Road To The White House

So, where are we now?

Despite my deep insights during the primaries, I managed to be wrong nearly all the time. Romney has it locked. The others are mostly gone now, including Gingrich who squandered his entire political past and future in the process.  Bachmann has endorsed, tepid though it was; Santorum apparently is not far behind, depending on the deal he can cut. Only Paul lingers, a nasal pipe-up reminder of lost and mostly irrelevant causes. 

Sure, Obama kills at the correspondents dinner, but somehow simultaneously seems to be but a past pipe dream, fading, facing lost hopes and an angry electorate in (as he put it) a man eat dog world. The polls are showing that just may be victory Mitt has tied to the roof now.

Amidst all this bad news comes ...  even more bad news.  The putrid PAC money is about to really be unleashed for the election campaign itself. You wouldn't think it possible, but the cable news pundits are applying more oil in preparation for the race. The lying liars are straining at the gates.

So naturally, instead of going into deep hiding like some Chinese dissident, come September I am going to be teaching a course on media coverage and the race to The White House. This will mean I will have to pay attention to every piece of media minutia right up until the election, and then for a month or so beyond. Obviously there is no end to my own willingness to indulge in self-inflicted pain. But I am not going to travel this road alone. Oh no. I am hoping to take you (whomever you may be) along with me. Don protective devices, you (and all of us) are you going need them.

Etch-A-Sketch

I have been quiet because too discouraged and drained by the Republican runoff to summon up the necessary energy it takes to actually post.  I've watched as Gingrich slides further and further away, his big head disappearing minute-by-minute into the muck despite (what turned out to be)  momentary ascendency. I've marveled as Paul continues to brag about his run, even though he's never actually won anything.  And I've been delighted as Santorum's social and political values fail to connect, except with a small and shrinking base.

So it is rally about Mitt, you'd think.  Today, even Jeb Bush, joined the dance. Coast into the nomination now.

But dumb is dumb.  And this one takes all.  Faced with victory, Romney's senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom got the willies, and bolted. Lest this get too easy, he told us on CNN: “ I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

In other words, say anything so long as it gets you a win. Nothing matters. Lie and distort at will. No one remembers anything, anyway. Just reform yourself come the fall; rejigger, reemerge, reconfigure like crazy.  While we regurgitate.

Strap your senior adviser to the roof, Mitt. And while he's there, maybe you should just join him. Bring along your Etch A Sketch, and shake, shake, shake ....

Newt...Newt...Newt...Newt!

Tutti Frutti Ah Newti

A-wop-bop-a-loo-lop

A-lop-bam-boo 
  
Here they are ladies and gentlemen.... 
presenting your happy couple. 

 It worked! (see below)  Ain't politics grand.

Frankly ... always blame The Media

On the virtual verge of the big primary in South Carolina your ex-wife declares that while you were still married to her you insisted that you be allowed to continue your relationship with your mistress.  To have what is commonly (very) called an "open marriage."   And on top of that you get asked right at the beginning of the latest Presidential debate, just as you are surging toward the top against your more entrenched rivals, whether what she said makes you an undesirable candidate.

What do you do?

Well, you don't deny, you don't admit, and you don't retreat.  Instead, from the slimy depths of the place where politicians have found a natural home, you attack the real enemy. You take off against the only target you perceive to be less believable, less respected, less trusted, more offensive, more craven, more vulnerable than you.

You lash out at The Media, the bottom-feeding, garbage eating, venomous Media. And you call the question a disgrace, raised by an elitist mob that loves Obama and hates you.

It's the only avenue available to take. And so you deliver a full-throated, bravura performance, filled with puffed up indignation. And you know what?  It just may have worked.

_____________________________________________________________________

An aside: here's a new parlor game.  Before the next Republican debate gather with some friends to watch, and each of you write down how many times Newt Gingrich uses the word "frankly." Winner gets a prize to be determined. (Also carefully consider what it says about someone who needs to do that. Frankly, and with all due respect, the answer isn't pretty.)

2012

Less than a month into the New Year, and the signs are not so good.

I could be talking about a lot of things out there, but in this case I am referring to our Presidential contenders, most specifically the boys remaining to slug it out in the Grand Old Party. Nothing has changed; we remain on the brink (see below).

I watched  the New Hampshire returns last night, and because my need to inflict self-punishment apparently knows no bounds, I also forced myself to listen to the dreary, predictable, unimaginative speeches that followed.Then I tried to go to sleep, but somehow kept dreaming about being on a space ship bound for another planet, any other planet not inhabited by anyone named Mitt, or Newt, or by someone who sleeps with dead babies, or who has two first names and his feet planted firmly in a time before the French Revolution. I can't remember that the ship landed. 

But here's a happy little surprise. Instead of inflicting further punishment on myself, this morning I went to sit and eat and reflect with three other dear friends in what has become our weekly Breakfast Club. Three hours later, and after sloshing through several hundred cups of coffee, my companions demonstrated what is still possible even in these murky, unsettled, often distressing times: love, compassion, support, gentleness, thoughtfulness, and generosity.  I thank Mark, Michael and Don for again reminding me that these qualities endure, despite all signs to the contrary. Through this first post of 2012 I extend the same hopes that you find them in your life in the New Year and beyond.

Ruminations From The Brink ....

I just feel something involving fundamental world change is upon us.  Not the-end-is-near kind that the religious maniacs parade out on a regular basis, but huge none-the-less. And it ain't good. Despite the demonstrations against Wall Street, and the President's still ever-pending Jobs Bill.

Up until the recently I had some hope that even the many with views from another dimension would come around.  But, really, we can see they didn't. 

What little faith I had in our political leaders has evaporated; whatever hope I had for some decisive action on any level is running on empty. Our Republican candidates are back to their true calling: mostly endless fierce/farce debates, position changes, and roller coaster popularity rankings. I hardly have expected more from them--- petty, partisan  unimaginative, often uninformed, with noses to the wind (except for Paul, who already primarily inhabits a place far, far away). But even our President dithers and fund raises while invoking Teddy Roosevelt and trying to appropriate the vision of scattered bands of Occupiers. Oh, I know. He does things in a more subdued and conciliatory manner than, say, Newt. But the cards are on the table. 

In the the world he inhabits personally and professionally, he may believe he has the time to move in increments.  But I live in that world, too. And so does Drew Westen, a professor of psychology, and writer. His brilliant opinion piece in the Sunday NY Times way back on August 7, is entitled "What Happened To Obama," but it is a warning to all of us. Here is his his concluding paragraph. Read it and then and tell me you too don't think we are on the brink:

"But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks." 

It's breaking.  Have you noticed?

Levine ....

In such a deeply troubled time, so far as I am concerned about the only good news recently has been the naming of 83-year-old Philip Levine as our new Poet Laureate. Even as it honors him, it speaks well of us. Levine has a raspy, gritty, familiar voice. Often it is our own. And he has lived, or at least understands, the life we lead, and the times in which we find ourselves.

You can turn up almost all of his poems by searching on the web. I hope you will; they may help get you through the days.

Here is a link to him reading his own, on PBS.

And this, from his wonderful tribute and reminder, You Don't Know What Work Is:

  

"How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is"