Of Moose and Men (aaaaargh!)/Celebrate good times, come on!

My favorite moment of the election was in mid-September, back when everyone was taking Sarah Palin seriously. Way too seriously, it turned out, but that was hard for a lot of people to see at the time. All they knew was that a big lead had turned into a deficit overnight, the momentum of the election had dramatically changed, no one cared about the big speech in Denver anymore and a lot of very bright pundits were trying to tell us that the Women of America were about to, quite nearly en masse, support a ticket because it had an anti-choice woman on it.

Obama was addressing one of those high-heeled bigwig Hollywood fundraisers, the kind where they look down on small town middle Americans who repeatedly vote against their own economic interests in the name of that trilogy (God/guns/apple pie) that must have had political substance at some point but has been used to trick them ever since.

Hollywood concedes hand-wringing to no one. It is a moment-to moment-phenomenon, everyone does it. The great ones often do it best, and so are admired for it. Manifesting frustration is-in the upside down context of tinseltown-considered a strength. Probably because so many hangers-on are always so happy to jump up and act like it’s a big deal and do something about it (whatever it is, we’re talking lighting and backdrops).

So the Hollywood elite of hand-wringers and gopher ranchers and do-gooding as a part time hobby sophisticates were less enthusiastic coughing up their cash than they had been. Perhaps this scene calls for more anger, they suggested, and a rabid denunciation of that awful woman from the frozen tundra. Obama, who hadn’t done worse than call Palin a “moose shooter,” listened. Yes, others went on, let’s make this a big scene where we prove how tough we are, they really buy that in theaters all over the world, males being tough. Let’s do it. Obama listened. “Let’s smack her right in the mouth!” shouted one resembling Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (or did Madonna shout that?), and then they all went on clamouring like that for awhile. Finally the great man could stand it no more.

“I’m from Chicago,” he said, “We don’t play.” And there was calm.

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There’s no reason to pretend that McCain ran an intelligent campaign, but the question is whether he could have picked up the Republican nomination if he had. I don’t mean that to be as condescending as it sounds.

A year ago McCain’s campaign was in the proverbial toilet. He was pulling single digits nationally, among Republicans. He underwent a conversion on the road to New Hampshire and adopted George W. Bush’s economic strategies in near toto. Including the ever popular tax breaks for the rich instead of anyone else. (I can never figure it out, why street Republicans would incessantly fall for this, but I think that a lot of it has to do with street Republicans liking to pretend that they’re rich, too, and so winners of some sort)

Everyone got a better look at Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani and McCain’s stock soared. Would it have if he would have held his economic ethical ground? Hard to say. I say it probably would have, the competition being what it was.

He certainly would have been in better position for the general election, no question about that. He wouldn’t have been hog-tied to policies generally perceived to have brought about the near and/or impending collapse of damn near everything having to do with money.

For reasons that I still don’t understand, McCain only mentioned in passing his previous life as a campaign finance reformer. I know it pisses off Republicans (the ones who like to pretend that they’re rich, and so running things), but it was the only crossover issue he had. There was never an opening to convince many more people that Iraq is about to turn into Switzerland, or that abortion is a mortal sin or that being held hostage in Southeast Asia qualifies one for senior administrative duty in Washington. Plenty of people already believed those things, there just was never much point in trying to convince anyone who hadn’t already fallen for it.

McCain ran a terrible campaign. It wasn’t quite as bad as John Kerry’s four years ago, and at least McCain has the excuse that he doesn’t think he would have been nominated if he hadn’t adopted his most ridiculous positions. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, “You’ve got to run with the party you’ve got.”

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McCain never gained any kind of focus on what he was trying to do. He simply flailed around, hoping something would stick. My personal favorite is his near obsession with Bill Ayers.

Ayers, the ‘60s revolutionary/terrorist, probably most irritated McCain by not making the stupid mistake of going to Vietnam in the first place. No, Ayers made his own mistakes.

Still, this all deserves more than a glance, and more sober consideration than anyone has cared to give it. John McCain’s great strength, as everyone including Barack Obama agrees, is that he’s a war hero.

