The Campaign in 15 Words or Less
I was fortunate enough to see the always fabulous George Carlin in Las Vegas Saturday night. He summed up the presidential race perfectly in two lines. "Just look at the bumperstickers," he said. "Obama: Change You Can Believe In. McCain: Get Off My Lawn!"
Sweet.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:24 am
McCain can quote Ronald Reagan, who said, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,”
June 16th, 2008 at 9:22 am
As you know, I am not a Democrat not do I see Obama as a savior, but the right-wing in the US has no other program than keeping things just the way they are (ie the moderate right; the far right wants to turn back the clock 100 years or more.) That’s why oldsters like Reagan or McCain make perfect Republican candidates, they remind people of their grandfathers and grandfather clocks.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I’m suprised Carlin – who’s the ultimate political cynic and very far left in most views – cuts Obama that much slack.
I don’t see Obama as “saviour” either, MB, and never have (I’ve heard him damn near guarantee that he’ll disappoint unless a movement unfolds during his tenure to push for broader change) but it’s a testament to some combination of his appeal and Bush’s remarkably dismal failure that guys like you and Carlin are willing to admit at least a glimmer of “hope.”
June 16th, 2008 at 9:51 am
What gave me hope was that Obama was able to beat Clinton; what will give me more hope would be if Obama beats McCain. So it is not Obama who is giving me hope, it’s the change in the way Americans are thinking about things. You might note that Woody’s posts are becoming more and more pathetic and desperate as time goes on, a good sign.
June 16th, 2008 at 9:59 am
But Obama and his base must represent something refreshing or at least marginally “change-oriented” for you if you find it hopeful that he’s beating Clinton and is likely to beat McCain.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Well, Obama is one of the most liberal senators, 96 percent liberal rating or something like that? And his base is pretty cool. That’s a start, yes.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:56 am
“I’ve heard him damn near guarantee that he’ll disappoint unless a movement unfolds during his tenure to push for broader change”
I am definitely seeing now how Obama’s credentials as a community activist back in Chicago could serve him well in the White House, specifically serving as a leader for this broader change. Reg, I am now converted!
I am just hoping that Obama – like other well-meaning people in the past who pursued public office out of an honest desire to bring about change – is not co-opted.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
There you go. My last comment is awaiting moderation. It’s that communist Obama comment filter.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Dudes!!! What a crowd!!! The line of humanity snaking along Congress, down through Larned, onto Jefferson, through the walk way tunnel into the Joe Louis Arena goes on forever! The line would easily stretch across the Detroit River and make it to Windsor! Obama scheduled to talk at 8:30pm and everyone seems to have ditched work way, way, before 5. My god! Senator Obama is as popular as the Red Wings on the verge of a Stanley Cup Championship.
Who’s that other guy from the whatcamacallit party? How’s he doing again?
More later.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
“Senator Obama is as popular as the Red Wings on the verge of a Stanley Cup Championship.”
I guess that makes McCain….as popular as the Phoenix Coyotes?
Or maybe the Atlanta Thrashers….Hey Woody, sorry about the Marian Hossa thing.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Obama’s with the program on attacking Iran. Don’t believe me? Anthony Lake and Susan Rice have signed a document reminiscent of ‘project for a new american century’ ..http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=992908&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
June 16th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Maybe my Boston Bruins can get him…that would be nice.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
http://www.thewashingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=293
June 16th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Boston?
GO LAKERS!!!
June 16th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Go Lakers?
Get off my lawn!
June 16th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
“I am definitely seeing now how Obama’s credentials as a community activist back in Chicago could serve him well in the White House…”
How’d that work out for him David?
His cred comes from the fact he earned the nomination in spite of Chicago…..and the Clintons? No small accomplishment.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
[...] Carlin (via Marc Cooper) sums up the election this way: Obama: Change You Can Believe In. McCain: Get Off My Lawn! [...]
June 16th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
David, I dropped my Thrashers season ticket two seasons ago. I did enjoy the Stanley Cup series, though.
Marc has that commie comment filter going, but I’ll try once again to post a portion of Obama’s Father’s Day sermon.
