I’m getting so old. I remember when voters demanded to be told the truth…or at least pretended to.

Update: If one searches for succinct characterizations of the direction in which we have been heading, and where exactly we are now, one can hardly do better than this nugget at Phil’s site:

What Democrats Want

So last night our local Libertarian radio host asked the question, “What do Democrats want? I know what Republicans want, I used to be one. What do Democrats want? I want to hear from the Democrats.”

So the first caller calls in … I don’t remember his excact words, but these are pretty close:

“Well I like Obama because he makes me feel good and all that. But as far as what I really want, universal health care. …. And I’m just starting to pay off my college loans. I think there should be free college tuition for poor families.”

He couldn’t think of anything else off the top of his head, he said.

But that seems to sum it up pretty well from where I stand. Democrats want a President that will make them feel good and promise to give them stuff.

John Edwards is out of the race.

Last week I categorized all the candidates running as rock stars, wafflers and true believers. That is our new political divide, I argued, because the candidates weren’t running on platforms anymore — instead, they were selling us things, and the disagreement that separated them had to do with what there was to be sold.

Rock stars sell their names and their personalities. Let’s face it…none of Obama’s supporters can tell you his position on any more than a couple of issues. They don’t care. That isn’t what they bought. Ron Paul disagrees with his own supporters, on a great many issues. Issues aren’t important here. And Hillary…hell’s bells, nobody gives a crap about anything she says she’s going to do.

The wafflers sell their timing. They say the right things to the right people — but if they stuck to those positions as the audiences changed, they’d be dead ducks. And they know it. Their selling point is that they’ll “bring together” the “deeply divided” electorate, by “reaching across the aisle” on the issues you don’t really care about. The issues you personally don’t care about. But when they talk to the other guys…the story will be that they’ll do this reaching across the aisle, by jettisoning some other positions about which you care, very deeply. They change their tunes with the whistle-stops. Everybody knows it, we just pretend it isn’t so.

The true believers are true believers. If you disagree with them, they’ll admit it. Some of them will admit it in an “aw shucks, I hope I can still count on your support” kind of way…or, maybe their true beliefs have to do with you being the Hated Enemy, and they’ll tell you to stick it. But the important thing is that they’re going to stick to their guns.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. John Edwards has always been a True Believer.

Yes, it’s provable he’s a liar. He’s a rich guy pledging to close up the wealth gap between the rich and the poor — and nobody is even pretending to believe, even for a split-second, that any of his plans have to do with diminishing his own income and/or personal net worth. But you can be a hypocrite and a true believer. John Edwards has always had a true believe in a two-tier society, in which rich people like him get to stay rich, and rich people who aren’t like him have to be made poor.

I don’t mean to say let’s give him some respect for this. You can decide that for yourself. I’m simply pointing out what John Edwards really is…and it isn’t all bad.

In the post of mine linked above, I said…

The True Believer is the kind we all say we want, the guy who doesn’t vacillate. Positions driven by principles. And I’m afraid that the presidential campaign season in the United States has become a rather unhealthy ritual of weeding these guys out.

I think at this point where just about finished with that preliminary process, aren’t we? Who’s left? So we’re down to the rock stars and the wafflers. And January isn’t even over yet.

So Edwards would have been a horrible President, and was a truly awful candidate — on top of which, he never really had a chance at all, did he? Yet, his departure is still more a cause for weeping and groaning than for celebrating and cheering.

Wonderful…just wonderful…a nine-month mud-wrestling match among empty suits and two-face turncoats.

The one True Believer with decent beliefs, who had a shot, dropped out…I got the news as I was affixing postage stamps to my voter registration form.

WONDERFUL system we have. Makes me feel so…well…enfranchised.

All my life, I have always selected from out of the available candidates, and chosen the one, from among them, that best reflected my beliefs and whose slate of pledged actions upon inauguration most closely matched what I wanted to see done.

Now, here, we have a situation where none of the listed candidates have much of an idea about what they would do. I’m tellin’ ya, something is going on here. I’m not that old. I remember when that was what it was all about. But we’ve become so obsessed with full heads o’hair, sparkly smiles, twinkling eyes, charisma-charisma-charisma, the gift of jibber-jabber and making people feel good…what the hell do I know about any of these people? I mean, really?

Well, here’s an interesting idea that I’m pondering for February 5th…pondering seriously…

That’s the sum of it. If you can’t bring yourself to vote for the offerings in your primary, or if the eventual nominee is somebody you can’t stomach, don’t sit out, and don’t vote for the Democrat. Write in Fred Thompson’s name.

Why?

By doing so, you send a message that can’t be mistaken or spun. It is a message that says:

“I am a Republican who wanted to vote for a conservative GOP candidate, but wasn’t able to do so. I can’t vote for a Democrat, but I can’t vote for any of the Republicans, either. So I’m writing in the name of the candidate I wish I could have voted for, because he is the kind of candidate I could support.”

They have to learn that if they want conservative votes, they have to nominate candidates conservatives would want to vote for.

Now, a preposition is something you shouldn’t ever end a sentence with. But aside from that, the idea makes good sense.

I was very excited about Fred because I was supportive of his ideas. His ideas…and I fully believe, my candidate was pitched out of this perverted fustercluck of a process not because the country is hostile to his ideas, but because the country has become hostile to the idea of choosing a candidate on the basis of ideas. Hair. Smiles. Magic lilt in the voice. Race. Gender. He Lights Up The Room When He Walks Into It. Oooh, look at that tie!

And once a President is sworn in, what inspires a nationwide panic that “we’ve got to get rid of this administration?” Uh…pretty much the same sort of crap we demand from candidates who want that job in the first place, right? Emotional instability. “Fire in the belly.” Hostility directed at exactly the right undesirable people. Whooping. Hollering. YEEEEAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!! And the lying…don’t forget the lying.

The guy who actually got the job says Saddam Hussein poses an eminent threat…it gets re-worded as an “imminent threat” so people can call him a liar…and on the basis of that threadbare definition of lying, why, we just won’t tolerate that. But any one of the candidates seeking to succeed him, from either party, can tell big fat whoppers all day long and we just eat it up.

Today’s Best Sentence I’ve Heard or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award goes to Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in the National Review Online, who writes about Caroline Kennedy’s Political Romanticism…

She says that Obama could be a president like her father. I assume that means that he’ll be overrated, not that he’ll bring us to the brink of nuclear war. [emphasis mine]

H/T: Hot Air.

Another award goes out to Mark Steyn, or rather his non-U.S. correspondent, whose offering is worthy of inspiring reflection throughout this long, long, oncoming year. It is the “model stump speech for this primary season.” We learn of it courtesy of blogger friend Phil:

My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.

Har!

Ann Coulter earned an honorable mention last month when one of her many snarky snippet ricochets happened to hit reality dead freakin’ on…

Liberals lie and lie and lie and then, the moment conservatives respond, they shout: OLD NEWS!

That was a one in a million shot, Annie. I’ll bet you used to bulls-eye womp rats in your T-16 back at home.

Update: I’d read of this study before, but I thought Larry Elder’s sign-off deserved a mention in the BSIHORL awards. The implications are so ominous you’d like for it not to be true. But it is very true, and it might be our country’s biggest problem.

You should read the whole thing from beginning to end…but the final uppercut deserves an excerpt here:

Bottom line: Conservatives consider liberals well-intentioned, but misguided. Liberals consider conservatives not only wrong, but really, really bad people.

Well, he’s out.

And I’m left with three great questions that inspire only mediocre answers, if indeed there are any answers that can be provided at all:

One, why vote against Fred? I don’t mean why did they; I mean why should they have. The best answer I ever heard came from our friend in New Mexico, that Iron Eagle III was a bad movie. The answer I hear most frequently has something to do with “fire in the belly.” This is vastly inferior to the Iron Eagle answer, because fire in the belly is a quality best shown by voters, not by candidates. And here’s a news flash: When you go shopping for a car, and you start making your decision based on the twinkle in the salesman’s eye, and the sparkle on the salesman’s teeth — as opposed to whether you’ll be pleased with the car a year from now — that, there, is a symptom that you’re missing some fire in your belly.

