THE DREAM, IMAGINATION AND THE REALITY (July 7)

And so it came to pass that Barack Obama-as best stated by my Republican cousin-"slayed the Hildebeast!"

Slaying McCain will likely prove easier. Satisfying Barack's own disparate supporters will be the greatest challenge of all, avoiding seduction beyond recognition by corporate America a close and most important second.

Why Obama's Ahead By More Than Any Poll Can Show

There are two overriding issues in this campaign: (1) Iraq, and (2) the Economy, which is inextricably related to Iraq, stupid. Iraq of course encompasses the entire Middle East. Beyond that, world opinion.

Most importantly though, in terms of the immediate election, Iraq is the hugest part of the economic disaster. Obama has a plan to stop the financial bleeding at least. McCain counters with a suggestion that we throw more and more money at a situation that becomes more entrenched every time we throw money at it. Whee…!

To repeat: Al Qaeda was a lunatic standing on the street corner screaming "America's the Great Satan!" before we invaded Iraq. Most Muslims considered the message absurd and largely irrelevant, if not necessarily offensive, but ever since we started bombing market places and invading homes an ever increasing number now consider the observation masterminding the obvious.

George W. Bush has been a far greater recruiter for Islamic extremism than any wild-eyed jackass with a big beard. George W. Bush has helped them achieve a social prominence, street credibility and intellectual respectability that was previously beyond not only their grasp but their imagination, and the entire situation could hardly be more disastrous.

The problems that we've aggravated have irreversibly degenerated to the point where we lack the credibility to change them. Militarily we can protect the Green Zone, almost all the time and for the foreseeable future, mostly, and the area immediately around our troops, often enough but not nearly enough. But in doing so we inevitably play into the hands of an enemy that we've had great difficulty identifying, more difficulty finding, and one that has all the time in the world.

They've been waiting for a thousand years, easily go another thousand, winning or losing like it's all the same, it's all service to Allah. Not my Allah, not your Allah, but that doesn't matter at all to them when they're thinking about their Allah. They're not going to blow over, like the Yippies.

Problems in Iraq are, just as they were when W. mistakenly thought something different, Iraqi problems. Iraqis will not accept imposed solutions. They do not want malls, as was suggested at one point. They have not welcomed us with flowers. They do not consider themselves children and they know we're not altruists. They aren't stupid. They have problems that can't be dealt with as long as we're there playing line leader. Earlier today our friends in the Iraqi government outlined their plans for the immediate future, and the centerpiece was a request that we get ready to leave.

McCain, on the other hand, wants to spend lots of money to stay. Vietnam. Except that this one has a spectacularly adverse effect on our economy, hopefully forever flushing the lie that wars are good for economies. A death worth blessing.

You got a kid you're willing to sacrifice for that?

Me either.

Obama's going to win this election because the Republicans-well meaning in some quirky way, but as usual to a fault-chose to run a guy who (1) was totally wrong on Iraq and still doesn't get it, despite the fact that approximately 70% of the electorate (up nearly 50% from February '02) finally understands what he still does not, and (2) sacrificed his strongest weapon-his previous opposition to the Bush economic program-at the altar of party unity in order to gain a tainted nomination.

The Third Issue (and fourth, whatever)

Today is June 6. We vote on November 4. The two big issues count as…seriously, right now about 93% of the issues as we sit here, but on that Tuesday it will be different. I promise you. Partly because of spin doctors, partly because this isn't a static environment.

McCain's only realistic hope is that Issue #3, whatever it might be (and he is clearly working on it), trumps Issues 1 and 2. Long shot. No way in hell Iraq will resolve itself-it could after a civil war or wars some time (pray it finds a better way, but don't look for encouragement to the nations around it), but not before OUR election anyway-or that the economy will get better-it might look that way and the reality is probably that it's not quite as terrible as it looks….in fact the most pivotal major economic blunders of the past decade (with the obvious exception of Iraq) are more in terms of opportunities missed. An economic boom with little effort made to ensure sustainability, and none at all towards the historic and time-honored goal of social justice. So now the fallout. Wow, so economics works in cycles and dumb decisions make the dips deeper …who's surprised?

Eight months ago every political skag worth his weight in Cliff's Notes was working on McCain's obituary and the celebration of Hillary's great breakthrough.

