Super Tuesday: A Revelation

Remember when you were a kid and your mother put something on your plate you didn’t recognize and said, “Eat it. It’s good?” And remember that sudden, life-changing understanding you had when you took the first bite and realized that the world was a hard and cruel place where a mother would betray her own child? Revelations come to us all: every now and then, our eyes open just a little wider and a liitle more light comes in. The irony is, most of the time when this happens, the world actually gets just a little darker.

I love politics. It’s the thing that separates us from the beasts. Throughout history, it has protected us from the bullies who roam this earth. It allows people like me to say what I like without looking over my shoulder for the boys with the electrodes. It delivers us from anarchy (which, by the way, has never been our natural state.) It prevents chaos in a world where next-door neighbours don’t necessarily like each other. It organizes us to achieve and accomplish things we could never do individually, and it keeps us from butchering each other with any more alacrity than we already possess. Without politics, our world would look very much like the Dark Ages – scary, brutish and nasty.

Politics is the only human activity that combines our noblest ideals with our scuzziest behaviour. It’s the real Sport of Kings. And the rules of the game are very simple: there are no rules. There never have been. Ever since the first Egyptian tough guy discovered that Pharaoh sounded a lot classier than “that mean bugger over on the Nile,” there has been only one guiding principle to political life – you’re useless unless you win. It doesn’t matter how altruistic your ideals, how noble your cause or how brilliant your solutions, without power you’re just another philosopher without a kingdom. This is why, across history, so many men (and a whole lot of women) have assembled and excused all manner of low-life “ends justify the means” schemes and sacrificed more than their honour on the altar of political power. It’s the way of the world. You don’t have to like it; but it is the nature of political power.

Unfortunately, this leads us to the current crew of Republicans who wish to become the most powerful man in the world. Their brand of “all’s fair” in primary campaigning is stooping to a new low. In fact, they actually reached rock bottom some time ago, and now they’re starting to dig. For the first time in my political awareness (and understand, I remember Richard Nixon!) I’m holding my nose. Never in the history of political conflict has so much dirt been thrown so far for so little gain. Look, men! If you’re going to sling mud, at least make sure it sticks. Not only that, but I’m not even certain these guys watch the news. It’s the economy, stupid! Yet, every time I turn around, one of them wants to bomb Iran, build a mansion on the moon or eliminate representation without taxation — meanwhile, stopping time entirely and returning the social calendar back to when Eisenhower was running the show. Is anybody serious, here? Take a look at yourselves, you guys! You’re yapping on, as if you can change the world, but everybody and his puppy knows you spent last week hiding out from Rush Limbaugh, for God’s sake! Not one of you called him out, and every one of you should have.

As of close of business yesterday, Barack Obama still had the keys to the White House, and Super Tuesday or not, the Republican Party is no closer to calling dibs on the lease. Somewhere around Ohio, I had the revelation that these three pretenders (Sorry, Ron! You never had a hope!) just don’t have the cojones for the job.

Politics is about ideas, but you can idea ‘til you’re blue in the face: eventually you have to do something about it. You have to generate some excitement. You have to gather the tribes and give them something to hope for… something to vote for. This primary season is turning into the bland leading the bland, and nobody seems capable of putting it away. Somebody’s going to win the nomination, obviously, but unless that somebody steps up and demonstrates political power, it’s not going to mean much. Barack Obama isn’t a very good president, but he’s a great politician. From what I’ve seen so far, that’s something the Republicans candidates aren’t. Right now, it doesn’t matter who wins: come November, Obama’s going to beat their brains out. It will be the worst defeat since Lyndon Johnson kicked Goldwater’s ass back to Arizona in ’64.

Last night, looking at the Super Tuesday numbers from Ohio, I suddenly realized: today, the world is a harder, crueler place.

Sarah Palin vs Kim Jong-il

Sarah Palin is so furious with the North Koreans right now, she can’t think straight, and if she ever does get to be president, Kim Jong-il better find himself a rock to crawl under. Our girl holds a grudge, and Kimmy is going to be Numero Uno on her whip-ass list. You betcha! So what did Kim do that was so terrible, aside from that whole nuclear weapons thing? He stole Sarah’s headlines. On Tuesday, Sarah Palin was all set up to launch her book, America by Heart, and her 2012 presidential campaign when along came Kim and started pumping artillery shells into South Korea. Suddenly, the cameras were pointed east and Sarah was drinking tea by herself. It was all a bunch of Jong-il bluster and “You’re not the boss of me” bull, but the damage was done and Palin is pissed – and so are a lot of other people. This is the crux of what Sarah Palin is all about. She represents a whole pile of angry people who are looking for answers – when nobody is listening to their questions.

In 2008, Barack Obama promised Hope and Change to just about every mammal on this planet (I’m sure some dolphins voted for the guy) and he hasn’t delivered. History is going to write volumes on the wherefore and the why of that, but unless you’re keeping score, it was a pretty tall order in the first place. Honestly, anybody without a halo was going to fall short on that one. Two years later, voters from Codstomper, Maine to Extraflaky, California told him — point blank — “Shape up!” but so far it doesn’t look like he’s listening. The Obama message is still the same with a “but” added as an explanation and a “you don’t understand” thrown in as an excuse. Meanwhile, the Republican alternatives are so low profile you’d think they’d all just made the rude noise in the elevator. Ordinary Americans, who’ve been taking a knee to the groin for a while now, are desperate to find a flicker at the end of the tunnel. Enter Sarah Palin.