Two, why vote for Huck? The best answer I’ve heard to this question, came from Chuck Norris, I think. Something to do with being younger than 84. No, seriously why vote for him? Why should he have received the votes in South Carolina that Fred was seeking? More “animated”? He’s an ex-preacher? His southern accent is more convincing? Please. Am I to believe this was a process of predicting who’d stand the best chance against a democrat in November? Seriously? I’m to believe our thin-skinned secularists would not be agitated by statements like “that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards”?

Three…lacking some kind of reform, does our electoral process have any better chance of installing a quality leader at the head of our government, than a game of roulette? I’ve not heard anyone passionately defend this part of the campaign, where the early-states get to cull the herd before said herd has been inspected by anyone else. Nobody’s tried to improve the process either, other than through this absurd game of leapfrog in which the states move up their primary election dates to one-up each other. The effect thus far: The length of the campaign season has roughly doubled, from just shy of a year, to just shy of two.

I heard on the radio that the one “True Believer” in the presidential race, was pulling out. Now all we have is a bunch of smooth-talkers and professional wafflers, Republican and democrat…people who’ve raised millions of dollars by showing much greater concern about hairstyles and voice inflections, than about the content of what’s coming out of their mouths. And why shouldn’t they be so concerned. They’re still up, Fred’s down. The least cynical conclusion I could draw about the process we have, is that it’s biased toward candidates who are not listed in Iron Eagle movie credits. And y’know, call it a hunch…but I don’t think that’s it.

But the fact that Fred’s out, doesn’t upset me nearly as much as what comes next. Know what I was doing at the very moment I got the word? I was affixing postage stamps to my voter registration form. Millions of Americans just like me never had a say in this thing.

Well, I have some ideas about what to do going forward. I can’t vote for Fred. But I know why I wanted to — it wasn’t that Fred agreed with me on every single position, although he did on many. It’s that Fred represented things. He had the balls to put it in writing.

At this time, I’ll have to ask…seriously…if this is not the “fire in the belly” we really all want. Because I think it is. It takes gonads to write columns, spelling out exactly what your beliefs are. Especially in the year you’re running for President of the United States. This nation was founded by men who had these kinds of cojones. It is a “paper” nation, not a bumper-sticker nation.

Well, whatever personal attributes Fred Thompson has, are non-issues now. But his beliefs are relevant to the decision we still need to make.

Therefore, I’d like to propose a little game at this time with my blogger friends.

Here is the archive to Fred’s statements from his campaign website. It’s very fashionable now when you support a candidate who represents nothing, to evade the truth by uttering those four magic words “Go To His Website” to find out what the charlatan-candidate’s position is. But at Fred’s website, you find something different. You find real positions on issues…archived, signed, and dated. That’s right, Fred is a blogger. One of the most fearless.

And here is the archive from Fred’s column on National Review Online.

The little game I’d like to play, is to simply snip from your favorite ones. Fred does the writing, you do the choosing. And when you’re done, ask some of your blogger friends — whoever is known to you to be dissatisfied with the conservative choices — to do the same. I’ll bet when we’re finished, we’ll have just a few columns that can be easily seen to enjoy widespread support. From those like me, who backed Fred, and from others who…whatever. Didn’t like Iron Eagle. You know who you are — the guys who think Huck or Rudy or Mitt “might do more good than harm,” or “are just as good as anybody else.” Those of you who are struggling to pick the right candidate to get the message out. I know you’re frustrated just like me. Spend a few minutes defining the message.

Let’s find out where the common ground is among us. Maybe by the time we’re done, God willing, someone will be in a position to ask the remaining candidates what they think about all that.

Here are my favorite Fred Thompson columns. They’re sampled from the issues that mean the most to me. I wonder if he said something that resonates with anybody else?

Real American Idols, April 5, 2007

If you tune into the news, you’re going to end up hearing or reading at least the headlines of stories you’d probably rather not know about. Somehow, I know that Paris Hilton may have violated her parole. I’m not sure how it happened, but I even know a little about Britney Spears’s hairdo, divorce, and trip to rehab. These bits of cultural trivia, I really wish I hadn’t digested.

What I’m not going to do now is scold editors for spending more time on Anna Nicole Smith and Lindsay Lohan than the details of our federal budget. To begin with, it would have about as much impact as it would for me to tell some pop starlet, who has more money than I ever will, to put on some decent clothes and behave herself.

I do think, though, that we should be worried when our children are shown over and over again that people who are rich and famous, and are presented as “idols,” get even more rich and famous due to behaviors that would be rightly deemed tragedies in most families. So, instead of telling our news sources what not to publish, maybe I could make a few suggestions for additional programming.

There are young women who are succeeding because of all the old virtues that we want our children to learn and emulate — women whose stories are just as compelling and entertaining as Britney Spears’s. One is Candace Parker, the 20-year-old forward for the University of Tennessee’s Lady Volunteers — who just won the NCAA women’s basketball championship.

Candace has complained in the past when journalists focused solely on her, the Lady Vols’ high scorer, instead of her entire team. I wouldn’t want to offend her, so I will point out that Shannon Bobbitt and the entire team also did what had to be done to win this year — drilling and working out hard in the off season when other teams were taking it easy. Still, Candace is the kind of role model I would want my daughters to look up to. She’s earned academic honors while putting in the time necessary to win Tennessee’s first championship in nine years, and will stay in school despite being eligible for the pro draft. My wife, by the way, is proud just to share her hometown of Naperville, Illinois.

Another role model critical to the Lady Vol’s accomplishment is head coach Pat Summitt, who has more victories to her credit than any other coach in NCAA basketball history — men included. Summit has just earned the first contract for a women’s basketball coach worth more than a million dollars a year.

Now, you may be asking yourself if I’m not just bragging about the Lady Vols because I’m a Tennessean, and I might not even argue with you if you said so. In fact, I’ve found myself humming “Rocky Top” ever since the team took the NCAA cup, but both of these women, and the other Lady Vol team members as well, have shown the discipline, sacrifice, and desire that anyone can and should aspire too. For the sake of our daughters, they ought to get at least a fraction of the coverage our media gives embarrassing, dysfunctional celebrities.

Sanctuary Cities, August 14

If you listen to folks who oppose immigration and border enforcement, you get the feeling they think we put locks on our doors to keep everybody out. The truth is we have locks so we can choose who comes in.

An example of what happens when we don’t make the choice took place August 4th when three Newark, New Jersey, college students with great promise were executed, gangland style. The killers’ ringleader was apparently an illegal alien indicted twice in 2007 for felonies, including the rape of a kindergarten-aged girl.

Why would such a person be set free instead of being handed over to authorities for deportation? The answer is that Newark is a “sanctuary city” which bans cooperation between local officials and federal immigration officials. More than 60 sanctuary zones, including 30 of America’s largest cities, provide a national networked haven for foreign and organized criminals who recruit and operate outside those areas as well. These sanctuaries include Cambridge, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Austin and Houston, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and New York City.

Plutonic Warming, March 22

Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto.

NASA says the Martian South Pole’s “ice cap” has been shrinking for three summers in a row. Maybe Mars got its fever from earth. If so, I guess Jupiter’s caught the same cold, because it’s warming up too, like Pluto.

This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle.

Silly, I know, but I wonder what all those planets, dwarf planets and moons in our SOLAR system have in common. Hmmmm. SOLAR system. Hmmmm. Solar? I wonder. Nah, I guess we shouldn’t even be talking about this. The science is absolutely decided. There’s a consensus.

A New York State of Mind, August 22

When I was working in television, I spent quite a bit of time in New York City. There are lots of things about the place I like, but New York gun laws don’t fall in that category.

Anybody who knows me knows I’ve always cared deeply about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. So I’ve always felt sort of relieved when I flew back home to where that particular civil liberty gets as much respect as the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Unfortunately, New York is trying, again, to force its ways on the rest of us, this time through the courts. First, they went after U.S. gun manufacturers, seeking through a lawsuit not only money but injunctive control over the entire industry. An act of congress in 2005 blocked, but did not end, that effort.

Now, the same activist federal judge from Brooklyn who provided Mayor Giuliani’s administration with the legal ruling it sought to sue gun makers, has done it again. Last week, he created a bizarre justification to allow New York City to sue out-of-state gun stores that sold guns that somehow ended up in criminal hands in the Big Apple.