McCain has two potentially powerful issues (though nothing, it seems to me, to trump either Iraq or Economy/Iraq): campaign finance reform, and nuclear power.

Campaign Finance Reform

McCain should have been able to wield campaign finance reform like a wand: It's what he built his national reputation on, and Obama has reversed his previous intention (all together now Republicans, "Promise!") to accept public financing and its attendant spending limitations.

It's an easy enough Obama flip-flop to smear, but the sad reality is that even though it's an issue that underlies virtually every problem we have, the American public has never considered campaign finance reform particularly sexy. The mixed reality is that after currying favor from the worst of the worst wing of the Republican party, McCain's in his weakest position ever to push the matter. Opportunity not entirely lost, but terribly limited. "I used to stand for something, and if elected I will again…"

Obama's campaign claims that McCain would be able to outspend them if they didn't opt out of the public finance system. They offer enough credible evidence to believe that may be true, but I believe that it's their first major error in any event.

The public spectacle of Big John McCain outspending Skinny Obama (and the bipartisan populist rhetoric Obama could have deployed in debates: "How many million dollars do you believe it might take to make you appear Presidential, Mr. McCain? I can do it for five bucks and access.") might have brought campaign finance reform to life in a magnitude to give President Obama a national mandate on it, and an extended honeymoon period. Wildly popular legislation, the Union is Saved!

It would have unquestionably highlighted McCain's rush towards a particularly unpopular area of Republican orthodoxy, and his increasing willingness to appease the most unpopular elements of the party whose candidates he'd already defeated.

[it's too late for both of them, but just Imagine if they'd agreed to minimal spending limits, and filed an emergency brief asking the Supreme Court to suspend the mythological political "free speech" rights of any corporations, unions or organizations trying to buy campaign ads. It's so bogus. No one should have a political free speech right unless they have to nose to punch for exercising it.]

Instead it's now a potentially powerful piece of evidence that Obama plays the game, though plays it well, all the while engaging in calculations that don't necessarily have the most direct relationship with either Change or the social values of his supporters. I mean, hell, if Obama wants his calling card to be selling-out…why, hell, shitdog, McCain has WAY more experience selling out than Obama! And the evidence is growing daily…

Nukes 

Obama and McCain both have lousy records on nuclear power, by which I mean to say that they support it and, like every other one of its proponents, have no idea what to do with radioactive waste. McCain's support has generally been more enthusiastic (but not quite enough so to mortally offend Big Oil), and Obama's relatively tepid.

It should be noted at this point that national polls suggest third- and fourth-party challenges against McCain on the right from the Libertarian candidate, and Obama on the left from Ralph Nader, pulling 3 and 6 percent support, respectively. In other words, slightly more and double what Nader got blamed for in '00. Way more than enough to swing a close election, theoretically, depending on where those votes land.

Nuclear Power has long been a litmus issue on America's meaningful left, and Obama's on the wrong side of it. Nader's not. By declaring his alleged intention to build 45 more nukes (45!! Surely McCain's not that daft, a small fraction of that investment into solar and photovoltaic and you've actually got something…), McCain thinks he's driving Obama away from potential Nader voters like a cowboy gittin' a dogie back to the herd.

Something like that anyway. Obama's too smart to fall for the bait, and the American left hasn't seen a decent Democratic nominee in a very long time. We're starving. We're not going to blow it on nuclear power or absolutist demands relating to the implementation of the death penalty, however tempting that might be.

Nice try though, John.

…and Corporate America 

The biggest wild card in the campaign will not be whether the relative peace with Muqtada al-Sadr holds in Baghdad, or even whether or not we figure out the address of Bin Laden's cave. The biggest wild card of them all is whether corporate America picks a candidate or chooses to sit this one out and open training sessions for '12.. Obama could have pre-emptively nullified this issue by opting into the public financing system, but did not. (At that point corporate cash in McCain's hands could have only been poison. How many votes do you really think they've got?)

Early on corporate America was collectively (this is not conspiracy theory stuff, this is the kind of self-interest that made them corporate America in the first place…not a monolith, only shared [lack of] values and aesthetics) behind Hillary, with a dissenting minority often composed of the same people handing out support with both hands even more enthusiastic about Mitt Romney. Hillary was the frontrunner, she was of them, and so they backed her. How simple is that?