“We should reward fathers who pay that child support with job training and job opportunities and a larger Earned Income Tax Credit that can help them pay the bills. We should expand programs where registered nurses visit expectant and new mothers and help them learn how to care for themselves before the baby is born and what to do after – programs that have helped increase father involvement, women’s employment, and children’s readiness for school. We should help these new families care for their children by expanding maternity and paternity leave, and we should guarantee every worker more paid sick leave so they can stay home to take care of their child without losing their income.”
Yeah, let the taxpayers pay sorry parents to do what they should be doing anyway as parents. As McCain would say, “We didn’t need that in my generation.”
June 16th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
“Obama is one of the most liberal senators, 96 percent liberal..”
That would be ‘the most’ liberal Senator, Michael.
I say 96% takes him out of the liberal and into the leftist category, and that’s what’s really cool with you……..and the rest of his ‘base’, some of which live on the freaking fringes of freakiness.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
So where does the superstructure live? The mundane membrane of money?
June 16th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Jim, you have to be completely dense not to know that Obama’s skill in organizing back in Chicago helped him to become, during the Democratic Nomination fight, the biggest money raiser on the internet in history, and far more than Hillary. It is the irony of ironies that Hillary would lose the nomination fight by being OUTSPENT.
Once he is in the White House, Obama – if he so chooses, and is not co-opted – would be in a good position to rally the American people to demand that the rest of Washington, and both well-monied political parties, to get off their ass and do something for a change about reforming health care to eliminate corporate red tape AND government red tape that make costs so high for consumers.
And the 96% – with all due respect to Michael B., and zero respect to Jim R. – doesn’t mean much in measuring how “liberal” a politician happens to be. It is a measure of how loyal that senator is to his or her political party. Corporate causes are divided evenly down the middle, with Corporation A competing against Corporation B for one bill, and so forth and so forth. With corporation A being in the back pocket of Democratic Party leadership members, and corporation B being in the pocket of beltway Republican Party leadership, this doesn’t really say much about how liberal that person is in their voting record, and as for a 96% compliance with the leadership of the Democratic Party being “leftist”….Jim, go watch t.v., and leave matters like this to those of us with an IQ higher than an ass crack.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
And indeed, I have to give this much credit to Hillary Clinton: she managed to take states away from Obama when she was outspent in those places by vast sums. The lady who has pretty much spent an entire life relegated to a privileged and exclusive social life isolated from the common people rolled up her sleeves, when push came to shove; downing whiskey shots in the Pennsylvania watering holes, and chugged beer with blue collar people….blue collar people like me. And she did something I never thought would be possible for her: she actually convinced millions of working class Americans that she was “one of them.” Pretty unbelievable, if you ask me, and you have to give her credit for pulling that off.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
“…and you have to give her credit for pulling that off.”
Why?
June 16th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
“Why?”
Why? Look at her press coverage in 90′s. Goodness knows I have never supported the woman politically, or her husband, but look at the record. The “official” record, that is. She was able to turn her 1992 statement, “Well, I could have stayed home and baked cookies” into, “Why shouldn’t ALL women stay home and bake cookies”, at least subliminally. If you still need to ask “why”, check out Matt Taibi’s article in (gasp) Rolling Stone from a couple of months ago, who gave Clinton props on the same merits as I did. I am too tired to explain.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Work chores taking the fun out of life – 1
Rob trying to do some on the spot guerrilla reporting – 0
(Marc, what follows was inspired by the last your last 6 or 7 posts on new media…Don’t worry, no one will think less of you.)
I was ‘Fired Up and Ready to Go!’ Frantically pushed through a hectic work day in order to go the Joe to see the next president. Plus, the warm-up act featured some dude named Al Gore. At the least I was going to get one of those cool bummer stickers. Part of my motivation was this article in the Detroit Free Press about how the Democrats might need Mayor Kilpatrick to help get the vote out for Obama in order to carry Michigan pissed me off and I wanted to see if I could offer some evidence that it wasn’t true:
http://tinyurl.com/43wprh
A snippet:
“Detroit is one of the nation’s most reliably Democratic cities. Its ability to influence statewide election outcomes — and who gets Michigan’s electoral votes — depends on turnout. When city voters turn out in droves, Democrats win. When they don’t, sometimes Democrats lose.
Some key Michigan Democrats have privately voiced concern that the mayor’s problems would leave him unable to muster forces to help the Democratic ticket.”