Reclaim Greatness: Lower Taxes. Enforce Laws, November 30

I believe there are millions of Americans who know our security and prosperity are at risk if we don’t address the challenges of our time – the global threat of terrorism; taxes and spending that will bankrupt future generations; and a government that can’t get the most basic responsibilities right for its citizens.

In 1994 when I first ran for the Senate, I advocated the same common-sense conservative positions I hold today. They are based upon what I believe to be sound conservative First Principles, reflecting the nature of man and the wisdom of the ages. It is a basic recognition that our rights come from God and not from government. Essentially, it’s about freedom. A government big enough to do everything for us is powerful enough to do anything to us.

These principles lead me to believe in lower taxes, free markets, private property and fair competition. These principles made America great, and we should rededicate ourselves to them, not abandon them.

Second Amendment: A Citizen’s Right, November 21

Here’s another reason why it’s important that we appoint judges who use the Constitution as more than a set of suggestions. Today, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

Six plaintiffs from Washington, D.C. challenged the provisions of the D.C. Code that prohibited them from owning or carrying a handgun. They argued that the rules were an unconstitutional abridgment of their Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, provides, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The District argued, as many gun-control advocates do, that these words only guarantee a collective “right” to bear arms while serving the government. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected this approach and instead adopted an “individual rights” view of the Second Amendment. The D.C. Circuit is far from alone. The Fifth Circuit and many leading legal scholars, including the self-acknowledged liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, have also come to adopt such an individual rights view.

I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says – it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been supportive of the National Rifle Association’s efforts to have the DC law overturned.

Wishful Theorists, March 27

So they’re going to dig up Harry Houdini. They want to see if he was poisoned by a powerful league of spiritualists for exposing their phony séances. The doctor who’ll examine the remains also exhumed Jesse James’s coffin a few years ago — to see if the outlaw outwitted authorities by having another man buried in his place.

People love a good conspiracy theory, which may be one of the reasons that actor Charlie Sheen is going to narrate a documentary about how the World Trade Towers were brought down by the U.S. government. About the same time, Rosie O’Donnell added her credibility to the project.

It was an interesting coincidence that their announcements hit the news just as the military released Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confession regarding his role in planning the 9/11 attacks — and a lot more. Of course, we didn’t really need his confession, because his career has been so well documented.

Iran, Nuclear Weapons, and the NIE, December 6

The new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities doesn’t change my view of that we need to restrain Iran. The NIE confirms that as recently as the fall of 2003, Iran was covertly working to develop nuclear weapons. Perhaps they have since halted their covert nuclear weapons work, but meanwhile they continue to aggressively pursue a uranium enrichment capability, despite the fact that it makes no economic sense as a civilian program.

This program was begun secretly as part of their larger nuclear weapons program and could be converted to bomb-making in short order. The knowledge and equipment necessary to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear fuel is identical to that used to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb; making fissile material for an atomic weapon just takes a little longer. Iran developed this program covertly and illicitly (in violation of its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards obligations) and pursued it for years before the United States and others found out about it. Iran’s transgressions are numerous: it failed to declare its activities, hid key portions of its program, and acquired material and technology illicitly, among other things. Much of this continues to this day.

As recently as two weeks ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran is not fully cooperating with the agency. IAEA Inspectors continue to have limited access to Iranian nuclear sites and their knowledge of Iran’s nuclear activities is “diminishing.” Iran has rejected the further transparency measures the IAEA has requested. Tehran has also refused to bring into force the Additional Protocol—an agreement that would give IAEA greater access to Iranian facilities to determine whether illicit activities are occurring. If all secret work has ended and Iran’s enrichment program is really for peaceful purposes, why this continued secrecy? What is Iran hiding?

Update: Kathryn Jean Lopez nails it shut.

He raised the bar for detailed policy prescriptions. You get the impression from what he says and from how he says it that he’s got consistent conservative instincts. He’s grounded.

You believed him when he said Saturday night, “It’s never been about me. It’s never even been about you. It’s been about our country and about the future of our country …. Our party is being forced to look in the mirror….” If it was about him he’d probably have kept his comfortable Law & Order paycheck and let someone else brave the Iowa State Fair heat and reporters’ comments on his Guccis and golf cart.

They say he had no “fire in the belly.” As he’s put it: If the worst thing you can say about him is that he does not want to be president desperately enough, that’s not a bad position to be in.
:
“He’s a depth guy,” is the way Rush Limbaugh described the senator. Much, much worse could be said. He has something politicians ought to emulate, who too often have their thoughtfulness media-trained right out of them from the get-go. You saw it in his policy positions; you saw it when he debated our Ramesh Ponnuru on federalism last year; you saw it at times during the debates — especially the last one in South Carolina, where he was clear, commanding, entertaining — and, of course, conservative.

H/T: IMAO.

Tagged:
IMAO
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Exile in Portales
Brutally Honest
American Digest

Every now and then a state holds a primary, and I hear of concerns about “voter turnout.” It’s too low. I see and hear about people voting who I don’t think have taken the time to educate themselves about what’s going on and what the President would be able to do about it, so I’m not so sure low voter turnout is a bad thing. But if it’s been plummeting in recent years and this really is a problem, I think I have an explanation.

It’s the two-party system. It’s not that it’s too important to us, it’s that it has ceased to be. America’s two-party system has been secretly replaced. Back in the olden days, those hated partisan “R versus D” days, people voted just fine & dandy.

The dirty little secret about the 2008 elections is that we aren’t voting on Republicans versus Democrats. We aren’t voting on positions on the issues. We’re voting on what exactly a candidate is supposed to be selling us, in order to get our vote. We are, in effect, voting on how the process is supposed to work. The process…that comes to an end in the first week of November. What we want to have happen once the candidate is sworn in, is something that isn’t on the minds of very many people anymore.

It’s kind of like picking numbers in a lottery in which you don’t win anything. You wouldn’t miss an old re-run for that, would you…no, you wouldn’t. So it’s no wonder voter turnout is low.

You can hear it in the candidates’ names, when discussed by those who have made the decision to vote for them. Nobody is ready to support Barack Obama; instead, they think the best choice is Barack Obaaaaaaaaaaaama. And Ron Paaaaaaaaaaaul. In the discussion that ensues, and boy howdee, these people will make damn good and sure it will ensue indeed, we are regaled with glorious descriptions about the Chosen One’s position on…one issue. Maybe two. And there is passion there. A pet peeve. A bug up the butt.

If we undertake to pepper this supporter with questions about the Chosen One’s position on five or six other issues, it won’t take long, here it comes…that look. The deer-in-headlights look. And then that wonderful intonation that we should “go to his/her website to find out about that.”

Okay, so those among us who nurture the greatest passion — even they don’t know what they’re going to get out of this deal.

I think we’d all be healthier upstairs if we chose now as the time to admit, with some of these candidates, it isn’t about the issues. It’s about the name. These aren’t really even “supporters” — these people would be more appropriately and accurately described as “fans.” They have chosen an identity for themselves, and the identity is that they want to vote for this person. That’s why one of these names, a name we have been hearing for sixteen years now, is now pronounced Cliiiiiiiiiinton.

Say Hello to 2008: Year of the “Rock Star” candidate. What would he/she do in this situation? Who knows? Who cares? All I care about, and all you should care about, is that there won’t be a name change any time soon. I’m on the bandwagon and you should be too.

There are other candidates selling something different — they aren’t selling their names. There really is no “McCain” phenomenon taking place and there is no such thing as “Romneymania.” These candidates are, indeed, position-based — just as our most lukewarm candidates have always been. These are the poll-driven. They sell the readiness, willingness and ability to betray with grace.

This is the classic politician who has to look around and see who is in the room before he announces his position on something. From time to time, if you pay attention you can see him waffling, but he’ll always deny waffling. His statements are always taken out of context. He constantly thinks ahead to the general elections. He’s a wonderful unprincipled centrist. During primary season he is “The Democrat Who Can Beat (blank),” insert the name of a Republican for (blank), or he’s “The Republican Who Can Beat (blank),” insert name of democrat. Positions? His position on each issue is whatever is going to win.

He wins by “reaching across the aisle,” as they call it. If he’s chosen carefully, he’ll give up the fight on some positions that don’t matter. Sell off some acres nobody really wants. The party-faithful will look at his acquiescence and, he hopes, say to themselves “well, I can live with that.”

