This is about the time in the campaign season that I start wishing that I could bring myself to vote for McCain, if for no other reason than to irritate the handwringers and Europeans. But alas, I am a man of principle. McCain would only irritate them for about 20 percent of the right reasons. People like McCain draw the anger of the progressive nutroots base for the same reason that people like Lot made the Sodomites angry. He was hardly an unblemished advocate of righteousness, but there was something about him that reminded them of somebody who might be related to someone who was righteous.
So this means that I am limited to punditry, catcalls from the sidelines, that kind of thing. But given the fact that non-partisan objectivity has been thrust upon me — nobody that I will vote for is going to occupy the White House — I can tell you all what I think is going to go down. But I am doing is as an amateur pundit; I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. So no yelling at me if I am wrong, but this is what I see unfolding.
I believe that the election this November is going to be a Republican blowout, rivaling that of Nixon/McGovern. This, despite the fact that the Republicans’ commitment to principle has had the structural integrity of a wet napkin. The Republicans have screwed up so many things that it is hard to imagine the Democrats not being able to beat them handily, but that is where I think we are.
In this, I am assuming that Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee. Unless he does something to land him in jail, or a secret wife in Baltimore gives an interview to the Washington Post, or a bag of cocaine falls out of his pocket at the next televised debate, I don’t see any way that Hillary can secure the nomination without blowing up the party.
If she strong-arms enough superdelegates to go against the total majority vote, the majority of states, and the lead in delegates, in order for party insiders to deny the first “might-actually-make-it-all-the-way” black candidate, then that will simply blow up the party. It is useless to argue that the superdelegates have the authority to make this decision within the rules — they certainly do. But to actually do so runs clean contrary to the logic that the Democratic Party has carved in marble in the aftermath of Bush/Gore in Florida and Bush/Kerry in Florida. How many bumperstickers — “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted with the Majority” — have you seen? If Hillary gets it, and there is even a whiff of back room deals, and there would have to be, then she will have the nomination of a ruined party.
The other way she could wreck the party (in order to lead it) is by going negative in the remainder of the campaign, and to do so with weapons-grade uranium. But that would split the party also, and would be no better than the first option.
So, I am assuming Obama. But Obama has already been successfully named as an elitist insider. Some of it has been his own doing, some of it has been the clowns associated with him, and the rest of it of has been right wing talk radio, talk television, and bloggers who will not let the first two things go. The “God and guns” thing has traction, and is going to have a long run, all the way to November. All McCain has to do is keep his head down, step aside, go duck hunting a couple times, and make more conservative noises than is his custom. All the indications are that is exactly what he is going to do. And as he does this, other folks not directly connected to the campaign are going to dismantle Obama. And in my view, it is going to be one of the most thorough demolition jobs in modern political history.
Ronald Reagan used to be known as the teflon president. Nothing would stick to him personally. On this set of issues — i.e. any indicators of elitist contempt for red state Americans who eat corn dogs at state fairs — Obama is the velcro candidate. Everything within fifty yards of this kind of thing will now stick to him. His privileged yet complaining wife, his fire-eating yet well-cushioned pastor, his hobnobbing with bombers of government buildings, his off-the-cuff remarks about bitter small-towners, will all conspire to keep him from being able to un-name himself. He is now named. And in my view, this means his candidacy is doomed.
Look at these. There will be many more, and they will all be deadly.