When McCain announced his choice of Sarah Palin, the Kossacks predicted that she would repulse America, and that a wave of revulsion would propel Obama to triumph:
We're back to LANDSLIDE folks... we'll win West Virginia, Mississippi, Georgia....(I may give this quote a permanent berth on this blog. I love it!)
And now we have the polls, which factor in the convention bounce:
CNN -- 48/48
Gallup -- 54-44 McCain ahead.
Even if this latter poll is an outlier, I think we can safely say that the Kossack predictions about Palin's unpopularity were just as inane as the DU predictions about Wright-mania. The responses over on Talking Points Memo ("Let's not panic!" he said through gritted teeth, half-blinded by beads of sweat) have been hilarious.
Why did things turn out this way?
Many pundits will blame racism. The R word is already being heard throughout progland. But...wait a minute! Was not Barack Obama ahead for a while? I guess people were less racist then. At some point during the past week, the earth must have drifted into a cosmic cloud of bigotry. Similarly, I was considered a non-racist when I supported Obama in the primary and when I voted for Jackson in '88. I became "racist" only when I turned against the Lightbringer.
"Racism" has now been redefined to mean "opposition to Obama." The term has no other definition in modern American political discourse.
But if you want a better answer for Obama's lagging poll numbers, consider this comment by Erica Jong over on Huffington Post:
White trash America certainly has allure for voters. Some people think rednecks are more American than Harvard educated intellectuals of mixed race.The fact that Jong feels comfortable describing a vice presidential candidate and governor as "white trash" explains why Democrats keep losing elections. As I've said before: Progressives want to lose. They consider power in bad taste, and they love their snobbery so much that they refuse to squelch it to achieve a victory that they subconsciously fear.
(Question: What would happen to any writer who used the term "black trash"?)
People like Jong refuse to consider the possibility that the "white trash" members of the electrorate are starting to catch on.
While most voters still have not read Evelyn Pringle's work on Obama's participation in Chicago corruption, they do understand that Obama has told so many provable lies and switched his views so many times that people no longer have any reason to care about his announced stances on any subject. NAFTA, FISA, campaign finance, Rezko, gay marriage, the surge, and most recently, taxes: Obama's word simply cannot be trusted.
Don't underestimate the damage that the Obots did to their own cause by spreading fake claims. I refer to claims about Sarah Palin's daughter, claims about her "alcoholism," claims about her alleged membership in a "Dominionist" church, claims that she slashed a program intended to help pregnant teens (here's the truth) and claims that she left her town in a sea of red ink. (It was quite black, thank you very much.) The hoax allegations only built sympathy for Palin.
(I was sorry to see Bill Maher spread the worst of these fake claims -- but then again, perhaps Palin should thank Maher, since these smears helped her. I'm starting to wonder if Rovian forces seeded the prog-blogs with that disgusting yarn about Sarah's youngest.)
In the end, after all the buncombe stood revealed as buncombe, what did Palin's critics give us? They were reduced to carping about her decision to build an allegedly unneeded "multi-purpose" sports center. America is not going to choose its next president based on a sports center in a suburb of Anchorage.
By the way, I've been receiving some responses from Obots who claim that Hillary was treated fairly, even gingerly, during the primaries. Nobody in progland called her a "bitch" or a "cunt." Nobody called her a Republican. Nobody resurrected all the "Whitewater" lies of yore. Nobody accused her of murdering Vince Foster. No, my Obot correspondents insist that she caused all problems, with her "racism" and alleged presumption of entitlement.
These commenters share Jong's blind spot. You can't win people over by insulting them, dummies.
I'll say it again. Boldfaced. This is THE lesson of election 2008:
YOU CAN'T WIN PEOPLE OVER BY INSULTING THEM, DUMMIES.
Of course, "dummies" is an insult. But I have given up on trying to win over anyone brainwashed by the Obama cult.
10 comments:
There is no way to put it better than you just did.
So concise, so accurate, and actually so simple.
Yet We, the Obama realists, are the ones who supposedly "just don't get it".
Thanks, as usual, Joseph.
It doesn't matter how nicely you tell it to them, they won't listen anyway.
Cuz they're young and dumb and full of sh*t.
So old Erica chooses class before gender. It's nice to know which side she is on. And I do not consider Obama an intellectual since he has never written a word that did not involve navel gazing like an angst ridden 15 year old. Obama is an expert on Obama.
From our friends at the Cheeto: "How can we help people through their racial fears born of ignorance, conditioning, and yes hate? ..."
Stop insulting them, for starts.
(http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/8/12030/31411)
This follows up "White People, Can We Talk?"
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/7/154846/6842/716/590179
Sure, my pleasure. As long I can sit down and straighten out the misogynists, too. Call me tough but no one gets a pass on racism OR sexism OR homophobia.
It's the height of arrogance to claim to understand those Jong sentences. I doubt she could parse them. And I like Erica. A lot. Because she's a crazy person. With a talent for writing.
Those polls probably reflect (but can't measure) viewer fatigue and the obverse. With Palin, let's face it, they get the new put back in the news. Not only but also. Ms Palin pre-empted the NFL and is in many ways all of TV's New Fall Season. That's an overstatement, but not inappropriate or out of place.
Her Excellency the governor is also a crazy person. Stalks and shoots a moose (Woody Allen: "I shot a moose once..."), snowmobile NASCAR shit, professional politician. It takes one to know one, Erica & Sarah.
Mitzi
Joseph,
I must say I too was sorry but not surprised to see Maher fall for this shit. To paraphrase lambert, pass me the bucket.
He demonstrated during the primary that he was all too eager to believe anything about female politicians, with his grotesque treatment of Clinton.
On top of that, he is an idiot, and still believes it is somehow physically possible that Bristol, who is currently pregnant, could also have carried the most recent one to term as well.
Aeryl
I can't wait for the Hillary-for-McCain/Palin PUMA's to start bitching Hillary now that she campaigns against Palin !
"We're pissed because we considered she had the best judgment to be President, but now that she's not elected, we can't trust her judgment when she say that a McCain presidency would be disastrous. Our egos are far more important than this country or our party."
Do you think McCain would have chosen Palin if Hillary was the candidate ?
Joseph,
It's always amazes me that the Obama supporters who come to our blogs to antagonize and berate us for not voting for Obama think that they're helping their candidate. And Obama's silence on this matter is deafening and has been for 19 months. The hate and vitriol that he instills in his supporters is troublesome, yet he does nothing to stop it. He allows it to happen. As he said himself, 'the tone of a campaign comes from the top'.
Talk about panic, have you seen Andrew Sullivan's site lately? He seems to be throwing everything he can think of at McCain and palin, hoping something will stick.
Well, he's smarter than the average Obot -- he can probably see much more clearly that Obama's in trouble.
How come no one has pointed out that the "Obama bump" came after back to back Clinton speeches/endorsements.
Of course no follow through on the Clinton part and people may have noticed.
I suspect that the bump was mostly Clinton related.
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