The True Believer is the kind we all say we want, the guy who doesn’t vacillate. Positions driven by principles. And I’m afraid that the presidential campaign season in the United States has become a rather unhealthy ritual of weeding these guys out.

How did we get here? The process has the look of legitimacy about it, because True Believers tend to be ideological extremists. John Edwards is a wonderful example of this. Yes, he’s a lawyer who gets rich off of questionable lawsuits against medical insurance companies, and that sounds pretty unprincipled, but he does have principles. He’s been consistent about them. He wants to punish rich people for the “crime” of being rich — except for him and people he knows. He wants two different rules in place insofar as whether we put up with rich people, and he’s always been consistent about this. But he doesn’t really have a shot. And so his party needs to eliminate him and people like him, so they can think about candidates more likely to attract broad support.

The Primary Season is, among other things, a bunch of state conventions in which the party faithful calculate who’s got the best shot at prevailing in a general election. But, of course, there are other considerations mixed in as well. There is that “Press Vote” that is so coveted. The People may love your party’s candidate to death, but it’ll all be an uphill battle if the newspapers don’t love him too. Why go through the ordeal if you don’t have to?

So to the extent the two-party system still exists, during Presidential election campaigns it exists in the form of organizations, not in the form of the left-wing or the right-wing. Certainly not in the form of principles. It is somewhat like…I would say it is exactly like…television networks putting things on the teevee in competition for Nielsen ratings.

This one produces two comedies and one drama, that one produces two dramas and one comedy. Everybody wants to be able to say they watched a documentary, but nobody does.

Deep down, we all understand after somebody is sworn in and after the hand is taken off the Bible, we’re all going to have to live with how this person was chosen. This is, probably, more important than the organization that produced this President — more important than the “R” or “D” that comes after the name.

Yes, sure, every now and then you’ll read a snarky editorial about how our new President “was elected on a platform of” — and then a snide comment or two about how the mandate isn’t being carried out.

But we also understand deep down this won’t matter very much. The wafflers, once elected, are elected on the ability to waffle. So they can carry out whatever mandate they want. They are professional negotiators.

The Rock Stars are even worse, because they aren’t elected on any position at all. In negotiations, they are elected not to compromise, but to triumph. That’s why their last names are draaaaaawn out by their supporters, or rather, by their “fans.” They aren’t there to do anything; they’re there to simply be. Everybody likes to be associated with a winner. Even a “winner” who doesn’t really have a shot, like Ron Paul. Ron Paul supporters are social creatures; their support for the Congressman is simply an on-ramp to a conversation they would like to dominate. Our country gives too much support to The Joos, Iraq is an illegal and unjust war, nine eleven was an inside job, we need to get back to the Konstitewshun.

So those are the three products being sold — the three genres produced by our “networks.” The rock star, the waffler, the True Believer.

The True Believers are going to be going bye-bye in the months ahead. This is a bad thing. I don’t say that because my guy Fred is one of them…although I do think that’s bad. No, just in general, True Believers are the only ones who are tied down. A brand-new situation comes up and you send a True Believer in to represent you, you at least know what he’s going to do.

Those rock star guys and those waffler guys…you don’t know. You aren’t supposed to know. The burden is on us to think of every little pain-in-the-ass issue that might conceivably come up, before the election, and preferably before the conventions.

So this isn’t a process of culling extremists from the herd. We’re eliminating the ones that have our real confidence when they make important decisions.

In other words, we are becoming acclimated to voting for things other than principles. Principles have become passé. We want slick salesmanship. With a big glittery name…without the name, and a big sparkling smile instead — that’s just as good. Once Fred Thompson is eliminated from the pool, the transformation will be complete.

And that’ll be a real shame.

About a week ago, following his comment about the 72 virgins, Fred Thompson was endorsed by Human Events.

Since then, Romney has won Michigan which means we now have three Republican winners in the state primaries. There may very well be five before this is all done. And I don’t mean to imply that Fred will be one of the five…he may very well pass out of this thing after never amounting to anything more than a pressure candidate.

But you’d be well advised to read this before popping open the next New York Times screed about Abu Ghraib, or listening to the next empty-minded bitch-fest about who got kicked off Dancing With The Stars…

We make this endorsement on the basis of much research, having interviewed Sen. Thompson and some of his opponents, as well as examining what they have all said and done. We conclude that Thompson is a solid conservative whose judgment is grounded in our principles.

In his Senate years, Mr. Thompson compiled an American Conservative Union lifetime rating of 86.1, which is higher than both Sen. John McCain (82.3) and Rep. Ron Paul (82.3). The Club for Growth has praised Thompson as someone who has a strong commitment to limited government, free enterprise and federalist principles.

On the issues that matter most to conservatives, Sen. Thompson’s positions benefit from their clarity. He is solidly pro-life. He said that he was in favor overturning Roe v. Wade because it was “bad law and bad medical science.” As the National Right to Life Committee said in its endorsement of him Nov. 13, 2007, “The majority of this country is opposed to the vast majority of abortions, and Fred Thompson has shown in his consistent pro-life voting record in the U.S. Senate that he is part of the pro-life majority.”

Thompson’s record is solid on voting to preserve gun owners’ rights, cut taxes, reduce government spending and drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has voted consistently against gay marriage. Thompson is by no means perfect. He strongly supported the McCain-Feingold bill, did not support the impeachment of Bill Clinton on perjury and more than once voted with the trial lawyers against limitations on liability in defective product and medical malpractice cases.

We like the way Thompson unhesitatingly attacks the liberal ideologues and their activists such as MoveOn.org and the ACLU, and the way he reaches out to those we knew as the Reagan Democrats.

The question now is whether Sen. Thompson will do what he has not yet done: Take the advantages he is given by his intelligence, his principles, his political skills and this endorsement and make the best use of them.

As the primaries and debates speed by, we would like to see Sen. Thompson continue to invigorate his campaign to carry him successfully through Tsunami Tuesday and to nomination at the Republican convention.

Sen. Thompson, you suffer, like most conservatives, from the built-in problem of not being a professional politician. It’s precisely as Rush Limbaugh said of you: “The problem with Thompson is, and a little bit with me, is I’m a depth guy. I like depth. Television doesn’t reward depth. Television rewards zingers, one-liners, cutesyisms. Fred Thompson produced a brilliant 17-minute video that was on YouTube that explains everything about every issue that he cares about. It’s clear he’s thought deeply about a whole lot.”

It’s interesting to note that, with regard to whatever victories Fred has won thus far, he owes them to whatever capacity for the “zinger” he does have. And he does have a considerable capacity. Far more than whatever I have.

And that is why his success is so important. As crucial as 2008 is to the future of the country, Fred’s candidacy is more important even than that. We don’t get “depth” people who have some capacity for “zingers” just every year, you know.

He’s a balance. I think that’s what most people really want.

This is why, in my mind, Romney has won Michigian. And McCain, New Hampshire. And Huckabee, Iowa. These guys mix it up. They offer a blend, by being inconsistent. Trouble is, that inconsistency simply makes them bad candidates. Who’s to say what they’ll do when the hand comes off the Bible?

Well, nobody. And we all understand this. By supporting them, people are buying lottery tickets, hoping these inconsistent candidates will follow through on the bits & pieces of the record that one particular voter happens to like.

And then you have the “rock star” candidates — those who, to their “fans,” mean something above & beyond the record.

If the Presidency doesn’t go to Fred, I can only hope it goes to one of these “inconsistency” candidates, rather than to one of the “rock star” candidates of whom there are exactly three:

1. Barack Obama (D)
2. Ron Paul (R)
3. Hillary Clinton (D)

Those three are listed in order, by the way. Their fans are slobberingly enthused about them, but the reason for this slobbering enthusiasm has nothing — butkus — to do with positions on the issues.

I think Fred’s positions speak for most people, both Republicans and Democrats. But the thing of it is…and this continues to frustrate me…I don’t know that for a fact. We seem to have some loud, powerful, outspoken people determined to make sure that never becomes a question widely pondered.

Fred’s dismissal as a viable candidate, in the minds of some folks who’ve been known to me to be far more thoughtful about other matters, has been pretty quick. Hasty. One might say…rushed…perhaps even desperate.

But he’s a “consistent position” candidate. It seems to me, Hunter & Tancredo aside (and perhaps Edwards too), the only one in the running with a real shot at this thing.

