A choice quote here:
What Democrats have shied away from is a frontal attack on radical conservatism itself as an un-American and harmful ideology. I think Obama is right when he says that America is based on people caring about each other and working together for a better future-empathy, responsibility (both personal and social), and aspiration. These lead to a concept of government based on protection (environmental, consumer, worker, health care, and retirement protection) and empowerment (through infrastructure, public education, the banking system, the stock market, and the courts). Nobody can achieve the American Dream or live an American lifestyle without protection and empowerment by the government. The alternative, as Obama said in his nomination speech, is being on your own, with no one caring for anybody else, with force as a first resort in foreign affairs, with threatened civil liberties and a right-wing government making your most important decisions for you. That is not what American democracy has ever been about.The Obama message -- that government's protection and empowerment are part of the American "Promise" -- powerfully reminds voters what is at stake here. The Palin narrative of growing up in the last frontier, the frozen north, with its gritty lifestyle, plays well to Republicans who vote. Her anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, Bible-thumping worldview also plays very well to the Christianist masses. As NPR talk show host Michelle Martin said Friday night on "Real Time with Bill Maher," the Democrats ignore Mrs. Palin at their peril.
No, it's not time to be dismissive. The Republicans are already presenting her as a tough woman with the political skills to play on the big stage. If that's the case, let's give Biden as much free rein as possible to chew her up and spit her out. He must frame her not as no so much inexperienced as she is out of step with the majority of Americans whom she has so strongly rejected in her worldview. I think a guy who's worked his way up from poverty in Scranton can foil her plans to connect with crossover voters by reminding those voters exactly what she stands for and contrasting that with her superficial appeal. Call her nomination what it is: smoke and mirrors, a deception, and a cheap attempt to dumb down the voters.
Lakoff also wrote that "Our national political dialogue is fundamentally metaphorical, with family values at the center of our discourse." OK, then. Let's use "metaphorical" terms to re-brand the entire McCan't campaign not as an affirmation of family values, but as what they really are: snake-oil salesmen, selling useless remedies for real problems. "Big elections about small things" is how Obama described it in his nomination speech. The Republicans have adopted a reality TV approach to marketing their candidates, creating dramatic narrative to support people of little to no substance (or substance that in reality is exactly the opposite of what is being portrayed).
1 comment:
Amen, brother. The Religious Right (which is neither) has coalesced around this woman and is so enamored of her they are ready to elevate her to sainthood. The race is Obama's to lose and he and Biden better get started taking her apart gently but firmly, so as not so seem sexist. But then again if she wants to play with the big boys she better have a really tough skin.
I hate to say it but McCain really succeeded in pandering to the "base". I understand he even went against Karl Rove, who wanted Romney.
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