Like her or not, Palin is just saying the same thing a lot of people have been thinking for a long time (long before Obama, actually.) “Hold it! There’s something wrong here.” The American middle class is just about fed up with getting kicked around. They’re sick of being called names and told they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re tired of working their asses off and then getting handed the bill. They see themselves as used and abused and at the mercy of every wild-eyed committee with a cause and an outstretched palm. They think special interest groups have kidnapped their government, and they’re the ones who have to pay the ransom. They see their accumulated wealth being turned into diminishing returns, and they no longer see their tax dollars as a good investment. (Does any of this sound familiar, by the way?) The other thing that Palin is saying that a lot of people, including myself, agree with, is — “Hey! How hard can this be?” Palin might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but she’s captured the mood of the mob insofar as they speak with one voice.

Which brings us around to the essential question: how big is that voice, and can it turn 2012 into a circus? Maybe. America by Heart is Palin’s political manifesto. In it she takes some healthy swings at Obama and the Democrats, but she also lays some right jabs into the Republicans, as well. This isn’t just Tea Party propaganda. She’s trying to reshape the political landscape. You heard it here first. The Republican Party can do a lot of things between now and the 2012 primaries — including finding a candidate who isn’t camera shy — but the one thing they’d better not do is ignore Sarah Palin. She’s served notice that there’s a new kid on the block who’s not going to play by the rules. Up to this point, she hasn’t had to because, for the last two plus years, she’s worked really really hard at doing absolutely everything wrong, but still nobody gets more media time than Sarah Palin. Just think about it — it took a belligerent act of aggression by a maverick nuclear power to knock her out off the front page. And speaking of Kim Jong-il, quite a few people around the world wouldn’t mind seeing Palin, or somebody like her, go Maggie Thatcher on his ass and beat the crap out of that little punk.

Welcome to the Tea Party

Okay, you won the election — mostly. You took the best Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann and the girls on The View could throw at you and you won. You beat the elites. You’re dancing in the streets. Hold it! Stop! Alto! You didn’t do anything. Despite whatever you folks were telling each other last night in the euphoria and the moonlight, this is the morning after, so let’s all get outta bed and go catch the reality bus. Last night was an off-year, off-speed, mid-term election. People are angry. The country is in the middle of one of the worst recessions (dare I use the D-word) in history, and just about everybody has taken it in the goonies. And besides all that, 2008 and Obama’s coattails served you up a Democratic majority in Congress that had no business being there. So, if you hadn’t won last night — and won big — we’d all be writing the eulogy and digging the hole by now.
But before you start doing the happy dance and repainting the Oval Office just in time for 2012, let me let you in on a little secret: Barack Obama wasn’t running for office in 2010. He was likely sitting at home, in the White House, watching the results on his presidential big screen TV — and so were his troops. There’s a room full of boring CNN stats that prove this, but here’s the only one that matters. In 2008, 126.4 million people voted; in 2010, only about 95 million did. Duh! The kids saw the avalanche and stayed home. They’re not going to make that same mistake twice.
“But we’ve won a great victory,” you say. “We must keep up the pressure,” you say. “We must march on the White House and beat those champagne glasses into beer mugs,” you say. ”No retreat! No Compromise!”
History teaches us something different. In 216 BCE, Hannibal won a great victory over the Romans at Cannae. The road to Rome was open. His Nubian cavalry could have been there in a day – two, at the most. His generals urged him to march. Hannibal wisely turned away. He knew if he took his war elephants to the walls of Rome, they would be useless, and he would be trapped and annihilated. This isn’t just a cute story. If the pissed-off and the profane take these Republican war elephants to Washington and try to fight the campaigns that are coming up between now and 2012, they’re going to be trapped and annihilated. The bottom line is this: it’s politics — not righteousness — that’s going to carry the day – and politics starts this morning. This means that — angry or not — the Republican caucus better quit being indignant and start working with the Democrats. If they don’t, and Congress goes into cardiac arrest early, they’re the ones who are going to be hit by the Blame Train — not Barack Obama.
Right now, we’ve all been invited to a tea party and Sarah Palin’s pourin’. But just in case you didn’t notice “You betcha” is not a policy statement! If Palin drags this crowd into the race for 2012, she might make it through the primaries, but in a national campaign? Jon Stewart, Barbra Walters and the New York media are going to eat her alive — just like Katie Couric did last time. They are going to make her look like The 3 Stooges — except this time she’s going to be 2 Stooges short.
There’s no doubt that this president is all hat and a teleprompter. But you don’t go from After Dinner Speaker to the White House in 4 years if you don’t know what you’re doing. People are learning that Barack Obama just isn’t a very good leader but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good politician. Don’t confuse the two. He can and will rally the team for 2012, and all those folks sitting on the sidelines this year are going to get back in the game. Remember: 58% of voters under 30 still think Obama is the best thing since Bill Clinton, and young people prefer Democrats by over 20%. These people aren’t angry; they’re not frustrated; and they don’t give a damn how much money the champagne socialist elite throw at the economy, healthcare or each other. They just think the Tea Party is a collection of knuckle-dragging racists who have the misfortune of being old. You, me, Fox News and Harry the Talking Penguin can call them irresponsible, immature or even imbeciles. It doesn’t matter. They vote: Obama wins. It’s that simple.
The Teabag people and their allies better temper their message right now or run the risk of being just another bunch of Glenn Beck whiners on the road to obscurity. It’s one thing to seize power; it’s another to use it, and use it properly. Like it or don’t, the American people (some of them anyway) have said “Put up or shut up!” Now it’s time for these new Republicans to, first of all, learn how to govern — so America can dig itself out of the mess it’s in. And secondly, think up a coherent plan to take back the White House in 2012 — so the sinkhole doesn’t swallow them up again. If it’s Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, so be it. But they’re going to need more than outrage and a loudspeaker, or they’re going to end up with nothing.