And it is only through a “consistent position” candidate that The People can be restored to their rightful claim insofar as what control they should have over what the Government does. The “inconsistent position” candidates and “rock star” candidates, should they win, can make whatever shady back-room deals they want to make.

Update 1/19/08: Although the Hawkeye State has already cast its votes and gone home several days ago, this seventeen-minute message from Thompson does such a wonderful job of capturing the vision of his campaign that it deserves an embed here:

Yesterday I discovered a blog more articulate and interesting than most, and worthy of being sent off to the sidebar. The way I discovered it was through the Sunday paper. Of course, there is one sure-fire way a blogger, or for that matter anybody else, can catch the attention of the newspaper culture — and that is to “grow” into hard-left positions after a lifetime spent being reasonable and moderately conservative.

Especially if you claim your new leftist set of values, is more enlightened than what came before. Just as the Wayward Son in the Book of Luke gets his huge party, you’ll get your huge attention…not that I think that’s what motivated this fellow, it’s simply the way things are…

Why I’m Voting For Obama

On Saturday night I was watching the Presidential debates and I made one of the more significant decisions of my life. I chose to go with Barack Obama. And believe me, this decision was not an easy one. It came the moment I joined the Support Obama page in my Facebook account. I remember the moment before pressing it and saying, “Do you know what you are doing?”

I’ve always been a lifelong Republican. I can’t honestly remember voting for a Democrat in my lifetime, although I’m not overtly political over the last ten years. I think much of this has to do with the home I grew up in, which was always Republican. We didn’t really have very many conversations about it. Its just the way it was, never questioned.

And I realize now that this decision has been a lifetime in coming. I can’t honestly say what it was that swayed me. I know that is had to do with growing up in the multicultural world of east side San Jose, CA. I know it had to do the frustrations I’ve had with Bush. I know it had to do with who Barack is. I know it has to do with the significance of his race as part of history. I know it has to do with my desire to take part in something that will change the world. Each of these reasons is significant.

For reasons that, to some, will be obvious — the comments that came in response to this ultimately demonstrated to our new blogger friend the need to put up a second post:

Why I’m Voting For Obama 2

Recently I was asked to explain my decision for why I was voting for Barack Obama. It seems I wasn’t articulate enough, which is cool given that this was a major decision and the post was a stream of thought. I really didn’t write that post for other people. It was more of an announcement to myself. But Matt and Rachel asked me to help him understand why I made that choice. So I’ll give it another shot.

Matt stated in the comments,

“You didn’t really give any real reasons why you’re voting for him. I think the reason is that Obama isn’t running a platform on issues as much as he is on emotion. If you compare Clinton’s website with Obama’s you’ll see that on every issue Clinton states her position on the issue and how she is going to implement the program to fulfill her position (and in many cases how she’s going to pay for the program). However, on Obama’s website, you’ll see no substantial concrete plans for the implementation of the programs that he wishes to put in place. He simply wants to play on the emotions of the voters. I’m not saying that Clinton is better, I actually support Ron Paul, I’m saying that at least I know she has a plan.”

I agree with what Matt appears be implying, to a certain extent. On paper, Clinton might be the better political candidate. She has more experience, is deeply connected in Washington circles, has created a plan that she will attempt to implement. She is very aware of the issues and wants to seek change. In fact if she were elected President, that moment would be another momentous occasion in American history, another glass ceiling broken.

I highly disagree that Obama has not clearly outlined his position on issues. As example. His website lists 19 different categories like this. But the issues are not what swayed me. I didn’t put all of the issues on a scale and weighed the pros and cons. It wasn’t simply an analytical choice for me. It’s deeper than that.

Jonathan Brink strikes me as bright and articulate (he seems to have misspelled Sen. Obama’s first name at the time the Sacramento Bee discovered him, and irritatingly, gone off and fixed it on his own before I could point it out).

At this point, I’m pretty sure one of the following two apply to Mr. Brink:

One, when his ideas are challenged, he writes his responses in such a way that his mood is represented as something more peevish and negative than it really is, which is something people do a LOT in the blog-world;

Two, like a lot of people who decide with emotion instead of intellect, he doesn’t like having it pointed out — and the thought of someone else, using reason to decide the same issue, gets him a little torqued.

I say one of those must apply because he’s taken, now, a lot of opportunities to explain why he’s supporting Barack Obama for President; in addition to the two posts linked above, there are comments underneath those. So far, everything I’ve seen deals in emotion — save for one reference to Obama’s website that we should go check.

See, when I hear these decisions are made out of intellect, the standard I have in mind is something like conservatives arguing about supply-side economics. Maybe that’s a poor example because ever since Reagan’s second term, the conservatives have done a thoroughly crappy job of getting the message out, and the catchphrases have been made derogatory through simple repetition. But the facts are on the side of supply-side economics, which — to the extent that matters practically — simply says, when a tax rate on something is 5% that tax policy has the potential, and even the likelihood, to raise more money than it would raise if it was 7.5%.

This argument doesn’t achieve very much in bumper-sticker-slogan land, but in the theater of ideas, it draws very high marks. For one thing, there is human nature — we tend to flock toward economic avenues that present us with a minimum of resistance, to the point where a “merchant” (or government) can make more money by giving us a better deal. If this were not true, nothing would ever go on sale, right? And then there is precedent for lowering a tax rate, and raising more money by doing so; lots and lots of precedent. And finally, there is the Laffer Curve which, at 100%, nosedives into the zero axis like a lawn dart. Now, that is just simple math, right? You charge 100% tax rate on a stream of income, nobody will do it, and you’ll raise nothing or next to nothing.

I don’t mean to argue supply-side economics here, I’m just trying to demonstrate what a solid argument looks like. Jonathan Brink — I think he himself would agree with this, although at this point I’m not sure — has presented arguments that are in a completely different class from this…

So when Barack comes along, he doesn’t just represent an opportunity to vote for change. We’ve heard enough of that word. We’re looking for someone who gets the problem, not the rhetoric. And the problem is that the American people are simply willing to accept the problem. Change is really hard. One of the significant things that has shown up for me is Barack’s willingness to tell the public that they have to join the change. He’s not interested in doing it for us.

See, the supply-side argument, cited as an example, talks about economic realities and hard numbers. This argument in favor of Obama is very heavy on mood and temperament, when it isn’t supposed to be.

And I’m having a lot of trouble finding the central pillar to this one person’s shift to Obama. It’s a little like nailing Jello to a tree. Someone like myself, or Matt, or “lc smith” will take a dissenting view based on what we think we’ve read, and the answer seems to consistently come back as some variation of “no, you have the wrong understanding of my motivations here.” Well, what’s the right one? I have to at least consider the possibility that Mr. Brink doesn’t really feel that good about his decision — not to the point where he can defend it, in the presence of persons not initially inclined to echo it. Some folks disagree with him about it, and simply coming into proximity with them, if it doesn’t immediately make him feel bad, defeats a feeling of euphoria and increased self-esteem he was supposed to be drawing out of this.

Well, there’s lots of different candidates at this time, and lots of different opinions. I’m certainly not going to condemn someone for voting for someone who isn’t getting my vote.

But Obama scares me in the same way John Kerry scared me. I don’t know what exactly he’s going to do after his hand comes off the Bible, I don’t think anybody else knows either, in fact, I have serious doubts that even Obama knows.

He’s a personality-driven candidate. A “rock star” candidate. His selling point is this feeling of euphoria. Nobody knows what he’s all about, anti-war silliness aside, and nobody seems to care. In a year, he might be the most powerful man in the world, and nobody can even begin to describe what he’s going to do.

To the extent you can glean some flavoring of what he’s all about, it seems to be a bundle of statements about this-or-that cultural item or value being better than that-or-some-other one. Ban racial profiling, rehabilitation over incarceration, etc. Hey, great arguments can be made for and against such things. But we aren’t inspecting those arguments, and for a guy who’s supposed to be working to bring us together and inspiring us to dig in and “sacrifice,” Obama is curiously disinterested in motivating us to do that inspecting. He seems to be a “leap but don’t look” candidate. And that is not a unifying candidate.

Update: With my dialog with Mr. Brink fresh in my mind, I was doing some more reading-over of the recent reasonable criticism by Becky toward the National Organization of Women…and that got me to thinking about NOW’s obsession with women and girls deciding, as individuals with choices to make, and the power to make those choices, to mop floors and scrub toilets as opposed to going out & getting a job. And that got me to thinking about a similar screed delivered up a couple months ago by cranky flog Feministing.

