Cowboys and Unicorns
The American Prospect’s Jaime Fuller — yes, we’re that bored with the news — proposes a simple comparison to place the Republican primary race in context:
The reason Obama beat Clinton in 2008 is because independent and moderate voters — the bread and butter of general elections — are mostly irrelevant in primary elections where passionate partisans drive decision-making. Obama looked like the best candidate to liberal Democrats in 2008 — in part because of his long-standing opposition to the Iraq War — and those are the voters who matter most in the primaries for both parties.
In case Jaime Fuller missed the news: Barack Obama also won the 2008 general election.
You know, the one independents and moderates vote in.
Not only that, Obama was leading in electoral-college poll-tracking all summer. The reason anybody even knows about Sarah Palin is that John McCain was desperate after his “Celebrity” ads fell flat. And even then, Palin’s value to his ticket lasted only until a nice lady asked about her reading habits.
So why did Unicorn beat Swampsow that spring?
Well, he didn’t. Not every time, anyway. He won some key votes, lost others. He didn’t seal the deal until late in the season, and still it wasn’t certain that Hillary would play nice at the convention.
And while we can’t speak for our fellow travelers, we can say this: While we had first approvingly noticed Obama during a 2007 interview with Jon Stewart, we didn’t support him until the night of the Iowa Caucus — when he demonstrated he was a Viable Candidate. Our vote may not count for much, but we have no interest in throwing it away on moral preening.
In so many words: Obama looked like the best candidate to win the presidency, not just the nomination. And for once, we happened to be right.
Jaime Fuller happens to be right, too, but for the wrong reason:
The same fundamentals are working to push Perry to the forefront now. Tea Partiers —the most vocal contributors in the primaries—find the ‘ponzi scheme’ Perry more attractive than his more moderate rival, just as Clinton couldn’t compete with the passionate rhetoric that liberals craved, and Obama offered, after eight years of Bush.
Fuller is right that Rick Perry gets the benefit of the teabagger gut call, but not because Romney is now (and Hillary was then) the “moderate”. Perry, like Obama in 2008, is seen as the authentic candidate, competing against an untrustworthy triangulator. If you don’t understand Perry’s intuitive appeal to his audience, you’re missing the essential dynamic. These things can’t be charted on a Left/Right axis.
Which leads back to our fundamental question in the months ahead: Presuming — as we do — that he survives the primaries, will Rick Perry’s act play nationally? We haven’t seen it yet, and absent electoral-vote gaming in Pennsylvania, we’re still calling it an Obama landslide next November.
Unless, of course, Americans are even crazier than we thought.
Today in SAT Prep: Romney Is to Clinton as Perry Is to Obama [American Prospect, via Sully]
It’s not even 2012! Librul please (I’m looking AT YOU FULLER.)
A big difference was in 2007, Barry was just a blip… a nice want to have blip who was outgunned by the vast Clinton war chest and Hilsbot’s inevitable destiny.
Who knew that Barry was going to win by playing guerrilla warfare on Hilsbot and that Mark Penn was/is a complete fucking egotistical moron?
As for triangulator… Hils had more sophistication than that. Mittens wishes he were one. He’s just a weather vane robot saying what he thinks people want to hear. Can’t trust someone who thinks he’s being sophisticated and coy while actually being clumsy and obvious (Dunning Kruger Syndrome or Sarah Palin) to even the intellectually challenged Teabag Party.
I suspect that GOPer best case scenario of “Preznit” Mittens would make the buffoonery of W’s foreign policy look like Bismark’s or worse, Kissinger’s. I don’t even want to think about what Perry would be like…
In “oh wow… what an asshole… it’s too damn early for this shit” kind of news:
A friend of mine sent me this…
http://www.catholic.org/health/story.php?id=42795
A Philadelphia woman who gave her son a kidney to save his life has been fired for exceeding her vacation time.
Claudia Rendon had already exhausted all her vacation time at the Aviation Institute of Maintenance, in northeast Philadelphia, earlier in the year following the death of her mother and uncle and her father’s diagnosis with leukemia. When she requested a leave of absence to undergo surgery to donate a kidney to her son, Alex, her boss made her sign a paper which said her job could not be guaranteed.
Late last week, as she was preparing to go back to work, her employers notified her that they had hired somebody else.
Speaking of moral preening, check out this love note: http://ronkayela.com/2011/09/whose-environment-whose-protec.html. Good thing he doesn’t know about the new Escalade full of Thai hookers that the developer sent to my house.
@Dodgerblue: Homeboy needs a copy editor to fix the typos and grammar mistakes in his tirade.
ADD: Thai hookers? Don’t tell TommCatt.
@Dodgerblue: This David Petit person seems to be as big an asshole as Mike Lee. And I did not think that was possible. To assuage his overweening ambition he OKs a Sport building of some kind and closes the door on non-union labor. I’m sure we can all agree that this is contemptible behavior and crony capitalism at its most blatant. I bet he drives a Hummer.
And as everyone knows, ‘petit’ is French for ‘pencil dick.’
@Dodgerblue: @SanFranLefty: Next time, ask for Vietnamese. They tend to be smaller, so you can fit more in the back seat.
Did somebody bring up Thai hustlers? How much? Where? Do they give you a bath afterward?
@Dodgerblue: When they hate you you know you’re doing something right, IMHO…
@Benedick: I dunno. These Woodstock poseurs are in contention.
@flypaper: Noted, thank you.
@Benedick: This asshole has also been criticized by the historically anti-union local fishwrap for being in an “unholy alliance” with labor on certain issues, leading him to have t-shirts made bearing that phrase. I need to talk to that asshole Mike Lee about sales opportunities for these rare and collectible shirts. The small sizes, btw, look very good on pugs.
@ManchuCandidate: Also, too, good luck to her with her health insurance coverage if she has any complications as a result of the kidney donation. She better hope she can hold out until the ACA’s pre-existing condition clause takes effect in 2014.
Barry had me after his speech at the 2004 convention – I know, I’m easy, what can I say.
Regarding the American electorate, crazy isn’t even the chief characteristic to describe them/us. Lazy describes those who are eligible and do not vote. Steeeeoooopid describes those of the middle class that do not realize time and again that they are not voting for their own interest when they vote Repugnican.
@DElurker: Me, I had completely forgotten about the convention speech by the time I saw Barry on the Daily Show. Probably because I was deliberately blanking out All Things 2004.
Everything except Jon Stewart’s plea to American voters the night before the election: “Please make my job difficult.”
Americans ARE crazier than you think. Bush was elected then re-elected. Even after Bush proved he was a fuck-up he was reelected.
We are headed down the shit hole. Perry is the knee jerk reaction.
2000 popular vote…
Bush: 50,456,062
Gore: 50,996,582
And while, yes, Shrub won 2004 by 3 million votes, you have wartime incumbency working in his favor. And a lousy Demrat candidate. To folks not paying attention — i.e., Americans — the Fuckup Fallout didn’t emerge until the next year.
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