I think this is some weak nonsense. (btw, if you clicked on the link, did you notice the juxtaposition of head shots of Obama & Kilpatrick? What’s that about?) As if Mayor K is the ‘vote keeper’ lord of the city. The people of Detroit hate Mayor K. What an insult to say that people of Detroit need to take cues from a crook in order to come out and vote for President. The long lines I saw heading into the Joe to see Obama made me think that Detroiters could figure out how to get to the polls without Mayor K’s help. Besides, Mayor K could very likely be in jail by the end of the year. Who needs that kind of help? Oh, there was a counter to the packed arena: one lonely McCain volunteer with a 3′X4′ photo of an aborted fetus curled up in an American flag, standing in median of Jefferson Ave in front of the Renaissance Center Detroit Center. LaRouche voters might have their work cut out for them…
I was in the walk way tunnel to the Joe, armed with a notebook, ink pen, and my smartest looking sunglasses. I was all set to start interviewing rally goers and get as many people as I could talk to about why they were there, what they thought Obama had to do to win Michigan, what they were willing to do to help out, and was it even relevant to Obama’s chances how much trouble Mayor K was in? I was ready for names and quotes. Mayhill Fowler, move over!
Then my damn cell phone rang. Stupid phone! Evil, sinister work duties! Dreaded work responsibilities! I had to drive out to Kala-friggin’-mazoo. Arrrrrgh! But ‘Elvis’ IS IN THE BUILDING!! I thought. Kalamazoo! Two and half hours each way. Over 600,000 pot holes along I-94 (I swear!), past dozens of deer carcasses (gross, huh?), I hit the replay button to Ween’s “Pumpin’ 4 the Man” twenty two times in row! Created a whole new vocabulary of swear words.
I made the round trip and cruised past Joe Louis Arena around 11:45 pm. Had hoped against hoped (that’s ironic, huh?) that maybe Obama started late. Maybe the rally went long. I mean, hell, Gore can be quite a wind-bag at times, and damn it, my laundry is really piling up and I NEED a clean tee-shirt. I actually saw the cargo trucks idling around the arena…But no luck. It was over. No tee-shirt, no bumper sticker, no sightings of the next president. I feel like the little tyke in that western running after Alan Ladd: “Obama, come back!”
Fowler, you’re safe for now.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Please pardon the typo’s, above. The writer, you can convict.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Rob, you and the post can both be quite pardoned.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:12 am
David -
I read Taibi’s article a few days ago. He gave her props for sheer determination, tjough he had grave misgivings about her motivations. I can buy into that. You seem to be giving her props for the thetarics of her transformation, as if the whiskey-swilling and duck hunting tales bore witness to some inner moral shift, a sudden and authentic identification with blue collar folks. I can’t buy into that notion; I see it as sheer political opportunism. The whole act would have fallen flat if she weren’t running against a Black guy with a strange name; she jumped at the opportunity to exploit that alienness.
And I’m not saying she’s unconcerned about those different and less fortunate than her. I think she is and always has been. But she’s most concerned with the plight of Hillary Clinton and is too willing to go low when her ambition is thtreatened. I find it hard to celebrate the rawness of that ambition.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:27 am
By “alienness” above, I don’t mean t intimate that Obama really is alien, just that she was willing play upon that fear.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Dear Marc,
I really love your blog. I hope you don’t mind what I wrote:
http://mikeb302000.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/im-betting-on-obama/
June 17th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Evets, I certainly did not say or mean to suggest anything of an “authentic identification with blue collar folks.” It was phony all the way. But, I appreciate what she did on political merits. Even early in the campaign: she managed to take the working class white vote away from not only Obama, but John Edwards. That’s not unimpressive, any way you look at it.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Obama base of support – educated young people, upper middle class, and African-Americans – used to be the base for both Clintons. Once Obama claimed that, Clinton had to come up with a new voting demographic. The fact that she did that – even with help from the media, as well as from bigotry, admittedly – was a feat.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Al Gore’s endorsement speech last night–at least the part that was played at the tail-end of Olbermann (they tried to wait for you, Rob G)–was excellent. The theme is: if we were looking back from the perspective of a successful future, how would we recognize the first steps toward a healthy, happy planet? (I’m paraphrasing heavily here). He managed to thrash through the brush to point out the stunning democratic triumph that the Obama campaign is. I don’t know what the smarter-than-uses will say about it (probably close to nada), but that part, at least, was one of the best speeches I have heard in a while given by someone other than Obama.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I concur that Hillary’s success among working class whites was impressive. It’s not exactly a shock. She certainly learned in her nearly 20 years in Arkansas how to communicate with rural Southern white folks. We discussed a while ago that the “g” disappeared from her scripts somewhere around the Ohio River.