Here’s the problem consistent between those last two examples. A is a woman. B is a woman who is a feminist. A makes the decision to be a homemaker. B finds out about A’s decision. B blows her stack and scribbles down a bunch of acrimonious gibberish.

Fine by me.

But then…unbelievably, incredibly…B will declare herself…in prospect as well as in hindsight…to be a champion of individual choice.

This is lunacy. But it is running epidemic throughout our society now, and it is further foundation for my idea that Obama is a decidedly bad candidate — as are all candidates who draw their strength from feeding and channeling the mood in any given room, instead of from articulating their plans step-by-step and helping to organize those who would support those plans.

Obama pushes priorities, not plans. But it isn’t just Obama. All across the fruited plain, we have lots of folks energized into championing this system of values over that one. Not even “values”; I think the most precise word I could find, is “subcultures.” Twenty-somethings on snowboards, being superior to forty-somethings on skis. Yuppies driving enormous SUVs to evening showings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” being better than cranky right-wing guys like me that sneer at the Climate Change Scripture, driving 18-year-old cars that get 37 miles a gallon. Rock-n-roll being better than pop.

My point is, in 2008 we have this tendency to do such divisive things right after declaring ourselves to be all about “unity.” The problem has gotten so bad, that if I could put my finger on one single human desire that motivates us to participate in elections before & above all other motivations, that one motivation would have to have something to do with identifying differences between ourselves & other folks, and declaring ourselves the winner. So that the other guy has to convert to our way of doing things, or somehow go away.

We’ve become kind of a continent-wide…non-lethal…sort of soft, squishy, “soft jihad.”

We vote on things we all damn good ‘n well know oughtta be private things, as if they are public things.

I imagine we are perilously close to doing truly asinine things. Like voting in a national referendum that the official music genre ought to be Country Music instead of Jazz. Or vice-versa. We are in danger of, to summarize it, putting the identity politics thing into actual policy — and that would be an unprecedented disaster.

We’re losing our ability to choose chocolate ice cream over strawberry, look some other fellow in the eye who made the opposite choice for himself, and call him a friend. Our elections are becoming charades in which we aspire to triumph over that other fellow…mash his face into the ground, in some nebulous way nobody wants to define…but we all want to do the triumphing. This is my objection to Barack Obama — he stands for this, because he truly has spent his efforts standing for absolutely nothing else. Choosing something different as a matter of personal taste, giving a smile and a thumbs-up to the neighbor who chose differently, and going separate ways, remaining friends, seems to be an everyday gesture moving, slowly, one year at a time, out of our grasp.

Wow, Hume let him have a whole minute of rope for hanging himself.

It was bad enough to get a sympathetic wince out of me…and as far as I’m concerned, the more embarrassment for Congressman Paul, the better. But he earned so much humiliation for himself in this one moment, I kinda felt bad for the little nutjob.

Here’s what gets me about Congressman Paul. A big part of his constituency wants him to be in charge because of this feeling among many that our diplomatic channels are clogged up…we need to talk out our problems with our potential enemies…avoid conflicts…etc.

But — it wasn’t just because of Dr. Paul’s hearing problem that he got in trouble here. It was his mind. The wrinkles on his brain are chiseled in for monologue, and not for dialog. Someone asks him a question he doesn’t like, he just finds a way to re-direct the discussion back to his hot-button issues.

Which is true of any politician, I guess. But with Dr. Paul, it isn’t just stuff that would be creating problems for him. It’s anything at all. Start off with a discussion about penguins and Fred Flintstone…Ron Paul will find a way morph that conversation into something about a “rush to war.”

He simply can’t achieve command of the assortment of issues needed to participate in our electoral process, let alone be an object of it. And negotiating with someone? Seeing issues from the other person’s point of view? Ron Paul has something to do with all that? Eh…not seein’ it, sorry.

And I would say the same thing about his supporters. It’s impressive how much consistency they show. You’re for their guy…or else…you must be part of the old guard, keeping the system broken, probably because you’re on the take. Would you rather sleep with Ginger or Mary Ann? Who made a better Catwoman, Eartha Kitt or Julie Newmar? They don’t know…but…blah blah blah rush to war for oil constitution blah blah blah.

Bunch o’ damn one-trick ponies.

Horse-face endorses platitude-dude.

My words stand as I have entered them at Rick’s place:

Shoulda known. They’re opposite sides of the same coin. Kerry takes both sides of every issue that comes along, Obama takes neither.

On the last day of 2007, I bitched and moaned about identity politics. The science of…or the instinct to…elevate figures to high office, based not on their true qualifications for that office, but based on their perceived resemblance to me, me, me, me, me, me, me and me.

If there is an extent to which this is justifiable, or even can be simply defended from criticism, I believe we have passed that point a long time ago. What still lies ahead has a lot more to do with extremism than moderation…God knows where it ends. Either over a cliff, or more innocuously, into a cul de sac. All these possibilities suggest turning ’round and heading back is a worthy idea.

It has certainly gotten more than a little bit silly.

Via Bookworm, we learn about Jonah Goldberg’s thoughts on the issue. Maybe he reads The Blog That Nobody Reads.

What Americans really want when they look into a politician’s eyes is to see their own images reflected back, like in Narcissus’ pool. The presidency in particular has become the highest ground in the culture war. Americans want a candidate who validates them personally. “I’m voting for him because he’s a hunter like me.” “I’m backing her because she’s a woman too.” “I’m for that guy because he’s angry like me.” Such sentiments have colored the presidential contest for so long, they’ve saturated it like stain into wood.

Bookworm adds her own thoughts:

Years ago, I attended a Peter, Paul & Mary concert. Noel Paul did a semi-humorous anecdote that stuck with me. He commented on the titles of fluffy magazines at the supermarket checkout stand. They used to be things like Mademoiselle and Glamour and People. Then came Us. Self quickly followed. What next, he asked? A magazine entitled Me which, when opened, contains nothing but a shiny foil in which you can admire your reflection? Paul was prescient but he got the forum wrong. It wasn’t in the world of magazines that this was going to happen. In magazines, instead, we got to read about someone else admire her own wonderfulness: Oprah, Martha, Rosie. Nope, it turns out that where the “me” phenomenon hit was the world of politics, and if that doesn’t make the hairs on the back of your next stand up with horror, you’ve got nerves of steel.

Be they inspired by my original belly-aching, or not, Goldberg and Bookworm have added such worthy observations to this train of thought, and so eloquently, that I have nothing further to add.

Except one thing.

We’re reaching a high-water mark on this “identity politics” thing, in the Age of the Blogger. One of the things for which bloggers are criticized most reliably, I see, is the ability that others have of seeing what they have to say. In fact, the criticism for bloggers that is surplus beyond that, rings somewhat hollow — bloggers are not criticized for the content of their remarks, quite so much as for the visibility thereof.

It is supposed to be the ultimate egocentric exercise. Putting your opinions in a place where others can see them. Even though, I notice with some bemusement, just about everyone would shudder in fear for entirely decent reasons, at the thought of a society in which this was proscribed.

Therefore, I make the following observation about the times in which we seem to be living:

To inject your personality into an official occupying a high office with virtually unlimited power, specifically for the purpose of marginalizing others who are not like you, is entirely acceptable. To inject that same personality into words, that are simply to available to be read — optionally — by strangers, is an activity looked upon, by many if not most, as repugnant and loathsome.

Does that just about capture it?

If so, does it make sense to anyone?

And if so, could they kindly explain it to me?

It has become one of those “Everybody Else Is Blogging It, I Might As Well Too” things.

Please join myself and many others, assuming you have not done so already, in congratulating the Anchoress, who on January 2 said:

What I dread most in this political season is the “genuine” moment – and it is coming, soon, sometime between today and tomorrow, or tomorrow and New Hampshire – when Mrs. Clinton, in her ongoing effort to turn herself into whatever the polls says she must be, cries in public. It’s going to be genuinely ghastly.

Anchoress, if I were you I’d be seriously rattled — re-thinking just how much attention I pay to this stuff on a daily basis.

Not that I think that is what you should do, though. You nailed it. Well done.

Glen speaks for me.

