Idiot's Delight

A close friend recently called to ask if I had DVRed the "town meeting" last weekend among the Presidential candidates Obama and McCain and the Evangelist Reverend Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose-Driven Life," the most anti-existential of titles. She was surprised when I said I hadn't and I was equally surprised at her reaction. She knew well that I am an atheist. As I explaiend to her, "You already have two politicians primed to bullshit, and their subject matter is total bullshit, so there would be two guys bullshitting about bullshit." Okay, it may work for Penn and Teller, but for me it would have been terribly dismaying.

Not nearly as dismaying, I'd say, as the latest Zogby poll, released today, which for the first time has McCain in a popular-vote lead, and not by the smallest margin. Obama is losing ground and McCain gaining traction. To put it mildly, what the fuck is going on?

The hopeful apologist in me can cite a few recent events that have probably helped gravitate more people toward the Republican, not the least of which is the aforementioned religious confab. It was on McCain's home turf, and he provided the masses with the proper straightforward sound bytes, as in his response to Warren's question as to"when life begins in the womb." McCain responded, knee-jerkedly, "At the moment of conception," an answer he would never have provided when he was the "Maverick," but now must blurt out as rehearsed. Big applause, of course. And when Obama responded with a sensible, humble and quasi-scientific answer "that knowledge is beyond my pay grade," he satisfied no one with the nuance or thoughtfulness, except to thoughtful persons who would be voting for him anyway. Sorry, Barack, you don't win over converts with intellectual verbiage. As my friend, after viewing the discussion later said to me, "It's like Adlai Stevenson all over again." And she may be right.

Then there are the ongoing International events of 1) the Olympics and 2) blatant Russian aggression against a neighboring democracy. The first event, with all the red white and blue jingoistic coverage, could work subtly to rev up the viewers' patriotism, and who is more of a symbol of American heroism than John McCain? Okay, Michael Phelps maybe, but he is only 23 and a geek. And when Russia violated every historical precedent by waging war during the Olympic games--something Sparta and Athens would never have done--it also dredged up Cold War fears and our insecurity, which called for a Daddy figure to protect us. An Eisenhower or a Reagan, please. The Old Soldier, McCain, closely fits that bill. Forget that Obama would be the choice of about 90% of the people who filled the Bird's Nest for the Opening Ceremonies. Who needs a citizen of the 21st Century world when we have that reliable relic of our 19th Century military imperialism?

In addition, there is the latest hatchet job by Jerome Corsi, a pack of lies called "The Obama Nation" (not a bad title, as puns go), whose credibility and cachet was supported by its leading the New York Times book list. It did so because of the bulk purchasing by right-wing organizations, but even the little bullet on the list that indicates that was hardly noticed. Hmm, says the gullible idiot in Ohio or Virginia who is impressed by superficial numbers. Maybe Obama is a radical Muslim after all. Enough may have been affected by the slanderous ad hominem attacks against Obama that the tide has turned. It worked for the Swift Boaters, why not again? Swift boating may have become the common metaphor for campaign slime, but it not only got us for more years of W, but its prime 2004 benefactor, T. Boone Pickens, is now an environmentalist hero. So much for bad karma.

Even the price of gas is militating toward a greater appreciation of McCain. Now that it has retreated (thanks to the normal give-and-take of supply and demand), the simpleminded American public may be starting to associate his demands for more drilling as the impetus for price reduction.

Obama was of on vacation and his reactions to the Corsi book and the Russian invasion have been muted, so that has not worked in his favor either. But he is about to leap back onto center stage with the first big preliminary coming momentarily, the announcement of his veep pick. And then the big show next week in Denver, culminating in his stadium oration, which could be a make or break moment for him, if he can rouse the sleeping voters with some great populist oratory. I am less capable a political forecaster than a baseball prognosticator, but it stills seems likely that he will chose a running mate with foreign policy gravitas to counter McCain's, and one who can be an effective hatchet man while Obama walks the more dignified path. All the pundits say that person is Joe Biden, and I'd agree.

But if Obama is courageous and pragmatic, and leery of his inability to grow in the esteem of the voting public, he might pull out the stops and go for Hillary. That would still be his best shot to galvanize all the democrats, and to win.