risking a heightening of political and social divisions during a moment of economic crisis and seems to find this to be an acceptable price for getting elected. Pot, Kettle.

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What we're witnessing is the fact that Governor Palin owns the Republican party. She is the most popular figure in the party now. She will be the party's standard bearer even if McCain is elected. Her tone and her brand of the politics of division (she's a Buchananite) are now at the center of the Republican presidential campaign.

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Photo credit: Rex Features/The Guardian

rage against the street

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Mr. Monopoly and Scrooge McDuck perform here

hey don't scratch my Maclaren Techno XT

I've already ranted about the stroller mafia here. Well now there's valet parking. For strollers. There are other opinions on this phenomenon.

palinoconservative

Governor Palin seems to be a novice in a lot of things, a necessity which she has turned into virtue. Ou la chevre est lie e faut qu'elle broute. It makes her a maverick by default. In other words, factual ignorance is political bliss; grammatical errors and tortured syntax are actually representations of the righteous rage of the Sixpack demographic, which will not be fooled again by predatory lenders or the intellectual elite. Not knowing something makes her an outsider to people who do know something. And this is a good thing.

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Peggy Noonan issued a warning about the response to criticism of Palin in today's Wall Street Journal:

We saw last week, too, a turn in the McCain campaign's response to criticisms of Mrs. Palin. I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America -- small towns, sound values. 'It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency,' Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents 'backwoods types,' or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I'm not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it -- it's possible they are -- but this is subtly divisive. As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as 'Georgetown cocktail party types' (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House. Good move. That ended well.

This leads me to wonder whether Peggy Noonan has missed the point, that a new formation of conservatism has coalesced around Sarah Palin. Who are the Palinoconservatives moved by the Governor's candidacy? No doubt they aren't part of Noonan's social circle. Palinoconservatives are beer drinkers (e.g., Coors) and Alaskan mothers who schlepp hockey equipment and children (e.g., decent, law-abiding people). Palinoconservatives are self-styled mavericks. They don't put much stock in book learning or polished speech. Above all, Palinoconservatives oppose the three Gs of evil: government, gay marriage, and gun control. While other conservatives identify with Teddy Roosevelt (e.g., John McCain), Palinoconservatives would rather field dress a bull moose than vote for one. Palinoconservatives aren't Neo- or Paleo-; they have little use for think-tanks or position papers. They would rather look at Salma Hayek than read Friedrich Hayek. They are the new face of the Republican party, post-Reagan, post-Gingrich, post-Bush.

grading the vice-presidential debate

Senator Biden: you were disciplined and didn't come off as condescending. Your task was pretty easy, but you didn't raise the bar. You can't coast at this level. Final Grade: B

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Governor Palin: This debate was all about you. Unfortunately, even in the "unfiltered" format in which you could smile into the camera and address Joe Sixpack and Hockey Mom directly, you still appeared to be in test-prep mode. When your cue cards didn't address a question, you rambled on about something else you knew by heart, even when the answer had nothing to do with the question. Is that what it means to be a maverick? Where I come from, the refusal to answer a question that is asked politely is considered to be rude and evasive. Too often after giving an answer, it appeared you were waiting for a pat on the head. I'm afraid you're not in Alaska any more Governor Palin. Final Grade: C

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Is this the best the Republican Party has to offer?

straight outta Wasilla

What happened to the special needs baby? Sarah Palin's experience as a working mother (hockey mom) seemed to be one of the qualifications she claimed for herself as McCain's vice-presidential nominee, thus offering herself as a 21st century Frances Willard. Since most of her other qualifications have either turned out not to be true or to be less than compelling, I thought the hockey mom angle would be prominent (and the baby would be a ubiquitous presence).

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I saw David Brooks on one of the Sunday morning shows. His prediction about her upcoming debate performance was not encouraging; he said she was "not stupid" and that she would rise to the level of "mediocre" in the debate. Laura Bush noted that Palin lacked a sufficient foreign policy background. And Tina Fey continues to provide the most incisive presentation of the strengths of the Governor.

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Governor Palin appears to be a continuance of the trend in the Republican party to present under-whelming candidates for the highest offices: Quayle and Bush blazed a trail for Palin. Quayle never got a sniff of actual power. Bush did: and the consequences are well known. Like Quayle, Palin is a boutique choice, who appeals to a select demographic group among Republican voters. For other voters, who don't hunt moose, who don't view polar bears as predators of humans, who don't believe abortion should be banned even in cases of rape, and who know what the Bush doctrine is without prompting, Palin is only a curiosity and occasion for mirth.

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The McCain-Palin sit-down with Katie Couric (who, inadvertently, is becoming the Edward Morrow of this campaign) reminded me of a high school parent-teacher meeting, of a father explaining why his child shouldn't have received a C grade in a social studies course.

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I noticed Palin made a remark about having heard about Joe Biden while she was still in grade school: "'I'm looking forward to meeting him,'" she continued. "'I've never met him. I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, the second grade.'"

I suppose she first heard about John McCain while she was, like, still in utero.

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On the other hand, the fact that she's "average," that she doesn't know things she should know if she's planning to be vice-president, are assets for a sizable segment of the electorate. This segment resents "smart people" and, like Palin, probably doesn't read a newspaper on a regular basis. Palin's social trajectory mirrors their own and they are proud to find that "one of us" has made it: Governor today, vice-president tomorrow. She talks like them, her family reminds them of their own family. Nothing about Palin makes them feel inadequate. It may turn out that Palin's "inadequacies" are keeping McCain close in the race with Obama.