Sometimes, the nature of a complaint is much less important than how the complaint came to be. Some complaints materialize because they’re so important you can’t avoid them…some complaints come under consideration because someone was looking for a complaint to have. Imagine yourself as half of a married couple buying a car. You’re ready to sign and your spouse says hey — we discussed doing something we can’t do in this vehicle. Maybe it’s going off-road, and this isn’t a four wheel drive model. Maybe it’s driving the kids somewhere, and you can’t have a DVD player in the back seat. That’s in a completely different light, regardless of the substance of the complaint, than something like “I was looking for a complaint to have, since I have a hidden agenda I’m not willing to admit to you, and finally I stumbled across this thing I’d like you to take seriously even though I don’t.”

…which is exactly the nature of complaints against my favorite candidate. They’re all stupid complaints. They exist simply for the purpose of being there…because someone flailed around, looking for bad things to say about Fred, and finally settled on something that might be silly, but at least is better-n-nothin’. He entered late. He looks tired. He isn’t a Senator anymore. His wife is too hot. He made some bad movies.

This election has, among other candidates, an antisemite who regularly opposes things because they’re ostensibly contrary to the “Constitution,” without ever offering anything resembling an argument about how such things are in any way incompatible with the Constitution. Among those things, are efforts to safeguard the national security. So indirectly, this campaign has turned into a debate about whether national defense is constitutional…do we really give a rat’s ass whether one of the other candidates has a much younger wife or made some mediocre movies?

But the one complaint against Thompson that might possibly have some relevance to it — and in conceding that, by no means am I abandoning my contention that it has been vastly overplayed — is this assertion that he lacks ambition. Well if he does, then ambition must be defined as something short of ambition to pulverize. Because time after time, when Fred engages something, he engages to win. To beat. To maul. To grind into the ground. And then beat some more…eviscerate…rip the sinew from bone, grind the whole thing into dust to butter his bread…finis. No need for a tie-breaking rematch. The man has a long fuse, but he simply doesn’t believe in warning shots, and that makes him the very picture of what the country needs now.

Fred’s peace plan is to wait awhile before engaging the fight. Once the fight is engaged, it’s a quick one. He’s done this time after time; it is his style.

And in this column, he takes on the whole “lack of ambition” argument. It’s like watching a stick of butter gobbled up by a high-powered kitchen blender. Really high powered. Like some Tool Time contraption powered by a 10HP Briggs & Stratton ripped out of a rider lawnmower.

Just watch this guy go to work, and imagine this kind of dignified calm coupled with “in it to win it” in the Oval Office — exactly where it belongs.

My only problem with you and why I haven’t thrown all my support behind you is that I don’t know if you have the desire to be President. If I caucus for you next week, are you still going to be there two months from now?
:
I don’t know that they ever asked George Washington a question like this. I don’t know that they ever asked Dwight D. Eisenhower a question like this. But nowadays, it’s all about fire in the belly. I’m not sure in the world we live in today it’s a good thing if a president has too much fire in the belly. I approach life differently than a lot of people. People, I guess, wonder how I’ve been as successful as I’ve been in everything that I’ve done. I won two races in TN by 20 point margins in a state that bill Clinton carried twice. I’ve never had an acting lesson. I guess that’s obvious by people who’ve watched me…

When I did it, I did it. Wasn’t just a lark. Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well. But I’ve always been a little more laid back than most. I’m only consumed by very, very few things. Politics is not one of them. The welfare of our country and our kids and grandkids is one of them.

If people really want in their president super type-a personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night and been thinking about for years how they win the presidency of the united states, someone who can look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning, I ain’t that guy. So I hope I’ve discussed that and didn’t talk you out of anything. I honestly want – I can’t imagine a worse set of circumstances [than] achieving the Presidency of the United States under false pretenses. I go out of my way to be myself.

Ambition, it turns out, is a word that benefits from a variety of different definitions. According to some of those definitions, Fred’s got none of it; according to others, he’s got all of it. We need as much as we can get of what Fred’s got, and none at all of what he has not.

The most important issue of the 2008 elections is: Who is going to bring me, in discharging the duties of President of the United States, the biggest pile of crispy smoking terrorist carcasses, hopefully with agonized and horrified expressions frozen onto their damn dirty dead terrorist faces? Two thousand a month is inadequate if another candidate will deliver three thousand.

The second most important issue is: What is up with that strange, surreal, self-obsessed political party supposedly named after democracy? Are they stupid or just plain crazy? Millions of people may sacrifice much to avoid admitting it, but I think the question is troubling to everybody, even the most loyal supporters. And it’s relevant. We know this political party must go away, for the continuing survival of the country, we just don’t quite understand how urgent this is.

The third most important issue is: What are illegal aliens up to when they come here? Not the visa-overstayers; the turnstyle-hoppers. Are they really after a better way of life for themselves and their kids? Are they here to pursue that way of life by working hard? And if so, at what exactly? Manual labor that “Americans won’t do?” Or milking the system? A combination of both? If they’re here to do the work Americans won’t do, is it possible some of those hard workers are one and the same with the illegal aliens who kidnap and molest our children, and kill our innocents on the backroads and highways while driving drunk? Should I stop worrying about any of this once I’m assured they “work hard and follow the law”? How do you know someone follows the law when you know he broke it by coming here? And when you don’t even know for sure who he is and have no way of finding out? Most perplexing within the third issue…what in the world does a candidate for a high political office, know about any of this? And how irresponsible is it to form such a crude and clumsy stereotype, even if it’s a flattering one, about twelve to fifteen million people?

And the fourth most important issue…

Is this thing called “identity politics” not just the biggest old bucket o’ crap to hang around humanity’s neck since the constitutional republic was invented?

Elaborate efforts are afoot on the Democratic side to convince Iowa women to ignore the popular phenomenon that is Barack Obama, to dismiss loyalty to familiar favorite John Edwards, and to caucus for the woman who is running for president.

With Hillary Clinton’s dream steeped in uncertainty, her campaign and other backers are banking on women to carry her through Thursday night.

“I think most women, our internal research shows, they’re not-fly-by-nights, they’re strongly enthusiastic: ‘We’re going to show up in the sleet, snow, the ice, we’re going to be there,’ ” said Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle. “I know the strength of our support.”

The campaign is expecting women to dominate the caucus by as much as 60 percent. To recruit more into their sisterhood of politics and to bump up the urgency for backbone supporters, an army of Clinton volunteers logged more than 10,000 house calls and 8,500 phone conversations on Saturday alone.

But some female Democrats are rejecting the message they’re hearing about Clinton, long a controversial political figure. And some men are turned off by what they see as an estrogen-soaked campaign.
:
Des Moines Democrat Marc Wallace, 40, said he thinks Clinton’s gender-based campaigning is a mistake. He intends to caucus for Obama,he said today.

“The Clinton campaign has not reached out to me in any real way beyond automated calls, bulk mail and having a local volunteer call to see what my candidate preference might be,” said Wallace, a John Kerry caucus campaign volunteer and a Polk County Democratic Central Committee member.

West Des Moines Democrat Mike Boltz also questions an apparent lack of attention to men.

“I think she’s been targeting women too much,” said Boltz, 44, who works in the insurance industry. “Her commercials are very female-centric. I think she needs to cater to the male population, too.”

You know, just putting aside all of the candidates, I think that’s a great debate we can have now. Form the issue first…and then let the candidates address it. Is it possible to represent someone in a high political office, such as President of the United States, who is not part of your personal demographic group? Or is a woman guaranteed superior representation from someone else who is a woman, compared to what she’d ever get from a man?

I personally favor the first of those two options. I know if Condoleeza Rice was running, as a straight white man who is a parent and has been married before, I’d put her ahead of a lot of married-and-divorced straight white fathers who are in the race now. I’d vote for her over Giulliani, McCain, definitely over that crackpot Ron Paul. She’d come in behind Thompson, because Thompson has actually been consistent and stalwart on things that I think are important. I’d put her on par with Romney, I think. Maybe a little bit ahead of Mitt.

That’s the fourth most important issue right there: Is this something I’m not supposed to be doing? I just stacked Condi in behind Fred but ahead of Mitt and Rudy and John and Ron. White guy, black girl, white guy white guy white guy. Hey, I’m a white guy and I put a black lady in as #2. Is there a “Stick To Your Own Kind” police coming over to put me under arrest now? Or am I simply betraying my own interests, with my readiness to vote for someone who’s a woman when I’m not one myself?

