I got an e-mail from my Austin buddy, who will henceforth be referred to as Mojo. Like all his correspondence, Mojo's missive this morning was complex enough to require me to read it three or four times to make sure I got it all down.
Mojo should have his own blog. First of all, he has opinions on nearly every topic and he's not reluctant to express them, in writing if necessary. Plus, his writing shows minute traces of nihilism, a quality shared by all my favorite blogs.
Mojo seems to be ambivalent about the 2008 election. As one who follows and plays the stock market, his position is that the investor class is keeping the economy shored up until November trying to stave off Obama's election. His best line regarding Barry is that they (the Republicans) "are going to smear Obama until he is not only black but blue." My impression is that he's not enthusiastic about a Dem win, which he sees as a possibility.
My biggest disagreement with Mojo is that I can't envision the circumstances under which Barry could win in November. The only question in my mind is the scope of his defeat. Will he be another McGovern or Mondale and be buried in an Electoral College avalanche that sees the map drenched in blood red ? Or will he finally catch on with enough voters to keep the suspense level fairly high until 7:48 pm election night ?
Americans like to talk about change, but when it gets down to the cutting they really don't want change, at least not on a radical level. What Americans really like is pissing and moaning and bitching about the status quo. They piss and moan about Congress, but they keep voting for incumbents. They piss and moan about gas prices, but keep driving those supercab jobs. The level of change Barry would represent is more than most Americans can handle, regardless of what they tell pollsters or their neighbors. My reading of the situation is that many voters are still shopping around for the right excuse to avoid voting for the black guy. Many have already found a rationale, which is why polls are showing Ace and Barry running neck-and-neck. Over the next 90 days more people will find their excuse, and Ace will start pulling away.
Here's another theory: Democrats have sized up the mess Jorge will be leaving behind and have decided it's not in their best interest politically to grab responsibility for the cleanup operation. That's why we started out with Mrs Clinton as the leading candidate last year; she was the one Dem who was famous enough to look absolutely credible, but was also the one Dem who had absolutely no chance of winning a national election. The Dems didn't want to win, but didn't want to look like they weren't even trying. Hillary's presence in the field kept other Dems who might actually have been electable on the sidelines.
Obama was a Dem whiz kid after his speech at the 2004 convention. Having him in the race would be a good way to test the water for 2012 or beyond. I don't imagine anyone seriously believed he'd nudge out Hillary, but even if he did, so what ? Still no danger of him winning in November, then being expected to get a derailed train back on the tracks in a year or two.
Things really began to fall into place when Ace knocked out Rudy, Willard, and Ferd in the early stages of the GOP race. There are numerous Dems who still have residual affection for Ace based on the 2000 experience. In 2000, Ace was only 64, just a few years older than I am now, and didn't have the appearance of being old and used up. He was locking horns with the other Repubs often enough to justify his media image as The Maverick, and even today, he's still one of the least repulsive Republicans you can name. The plan shaped up: Ace takes the White House by default, and the cleanup expectations fall squarely on his narrow shoulders. The Dems concentrate on the House and Senate races, pick up enough seats in the Senate to tell Lieberman GFY, and in the House to effectively neutralize Ace any time they need to.
A football analogy. The old saying used to be- if you're a football coach, you don't want to be the coach that follows Bear Bryant at Alabama. You want to be the coach that follows the coach that follows Bear Bryant.
In politics, you don't want to be the president that follows Bush; you want to be the president that follows the president that follows Bush.
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