“Whoever must be a creator always annihilates” – Nietzsche
To a Florida dinner gathering, Obama has paved way for McCain presidency
By John Vinocur
Monday, May 5, 2008
NICEVILLE, Florida: If only 27 percent of America’s voters have positive opinions of the Republican Party, and the GOP is less trusted to fix the economy than the Democrats, how in hell is it going to elect a president in November?
Simple.
Down here, where George W. Bush got elected and re-elected with scores of 70 percent plus – and old colonels, the Christian right, and convinced conservatives live a kind of wary symbiosis – their combined wisdom says John McCain will beat Barack Obama because Obama has become unelectable.
“Thank God,” one of those retired colonels said last week at a pasta dinner with five Republican friends and a visitor. Amused to think of themselves being portrayed as part of the American right wing’s collective belly of the beast, they accepted a trade of anonymity for frankness.
Synopsis: Tuesday night’s Democratic primary results would make no difference in the outcome. Obama would be the Democratic nominee. McCain would beat him in turn. The miserable economy, the war in Iraq, Bush’s unpopularity? Sure, but:
For these conservatives, white and middle-aged, Obama has transmogrified before their eyes from a remarkable prestidigitator into a divine target.
For the Red Neck Riviera of Florida’s Panhandle (or the Emerald Coast in the more genteel vocabulary of the tourist brochures) Obama has become so totally exposed – as a leftist, an elitist out of touch with vast segments of the white majority, a dubious healer saddled with disreputable friendships and unknown debts and obligations – that the colonel could say “McCain is seven strokes ahead on the back nine,” and the presidency is in Republican reach.
Let Hillary Clinton keep softening Obama up. No worries there about an eventual contender. “She’s got more negatives than Bush himself,” exclaimed a woman in the group.
I have consigned my self to the fact that John McCain will be our next President. He will most likely be a one term President–if his health holds–but none the less, a one term President. The only thing I’d argue with here is that Obama himself didn’t pave the way, Hillary Clinton did. Her transmogrification into a rabid Rightwinger before our very eyes is (albeit predictable) one of the most astounding acts in modern politics.
14 Comments
You are clearly a misogynist who hates working class whites and have a dire case of CDS.
Keep up the good work.
Perhaps Hillary will be the guest of honor at McCain’s inauguration.
“Thanks, kid. I couldn’t have done it without ya!”
Hillary was never Bill Clinton. That was never her cause and you should stop pretending like it ever was. She has not lost this for the Democrats. America has lost it for the Dems.
That burns me up, someone mischaracterizing how I feel about somebody. I’ve criticized Hillary Clinton continuously throughout the years, as my Senator, and now as a Presidential candidate. It’s never had nothing to do with Bill Clinton or what he did.
I still think much of this is the die-hard right deluding itself. The primary is killing Obama right now, but people in the US of A have short memories. The Wright thing isn’t nearly as scary as the rightwingers would have us believe.
I think once this primary is over — once Clinton and her yes-people stop deluding themselves — the real issues will emerge and the DNC, Move On, and the Obama campaign will tie GWB around the neck of McCain.
I cannot give into the feelings of hoplessness just yet. Perhaps I am a fool.
Once the spotlight is off the Clinton-Obama rivalry and focused on McCain-Democrat, it won’t take too many confused statements from McCain before people realize that he’s just not fit to run the country.
I’ll bet you a couple of rounds of beers that the democratic nominee wins the general election. Are we on?
Meet you at Hemingway’s.
i wouldn’t count barack out so easily… i’ve always been an eternal optimist, though.
Stop buying into the Dem vs. Rep nonsense, they are both owned by the banksters. It makes little difference which puppet is to be elected.
See you in the bread lines.
The Revolution
A Manifesto
Ron Paul
Oh, Mike. Poor, poor Mike. I like Ron Paul, too. He’s a truthteller. Problem is, about 80% of the truth in his mind is batshit.
I am with the Libertarians when it comes to personal freedom, sexual freedom, a defensive rather than offensive military posture.
They lose me when they become the “every-man-for-himself-invisible-hand-is-my-healthcare” crowd.
I have to believe that Obama is different, that he’s not a corporatist, that he’s not bought and paid for. I have to believe that right now. Maybe I’m deluded, and if he turns out to be just another guardian of the status quo, well, then I shall join IOZ, Frederick, the Culture Ghost and others who are checking out.
For now, I remain engaged.
I received some ballot information today for a primary out here (CA) on June 3rd…just two state propositions and electing the regional council for the Greens. After a quick examination, I tore it all up.
This will be the first election I have not voted in since 1986…it feels kind of cool.
Yes, tafka pb, those nutty founding father types were dreaming when they wrote that batshit nonsensical Constitution. What were they thinking? Freedom is scary, responsibility is a drag.
How can you be for ‘personal freedom’ and socialist health care at the same time? Robin Hood has to steal from someone’s ‘personal freedom’ to pay for your subsidized health care.
Socialist should quit pretending to be good Americans. Just go ahead and right up a new Constitution for the People’s Society of America. That way, we the deluded will understand that we are indeed slaves.
or they can write