Bring It On! Election 2008

And it’s about time. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was supposed to provide hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America; and higher wages for American workers. And — get this! — NAFTA was going to boost the economy in Mexico so that impoverished Mexicans would no longer have to sneak across the American border. Hahahahahahaha.

You know that sheepish beat-yourself-up feeling you get after you’ve sent $50 to a post office box so you can find out about stuffing envelopes at home for thousands of dollars a week? Well, that’s how gullible Congress was when they bought this bill of goods in 1994.

This agreement has been etched in stone all during Clinton’s and Dumbya’s presidencies. But now Obama and Hillary (it has sort of a hollow ring to it in her case) are both talking about rewriting NAFTA so that it includes workers’ safety and environmental protections.

NAFTA was rammed through Congress by some of the world’s largest corporations. Undoubtedly these same 800-pound gorillas will throw their weight around if the next president tries to renegotiate the agreement.

McCain is taking the opposite side, warning of the dire consequences that will occur if NAFTA is renegotiated.

McCain said tampering with NAFTA could jeopardize the crucial military support we’ve been getting from Canada. Gee, I thought Canada was just a bunch of anti-war potsmoking gay-marrying socialists. Isn’t that what Rush O’Hannity is always saying?

McCain needs to get his Talking Points straight.

about what’s behind her when she faces people with cameras in their hands. Heh! The news site upon which it originally appeared seems to have thought better of publishing such a picture of a Clinton, even a Clinton on a greased rail to failure as a presidential candidate.

Those hoping for a kinder gentler presidential election complete with a heaping helping of compassionate conservatism might want to prepare themselves for a plate of partisan politics that will be far less palatable. I find myself suspecting that the GOP may be laying the groundwork for a bait and switch strategy aimed at satisfying voters newfound penchant for a civil campaign.

With the emergence of John McCain as the seemingly inevitable Republican nominee, voters may be under the impression that we’re moving beyond choreographed character assassinations and stealth swiftboating strategies. My hunch is that the GOP’s alternate approach includes John McCain appearing to take the high road while the usual suspects redouble their efforts to eviscerate the enemy.

I’ll try to explain. This week, we may have witnessed a preview of the plan. My concern is that the orchestration was evidenced in Bill Cunningham’s introduction of Senator McCain (and his effort to define Barack Obama)…which was followed by Senator McCain rapidly renouncing Cunningham’s remarks…even though the campaign had arranged the appearance of the raucous radio personality.

What happened before and after McCain’s criticism seems implausible to me. How could the McCain campaign have been so oblivious to what Cunningham was going to say? Why did Cunningham almost instantly withdraw his support for the Senator…stating instead that he would now join Ann Coulter in supporting Hillary Clinton? One, I can’t imagine the McCain campaign didn’t discuss the introduction with Cunningham. Second, I doubt anyone who is so well connected to a campaign such that they are chosen to introduce the candidate makes such an instantaneous about face. Hence, it’s important to analyze his actions; searching for the underlying objective.

Note that in shifting his support to Clinton, Cunningham has left himself room to change his mind should Obama be the Democratic candidate (the same candidate he sought to define as a soft on terror Muslim sympathizer). If we project ahead, let’s suppose Obama is the Democratic nominee; leaving the Coulter’s and Cunningham’s of the GOP without a candidate. We could assume they won’t vote…or we could assume something far more strategically savvy. Using Cunningham’s own word, I look for these current outliers to suddenly announce their own “kumbaya” moment…the one that states, “I actually supported Hillary Clinton…and that’s a difficult calculation to make…but when I imagine an Obama presidency as the alternative to John McCain, I have to support John McCain”.

So what does this achieve? Well, it sends GOP voters two important messages. First, it says that some establishment conservatives were actually willing to support one of the most reviled Democrats (Clinton)…a candidate the base could never support. Second, once Obama became the candidate, those same establishment conservatives decided to come back and support John McCain…because Barack Obama must be worse than Hillary Clinton. So what is the conclusion GOP voters will be asked to draw? If the choice in November is between John McCain and a candidate that is worse than Hillary Clinton, they have to get out and support John McCain.

By utilizing this approach, it allows people like Cunningham and Coulter to continue to rail against Obama as they supposedly support Clinton…all the while further defining Obama as worse than Hillary…doing the work for the McCain campaign while he keeps his hands clean and moves to higher ground. At the same time, the media darling McCain can stay below the radar and avoid being directly associated with the scorched earth strategy.

The bottom line is that the GOP desperately needs to define Obama…negatively. Having the GOP candidate do this dirty work isn’t ideal in 2008 given that a majority of voters don’t seem inclined to accept more of the partisanship fostered by the likes of Karl Rove. If this can be achieved by unattached surrogates who also have the ear of those Republican’s less apt to be enthused with a McCain candidacy, all the better.

If they succeed, then the entire GOP can sit down at the table…together with the independent and moderate voters they must have to win in November…ready to indulge in the equivalent of a twice baked batch of kinder, gentler, compassionate and conservative, comfort food…a delectable dish of “Krafty Mac & Sleeze”.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

People who know me know I’m no fan of Maureen Dowd. She has no self editing, and considering her national exposure, I find this lack careening between pathetic and alarming, with an occasional off-road trip into ludicrous, irresponsible claptrap. To wit:

Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender. — Maureen Dowd

A sphincter says what? The only reason the press treats Hillary as a contender after 11 losses is to sell papers and magazines. If there is no race, there’s no story. Same with the whole brokered convention wet dream. Please — cut the sanctimonius drivel about open mindedness.  This is a bottom line industry masquerading as a bastion of independence. After the BushCo pass the media handed out for seven years, nobody believes the corporate press has a mindset that can’t be monetarily persuaded. (You want access? Report only what we want and you’ll get to write something that will sell your cellulose.)