There, that’s the issue right there…for surely whatever answer applies correctly to me, applies to everyone else right? Okay, so now that the question is defined, will someone please pose it to Hillary — and everybody else running? Just to get their opinions on the record. Let’s just stop tip-toeing around this thing, and finally address it head-on.

America deserves to know.

We are big Fred-Heads here. And in our case, that means we get a lot of e-mail from others who we consider very close to us on issues and principles, exhorting us to change our minds. The one recurring theme to these off-lines, aside from Fred having made some movies that aren’t that good, is how much more important it is to promote a winner than it is to promote principles.

Well, we’re “hip” to the argument, or at least the logic involved in it — having been briefly sympathetic to H. Ross Perot’s candidacy for President in ’92, and after that debacle having been jaded on third-party junkets of others. We’re not about to reject the “don’t throw away your vote” platform after having used it ourselves over the years.

But we see Fred as a winner. If he has a weakness now, his weakness is that there are too many candidates. He makes a much stronger impression sharing a stage with three others than with six others, and I’m probably ready to admit at this point that his late arrival hasn’t helped him much. Fred is living proof of the multi-point perspective of this apparently-simple thing we call “charisma”; he’s got quite a lot of some of the stuff that goes by that name, and suffers a glaring lack of other such stuff. Not a lively guy, that Fred.

Our hope for Fred is that he prospers once the field starts to get whittled. Obviously, such a plan depends on him not being among the whittled. We’re optimistic about that. It’s clear to us the media establishment hates him, and that is a problem, but for the last eight years the media establishment has been pretty far away from deciding everything…or for that matter, anything.

To our reasons for being optimistic, add this. No, it really doesn’t say anything good about Fred…other than him being ahead of John McCain by a good healthy margin. But it is a reminder of the cruel shake-up going on in these caucuses.

On the donk side, Edwards is in front. Barely.

And on the Republican side, this guy who is consistently mentioned by the folks lecturing at me that I should be voting for a winner…is not mentioned here. We find this amusing. Four months ago, we would not have, because we had substantially greater fondness for the former mayor of New York than we have now. Back then, we saw him the way our lecturers wanted us to see him: As a Republican powerhouse agreeing with us on the important issues, demanding compromise only on the trivial ones. Now, we see that candidate as an apologist for the corrupt businesses that have manufactured the problem we have today with illegal immigration, exacerbating it to the point that it ultimately threatens to bring the very concept of law and order to a complete standstill. And we don’t see that candidate as a winner either, with or without this poll.

We’re still in the primary process. Once the nominations are finished and the general elections are underway — and we’re convinced that across the nation, a lot of opinionated people on both sides of the conservative/liberal divide are forgetting this — the debate will change dramatically. It’s impossible to say how at this point, because the change will be a calculated consequence of the outcome of the primaries. A Clinton/Giuliani match-up would be a disaster. It is the only way, at this point, that we can see Hillary Clinton becoming our next President. Rudy Giuliani could probably beat any other democrat. Hillary Clinton would go down in flames running against any other Republican.

But Rudy Giuliani cheated on his wife.

Hillary Clinton is a wife who got cheated-upon.

My point is not that philandering is sufficient for a candidate to lose my support. Although it most certainly is…but no, the point I wish to make is that we are not yet in a position to see any evidence of how the debate would be shaped if Hillary got the donk nomination and Rudy got the Republican nomination. But we really don’t have much need for such evidence. One can guess. We would be commanded by those who have no faces or names but can direct what conversations people have nevertheless, for three or four months, to solemnly contemplate the gloom and doom and wreckage in the wake of our serious social problem of…adultery. You can bet your bottom dollar the Sunday-evening “newsy” television shows will have an anthology of “specials” about this terrible, terrible problem. Each episode of which will contain a twenty-second tangent, presented as an after-thought bunny trail but you’d better believe it’s central to the exercise, mentioning our former First Lady, the former Mayor of New York, or both. Probably both of them.

You’ll hear about adultery in those four months, as often as you’ve heard about Britney Spears’ little sister in the last two weeks.

Hillary would kick his cheating, unfaithful ass from here to Timbuktu and back again. It would be the first truly overpowering democrat victory since 1964. It would dwarf the electoral margins achieved in 1992 and 1996 by her husband…and oh Lord, you’d better believe you’re going to hear about that in the long winter ahead.

It’d be no small irony. Her husband would have been elected because adultery didn’t matter to us, and she’d have been elected because it did. About that paradox, you won’t hear a single peep. Maybe “conservative” blogs like the one you’re reading now. George Will might take notice of it. Other than that you won’t hear butkus.

So there’s quite the shake-up going on, and thus far it seems to be a healthy one. I like that the donk candidates are in a statistical dead-heat. It just goes to show what everybody paying attention already knows: donks have nothing to say. Nothing. If they could be somehow restrained from using the words “Bush’s fault,” in sequence, or from using merely the first of those two words, they’d be robbed of about 95% of the arguments they’ve made. About anything. Not just in this election campaign — in this century.

…from people who apologize way too much?

Apologies emit carbon. If there’s some fad going around to spew apologies all day every day, can we all agree to cut it short?

There are few things in life I despise more than an apology being trotted out by someone who is, in the moment the apology is being uttered, planning to do that very thing all over again that was the subject of the apology. I realize they don’t have to be evil people in order to do this. I realize a lot of them have hearts o’gold. But that just really grates on me like nails on a chalkboard — apologizing, while fully expecting to do it all over again.

If this is really a prerequisite to offering yourself for the nation’s highest offices, then God help us all. We are really teetering on the edge of a brink if that is the case.

Via Gateway Pundit, we managed to find out about the exploits of erstwhile super-secret Republican campaign adviser Albert Arnold Gore Jr., who has been paid massive amounts of money to share his opinions on things and has finally managed to distill the ultimate message from the party we have been told we should presume he’s representing.

As befits the cinematographic auteur of An Inconvenient Truth, Mr Gore’s speech was a rhetorical tour de force.

“We, the human race, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilisation that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here,” he said.

“The Earth has a fever, and the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself.

“We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.” [emphasis mine]

We are what is wrong. We, as in “the human race.”

You have this issue of ManBearPig, which is all about humanity being a blight on an otherwise pristine landscape. Sometimes the Church of the Scary ManBearPig says the planet is heating up. Sometimes it says it’s cooling down. Sometimes it says it’s simply changing…sometimes it’s because of carbon dioxide, sometimes it’s because of other greenhouse gases, sometimes it’s CFCs — but always always always the cause of it all is — man.

This thing we call “global warming” isn’t about science, it’s about how to look at science. How to cherry-pick little nuggets out of what the scientists might be saying, and from that piece together an indictment against “the human race.” See, it all makes sense now. And we have this secret Republican political operative named Al Gore to thank for pointing it out to us.

In fact, the more evidence we gather, the more sense Al’s tirade against humanity, in fact, makes. We have this other ideologically-dividing event that takes place over here, that is riveted in both the God-versus-Not-God and Guns-versus-Not-Guns splits…and isn’t that interesting. The Not-God people say that we God people are self-destructive because we seek protection against life’s daily challenges from some deity that isn’t really there, instead of relying on ourselves. Except the Not-God people tend, overwhelmingly, to be Not-Gun people as well. Meaning when trouble’s on the town you’re supposed to head for the hills…or dial 911…maybe both. On the other side of the fence, out of ten God people, nine of those will be Gun people — probably more. So it seems this fails. Believing in God is all about believing in yourself, both in theory and in practice.

But getting back to this stealth Republican political operative Al Gore. He makes good sense here, and his proposal for a Republican vs. Democrat theme for next year seems a lot more potent than any other I’ve heard thus far. I mean, think on this long and hard, what he has said. Go through issue by issue by issue…all the things about which tighty-righties and lefty-loosies are doing their arguing.

It stays consistent, what he said, does it not? We really do have one ideological camp that says humanity is worth something, like among other things, a vigorous defense involving deadly force if necessary…and another ideological camp that says no, we aren’t worth any such thing.

Let’s take Al Gore’s advice, I say. Let’s have an election about that. Quit beatin’ around the bush…so to speak.