The Vietnam War found John McCain falling for a hopelessly flawed foreign policy perspective and enforcing it by fruitlessly invading a foreign country and trying to kill its inhabitants including innocent ones, “collateral damage” being even more widespread then than it is now. He primarily distinguished himself in this regard by being captured, whereupon he signed a (not particularly inaccurate) confession as a war criminal, after being tortured. [I am NOT criticizing McCain for signing the confession, I’m sure I would have done the same if I’d put myself in that situation, I’m merely clearing up a historical situation that many prefer to remain murky.]

Bill Ayers, confronted with the same fact situation, set about trying to end the fruitless invasion and all the collateral damage it entailed. His methodology was suspect-blowing up toilet seats after warning people that they were going to blow up and all that-Ayers also risked the lives of the innocent.

But if McCain is admirable because he showed courage, Ayers showed no less. If McCain is admirable because he stuck to his guns, Ayers trumps him. If McCain is admirable because he got caught and did relatively little damage, Ayers also got caught but did less. If you want to get all nationalist about it, at least Ayers got caught by Americans.

I’m sorry, I’m having some difficulty identifying the war hero in this picture.

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I hope McCain goes back to being an independent, conservative senator from Arizona, like he used to be. He’s not presidential timbre and never was. But he had good political instincts and he was sincere. There’s never enough of that around.
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Sarah Palin is a trickier question. She was in even deeper over her head, and it’s difficult to argue that she’s the brightest gal on the block, but there’s something in her weaknesses that can’t be so easily dismissed.

If McCain hadn’t been so desperately behind no one would have ever considered her for VP, and no one should have anyway. She wasn’t ready. Realizing this they made the matter worse by hiding her and only letting her out on safe occasions. This was even dumber than nominating her in the first place.

Besides campaign finance reform, McCain’s strongest suit was experience. Sure he’d been wrong a lot but he’d been there, and could argue [as he did in relation to the ethical difficulties that defined his early days in the senate] that he would not repeat his mistakes. Of course the minute he put Palin on the ticket any experience argument was shot to hell.

So now they have Palin out there, and she’s popular but it’s dawning on them that the national media does things a little bit different than they do in Wasilla. They had to throw her out of the nest and hope she flies, man, it was their only chance! Instead they threw a spotlight on her weaknesses by keeping her out of sight. They made it appear that she was even rougher than she really was. By the end of the campaign she was resenting it and McCain was a house very divided, the Palin camp making decisions in reference to some future election.

So I don’t think Palin is ever going to be a reasonable candidate for national office and her positions range from poorly considered to absurd, for the most part.

But her “scandals” deserve more reflection. She broke the rules (I guess they’re saying she didn’t now, but it sure looks like she did to me) to fire her brother in law from the police? Have you looked at the evidence? The guy was a nut, he didn’t belong on the force and there’s a lot to be said for bringing down rogue cops. She skewed the bidding process on that great oil pipeline? How did she do it? She did it so Exxon and BP couldn’t expand their stranglehold on the economy of Alaska. Liberals think that’s bad?

It may well be that she had the bad cop fired because she’s a petty and vindictive bitch, and she got rid of Exxon so she could give the contract to someone more likely to pump the cash back into her campaigns, but those are open questions. I’m not as ready to write her off entirely as some folk are.

I will, however, be composing legislation directing the Obama Administration to arm the mooses.

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It’s a good day today. Obama’s going to have to figure out how to right the economy, and unlike this campaign that can’t be done from the bottom up. To whatever extent they’re genuinely concerned, Obama can expect support and assistance from the big economic guns. But maybe less as the next election nears and Romney sticks his little pink nose into the air. There’s going to be a balance to that, there’s going to be some luck involved. The Taliban’s not going to suddenly turn good.

For today he encounters the balance of mourning his grandmother, and basking in his election. He’s shown incredible grace under fire and toughness beyond.

We did the right thing. For a change.

Obama please lead us back home

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