We’re dealing with a delusional national mindset of “I said it, so it must be so”. How long America is content to be the lip-sticked pig in the global playpen is anybody’s guess. A little critical thinking would go a long way.

In the spirit of “utter open-mindedness”, I say we start with Ms. Dowd.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less if John McCain is a womanizer. If so, that puts him on par with most of his colleagues and many of his fellow citizens. Frankly, if he is, it’s not a predictor of competence and it shouldn’t automatically disqualify a candidate from consideration. Nonetheless, it may make sense to seek an understanding of the behaviors that might accompany an individual’s propensity to engage in such escapades.

I’ve known men that are virtually unable to function without the prospect of a budding relationship…whether married or not. Men of this ilk are prisoners of their prurient pursuits. They are apt to make compromising decisions that jeopardize their existing relationships as well as their own well-being. Money is often no object and they will frequently take unwise and unwarranted risks. Hence, when these individuals are in the throes of their latest interlude, their judgment is not only suspect; it may well be incorrigible.

As I read the accounts of Senator McCain’s involvement with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, I immediately recalled watching an episode of Headliners and Legends chronicling his life. The pursuit of women was a persistent theme of the biography…a pattern not only confirmed by friends of McCain; but also by McCain himself.

In one particular segment of the program, McCain basically states that he and his fellow servicemen were preoccupied with seeking female companionship. While understandable given the circumstances, the manner in which the Senator recounted the story immediately reminded me of my discomfort with his habit of winking at people on the campaign trail. Instinctually, both instances strike me as part and parcel of a persona I might be inclined to suspect is focused on the pursuit of the opposite sex…a behavior set I would equate with a tendency towards objectification.

As the biography progresses, the narrator notes that McCain’s first wife Carol waited patiently for his release from his captors only to see their marriage fall apart as a result of the Senator’s many extramarital dalliances. When asked about that period of time, McCain’s former wife, a victim of a disabling car accident, apparently told others that once her husband turned forty, he decided he wanted to be twenty five again. Hence, he divorced his first wife and soon married his much younger (and wealthy) current wife Cindy.

In the biography, McCain speaks about his affairs and while he accepts blame and acknowledges his actions were inappropriate, he also posits that he was motivated by “selfishness and immaturity”. In my way of thinking, I could entertain giving him the benefit of the doubt had he suggested that his actions may have been a reaction to his years of confinement and the denial it certainly included. To his credit, he refuses to offer that rationale, though it’s possible he did so because it wouldn’t square with his history of womanizing prior to his stint in Vietnam.

Returning to the New York Times report, I was particularly struck by the following excerpt:

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

What troubles me about this revelation is the sense, by his advisors, that the Senator was capable of sabotaging his own campaign. Presumably, the advisors had a good sense of their candidates idiosyncrasies…a fact that seems to have led them to conclude the Senator lacked the proper judgment with regard to romantic involvements. Whether this caution resulted from prior experiences wasn’t revealed…but it isn’t much of a stretch to draw that conclusion given the Senator’s self-confessed track record.

So where does that leave us? Well, as is so often the case with such stories, we’re forced to rely upon the speculations of others. Clearly, the Senator’s history has contained instances of a similar nature and he freely admits as much. Whether he does so to help him arrive at the current straight talking maverick war hero image may never be known…though he wouldn’t be the first public figure to craft a message that masks the actual man. Lastly, he can ill-afford to acknowledge an infidelity or an influence peddling impropriety at this critical juncture in his political life. Such is the nature of the political beast.

Rather than focus on this current assertion, I decided to have a little fun developing my own theory of McCain-ometrics. First, some background facts are needed. In 1965, at the age of 29, McCain married his first wife. In 1979, 14 years later, at the age of 43, McCain began courting his future second wife. In 1980 he left his first wife, who was 2 years his junior, for his new 27 year old wife…17 years younger. Nearly 20 years later, in 1999, at the age of 62, McCain is reported to have become “involved” with a 31 year old woman who was also roughly 31 years younger than he.

So here’s the formula and a riddle. John McCain spends 14 years with his first wife (Carol)…and then finds a new love interest (Cindy in 1979 - 1980)…and then, down the road, in approximately half again more years…minus one…(14 + 7 - 1 = +20 = 1999), he finds Vicki. Simultaneously, he doubles the net age difference between himself and each subsequent (love) interest…going from a baseline of a woman 2 years younger (Carol) to one 17 years younger (Cindy) for a net of 15 additional years younger…which means we must double the 15 year age gap to predict that the subsequent (love) interest would be approximately 30 years younger (Vicki 31, John 62 in 1999). Let’s also assume that John McCain doubles the years he stays married to each wife…plus one…thus 14 years with Carol x 2 + 1 = 29 years with Cindy. As such, he should be due for both a new (love) interest and wife in 2009 (14 + 7 - 1 = +20 plus half again more (minus one) = 20 + 10 - 1 = +29 years…or 2009).

OK, so if one applies this formula, how old would you approximate his new (love) interest and bride to be when he marries her and how many years would you anticipate he’d remain married (assuming he lives that long, of course) to this third wife?

You see, when it comes to the “evil” New York Times, I just hate to think that Republicans would conclude that its tawdry invective can’t be substantiated through a mathematical metric. I know I feel better having put pencil to paper.

P.S. Feel free to offer your answers…or your own equations in the comments. I’ll provide the answer derived from my metric in the comments at the end of the day.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater