Nathan Tyree: A Shift
I am going to say a few words about the Clinton campaign, then move on to something important. This marks what will be a major change in my blogging this season: from now on I talk mostly about a contest that is still going on (McCain Vs Obama) and treat Hillary as mostly a series of sometimes interesting footnotes.
Michigan and Florida will not re-vote. Out in the real world that fact doesn't matter (even with MI and FL Hillary could not have caught Obama in delegates; in fact, Michigan may well have widened Obama's lead), but as far as conventional wisdom as presented by the media this is a development stunning in its import. Hillary's camp was trying to argue that somehow she should be the nominee if she surpassed Obama in popular vote and that somehow Florida could deliver that to her. Both halves of that argument are empty. She realistically could not (even with FL counted) surpass Obama's Pop vote lead (nearly a million votes right now) and even if she could it wouldn't matter. As Hillary and her spokespersons have said over and over again "It's the delegates stupid". Now maybe we can move on to the general election and focus on beating John McBush.
While we're on the subject, John "Mr. foreign policy" McCain (sometimes known as Bush III) apparently doesn't know that there is a difference between Shia and Sunni. I know, some in the right wing media want to turn this into an innocent slip of the tongue, but in reality McCain has repeated the lie that Iran trains Al Qaeda over and over again. He even continued to do it after Tail Gunner Joe Lieberman publicly pushed him to a correction. This points out a major problem that McBush is going to have to deal with: he isn't really all that knowledgeable on world affairs. McCain is part of an old tradition of thought on how the world works. It is a tradition in which the global stage was a chessboard with two main players. All other nations were merely pawns to be moved about at the whim of the superpowers. That paradigm no longer works (if it ever did). It is thinking like McCain's that got the world in its current state. It will take new thinking to set things right.
McCain also has major problems on ethics. From his part in the Keating scandals to his more recent lobbyist troubles it is apparent that McCain talks a good game on matters of ethics, but doesn't really come through in the clinch. He is, in every way, an old style politician willing to sell out his beliefs to buddy up to the Republican Wingnut base( see his shift on torture, for instance, or the Bush tax cuts which he hated then loved).
The two big issues of the general election will be the economy and the war. On both issues John Manchurian Candidate McCain is terrible. On the war he wants to sell the nation a bill of goods; a permanent extension of the failed policies of Bush-Cheney. 70% of Americans want a change from these terrible policies. McCain cannot compete on this issue. How do we think he does on the economy? When he speaks on the subject (as rarely as possible) he reveals himself to be an empty suit; a headpiece full of straw. McBush admits that he doesn't know anything about economics, but has purchased Greenspan's book. As the country sinks deeper into recession, does anyone with any sense really want that man at the rudder?
The other major problem McCain faces is that of personality. In theory he may sound marginally acceptable to some voters. That is, until they get to know him. From a prepared text he is dull. When McBush speak extemporaneously he reveals himself to be cranky, mean, and a bit slow on the uptake. Sure, he managed to some across well in the Republican debates, but that was because he was surrounded by a field of men that, combined, had the intelligence, warmth and charisma of a nice honey dew melon (I’m not counting Ron Paul in that equation; he’s actually quite bright and sort of funny despite being crazy as a bag of weasels, but was mostly ignored during the debates). When McCain has to face Obama on a stage, the old guy is going down hard.
As a final note: you may notice that I have a lot of nicknames for McCain: McBush, Bush III, Manchurian Candidate, “Mr. Foreign Policy†(imagine that one spoken with maximum snark). I just can’t decide. They are all so good. I’m also toying with John Not-So-Swift Boat McCain. For the moment I plan on just alternating between these, unless one comes along that is simply far and away superior to all the others. Feel free to weigh in on your personal favorite.
I am going to say a few words about the Clinton campaign, then move on to something important. This marks what will be a major change in my blogging this season: from now on I talk mostly about a contest that is still going on (McCain Vs Obama) and treat Hillary as mostly a series of sometimes interesting footnotes.
Michigan and Florida will not re-vote. Out in the real world that fact doesn't matter (even with MI and FL Hillary could not have caught Obama in delegates; in fact, Michigan may well have widened Obama's lead), but as far as conventional wisdom as presented by the media this is a development stunning in its import. Hillary's camp was trying to argue that somehow she should be the nominee if she surpassed Obama in popular vote and that somehow Florida could deliver that to her. Both halves of that argument are empty. She realistically could not (even with FL counted) surpass Obama's Pop vote lead (nearly a million votes right now) and even if she could it wouldn't matter. As Hillary and her spokespersons have said over and over again "It's the delegates stupid". Now maybe we can move on to the general election and focus on beating John McBush.
While we're on the subject, John "Mr. foreign policy" McCain (sometimes known as Bush III) apparently doesn't know that there is a difference between Shia and Sunni. I know, some in the right wing media want to turn this into an innocent slip of the tongue, but in reality McCain has repeated the lie that Iran trains Al Qaeda over and over again. He even continued to do it after Tail Gunner Joe Lieberman publicly pushed him to a correction. This points out a major problem that McBush is going to have to deal with: he isn't really all that knowledgeable on world affairs. McCain is part of an old tradition of thought on how the world works. It is a tradition in which the global stage was a chessboard with two main players. All other nations were merely pawns to be moved about at the whim of the superpowers. That paradigm no longer works (if it ever did). It is thinking like McCain's that got the world in its current state. It will take new thinking to set things right.
McCain also has major problems on ethics. From his part in the Keating scandals to his more recent lobbyist troubles it is apparent that McCain talks a good game on matters of ethics, but doesn't really come through in the clinch. He is, in every way, an old style politician willing to sell out his beliefs to buddy up to the Republican Wingnut base( see his shift on torture, for instance, or the Bush tax cuts which he hated then loved).
The two big issues of the general election will be the economy and the war. On both issues John Manchurian Candidate McCain is terrible. On the war he wants to sell the nation a bill of goods; a permanent extension of the failed policies of Bush-Cheney. 70% of Americans want a change from these terrible policies. McCain cannot compete on this issue. How do we think he does on the economy? When he speaks on the subject (as rarely as possible) he reveals himself to be an empty suit; a headpiece full of straw. McBush admits that he doesn't know anything about economics, but has purchased Greenspan's book. As the country sinks deeper into recession, does anyone with any sense really want that man at the rudder?
The other major problem McCain faces is that of personality. In theory he may sound marginally acceptable to some voters. That is, until they get to know him. From a prepared text he is dull. When McBush speak extemporaneously he reveals himself to be cranky, mean, and a bit slow on the uptake. Sure, he managed to some across well in the Republican debates, but that was because he was surrounded by a field of men that, combined, had the intelligence, warmth and charisma of a nice honey dew melon (I’m not counting Ron Paul in that equation; he’s actually quite bright and sort of funny despite being crazy as a bag of weasels, but was mostly ignored during the debates). When McCain has to face Obama on a stage, the old guy is going down hard.
As a final note: you may notice that I have a lot of nicknames for McCain: McBush, Bush III, Manchurian Candidate, “Mr. Foreign Policy†(imagine that one spoken with maximum snark). I just can’t decide. They are all so good. I’m also toying with John Not-So-Swift Boat McCain. For the moment I plan on just alternating between these, unless one comes along that is simply far and away superior to all the others. Feel free to weigh in on your personal favorite.
![[Valid RSS]](themes/mario-world/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")