Something funny happened on the way to the coronation, and by the time McCain had knocked Romney out Hillary had lost ten states in a row. Loyalty has rarely topped the list of most implemented corporate values, and they quite reasonably backed off to reassess the situation.

Initially it almost appeared that the corporate masses, of cash and energy and influence, preferred Obama to McCain. Obama is, at least, competent and would not squander their earnings in Iraq. (That ostensibly sensible move to drive down oil prices and drive up profits has rawthuh long gone somewhere between sideways and pear-shaped, Change didn't even sound so bad to the most conservative [in the classical sense, opposing change] interests in the country.)

McCain is no dummy. Hence his move ever closer to the Reagan (and every president post-Reagan) credo of "ever more to those who already have damn near all of it anyway." I have an idea, let's build 45 nuclear reactors, at public expense. Trying to deal with the waste will create jobs! Line up for contracts and contribute.

Corporate America may or may not move. If they do it's not likely to resemble an honourable discussion amongst the landed British gentry. But it will be more powerful. Not indefensible, powerful.

It's Going to Get Weirder… 

…because McCain can't control his allies, and when he sees how far behind he is by September 1 he won't want to. The reality is that in the post-Goldwater (Republicans, feel free to call it post-Kennedy) world Republicans have been more sinister and bitchier and more lying bastards than Democrats, generally. I except the Clinton era, which was of course notable in its electoral success, and has officially ended.

This is not true of all Republicans, certainly-and McCain less than most-and the attendant reality is that the water coolers of the beltway are surrounded by Democratic operatives who can only stand by and jealously admire the most licentious efforts of their Republican counterparts.. There was recently a well considered article in New Republic urging Republicans not to fall into the Obama trap by acting like Nixons…

Still, it's almost enough to make you wonder if Obama might actually need the Clintons after all.

The answer is, HELL NO, GOD NO anything but that!

Obama is ideologically a fairly mainstream politician, but his electoral strategy has been radical, and entirely successful. Half of the country isn't registered, half of the registered ones don't vote. Obama said he could mobilize the masses and make them care, and so he has. By the millions so far, and by the tens of millions come November.

There is no better way to immobilize the equivocal masses than to follow the steps of McGovern in '72 ( sorry George, you would have made the way better president, but you blew it when you fired Gary Hart) and pander to the machine whose ass you just kicked! We don't like the machine, no one (outside the payroll) likes the machine, that's why Hillary has to make typically lame concession speeches.

That's why we don't want her, and can't have her increasingly bizarre husband.

Becoming President of the United States of America should demand some sort of genius. We've held the world number one ranking…well, indisputably for 60 years or so. No one wants us to be run down by Gerald Fords or Hubert Humphreys.

Obama's genius is not in polarising, as was Reagan's, but in uniting, as was Kennedy's. With Nixon gone, no one plays nasty as well as the Clintons, and we all saw how Obama handled that . But the reality is that, unlike the Clintons, for a lot of Republicans it's the only game they know. So they're gonna play it and with or without corporate funding. McCain couldn't stop them now, and won't later.

If the worst elements of the Republican Party gain corporate backing the best way to beat them back is to point out the deficiencies of the game we've mocked (and a "game" that would have horrified Thomas Jefferson), most particularly that it's not a game, that these rather serious decisions that affect a lot of [more than 3000 dead, how many wounded how many relatives? I'm one. My brother-in-law was an enthusiastic young man with four children but no politics; he came back from his second run in Iraq a thankfully unsuccessful suicide; it's ok now, he's on the treatment list] people who can't sign a check for $100,000.00 and then move over to the craps table to see how the food is …

Obama's defense has been to transcend the lowbrow nonsense, and so long as he can keep his profile on the high road it's the best defense that there is.

The Dream, the Imagination, and the Reality

Obama is the best nominee of any party in my voting life. McCain's the best Republican nominee of my voting life, though I admit that doesn't say much and as I've pointed out his fatal flaw makes him more bad than good.

Collectively, as a nation, we have done some things better to get to this better moment. Obama, McCain. Real differences, a real choice. One of them even a good choice, for a change.

God please don't let the candidates blow it for us.

It's going to get a lot weirder before Obama makes it cautiously, sensibly, incrementally but regularly better. That being the case he was probably wise to bring the Grateful Dead on board.

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