The pols from my home state said that the only way to campaign among farmers was to pull up along the fence, get out, and commiserate with the farmer about how hard they worked and how no one appreciated them. That’s pretty much what Hillary and Bill did in the last three months of the campaign.
I take issue with the assertion that Hillary took the white working class vote from John Edwards. It was pretty well divided until Edwards was removed, then went very strongly toward her when the voters had a choice of two.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
” The fact that she did that – even with help from the media, as well as from bigotry, admittedly – was a feat.”
OK – but as I said, the task was made a lot easier by the fact that she was running against a black guy with a funny name. I agree with Michael Crosby that Edwards pulled out too early to tell whether or not he could have done better than Hillary with those voters. He might have. He obviously didn’t have BHO’s built-in disadvantages.
In fact, she had such a built-in advantage over Obama with these voters that the cornpone schtick may ultimately have had little to do with her success. But once she decided to belly up to the bar and drop her g’s the media was ready to lap it up as brilliant strategy and even as evidence of her blue collar bona fides.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I agree with evets that running against the black guy with a funny name was the main problem. It also mattered that he was new on the scene, which exacerbated the strangeness effect. But I do think you can’t discount (1) her ability to buck up the rural and small-town Democrats was surprising; and (2) Bill Clinton’s appearances in dozens of small towns who haven’t seen a live ex-President (and few enough Dead Presidents) was inestimably valuable.
And btw, the Crown Royal shooter was in a bar in Hammond, Indiana, home of some of the more idiosyncratic Democratic politicians in the nation. Downing a few before addressing the issues at hand is a tradition in Hammond.
Its former mayor, and my client in a previous life, addressed the sitting vice-president, Fritz Mondale, before dozens on a campaign train, as “You f****t,” and, clarifying, opined that “It’s f****ts like you that are ruining our country.”
June 17th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Obama is missing a great opportunity. Rather than make a pointless trip to the Middle East he should call McCain’s bluff and have those town meetings/debates. The idea that Johnny one-note will best him is ludicrous.
First Obama has the ideas – McCain more of the same old slop.
Second Obama is a quarter century younger and six inches taller. He’ll look young and vigorous – think JFK vs Nixon.
Look – the only way the GOP wins is to portray Barack as the “Other”
(Wish he were named “Harold Ford”)
If this is concentrated on issues and onappearences its a landslide!
June 17th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Re my last comment: The Texas GOP Convention is selling a button reading:
“If Barack Obama becomes President can we still call it the White House?”
‘Nuff said
June 18th, 2008 at 1:03 am
“Obama is a quarter century younger and six inches taller. He’ll look young and vigorous – think JFK vs Nixon”
Nixon merited enough reasons for Americans to vote against him – i.e., he was a nutbag – but rooting for the fact that Obama is more physically attractive than McCain is kind of like saying that whites are more better looking than black people. Both ideas are hogwash. This election should be decided on substance.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:46 am
“ingnorables” is “ignorable comments”
June 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
But Ric, I understand the gist of what you meant…politically, yes, it might be an advantage.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
David, Nixon was no “Nutbag” in 1960. People who heard those debates on radio went with tricky Dick. But TV viewers preferred JFK. Why He looked a lot more vigorous and “Leaderly.” Believe it or not there are studies that show that the taller candidate usually wins. And on the issues it isn’t close.
June 19th, 2008 at 3:59 am
“(Wish he were named ‘Harold Ford’)”
That really did Harold Ford a lot of good.
June 19th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Just meant the name sounds more “American” reg. I’ll guarentee you you’ll be hearing “Barack Hussein Obama” and Obama/Osama a lot from the 527s just to scare folks. Don’t think it will work but its really all they’ve got.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:15 am
rlc: “…its really all they’ve got.”
Not by a long shot.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 am
[...] I am quite privileged to have seen what was one of his last few performances. Just nine days ago, I had the extraordinary honor of watching him from quite literally front row-center as he did his latest routine at the Orleans show room in las [...]