Race to Nowhere

Mitt and Barrack. Romney versus Obama. Rich white guy against rich mixed race guy.

There’s your presidential sweepstakes match-up come November and everybody knows it, even the nitwits on Good Morning America. Gingrich and Huntsman and Ron Paul and Santorum will hang around a while longer, but when push comes to shove, Republicans will hold their noses and select Romney. Evangelical Republicans will demand that Romney throw them a bone, so Romney will come out in support of one or more of the Bible thumper’s pet issues. He will say that he has always supported this or that, even if his past statements or actions contradict his assertion.

It’s going to be a long year of political blather, and you can bet the farm that neither Obama nor Romney will say jack shit about the real issues facing our country. Persistent high unemployment. Continuing foreclosures. State budget deficits. Income inequality. Rising poverty. With Romney it will always be morning in America, while Obama will claim that if not for his crack team of ex-Clintonistas, things would be much worse than they are.

My wife watches our local ABC affiliate every morning and by default we are subjected to the GMA team -- George, Robin, Josh and Sam -- not to mention the hacks they habitually turn to for “expert” commentary and analysis. Top flight journalism it’s not, unless you happen to be a believer in corporate media, and extremely gullible to boot. I will give this group credit for being sunny and upbeat, but I can go no further than that. Most mornings they incite my inner crank and make me want to hurl a shoe through the TV.

Don’t expect Obama or Romney to challenge the stranglehold that corporations have on the country, or the fact that “predatory” capitalism doesn’t work worth a damn -- unless the goal is to enrich the few at the expense of the many. For doing that, predatory capitalism is unbeatable, and Republicans – and far too many wimpy Democrats -- have supported this atavistic version of capitalism since Reagan. But if the goal is to create a vibrant middle class, with decent jobs at living wages, with reasonable access to medical care and higher education, with due respect for the fragility of the environment, predatory capitalism isn’t the answer.

Romney claims that his experience running a venture capital firm makes him uniquely qualified to create jobs. This is one of those Republican tropes that sounds good on the morning news but means absolutely nothing in the real world. At the heart of the claim is the belief that the private sector can do no wrong, and that government is always wasteful, inefficient, and inept. The answer, of course, is to kneel before the all-powerful, infallible Market God.

There’s nothing left in the Republican economic playbook. The pages are torn and yellowed, stained with bourbon and blood. In a nutshell here’s what they’ve got: tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, privatization of public assets, massive military spending, further deregulation, and a never-ending assault on “entitlement” programs. These ideas have failed. If you don’t believe me, look around.

Obama is vulnerable on the economy, but Republicans conveniently forget that Obama inherited an economic calamity from George W. Bush. This doesn’t excuse Obama – he’s governed far too timidly – but it does place his four years in the proper context.

Romney’s focus group tested attempts to pass himself off as a regular Joe are risible. He can roll up the sleeves on his plaid shirt all he wants, trot his wife and kids out for the obligatory photo, and eat corn on the cob with the yokels, but it cannot erase the fact that Romney is a man of privilege with a limited sense of what life is like for average folks.

The race is on, but it’s less a race to Pennsylvania Avenue than it is a race to nowhere.

Prayer and Strong Drink

The lunacy is just beginning. Strap yourself in and be prepared for a very rough ride, with thunderstorms and heavy turbulence from takeoff till landing. Pray, if you’re so inclined; drink heavily if you’re not.

Sarah Palin is crazy, fucking-certifiable-rubber room-straitjacket crazy. A recent CBS News poll found that 48% of respondents view Palin negatively. Among people in the sample group who identify themselves as political Independents, 44% took a dim view of the former Alaska governor.

Palin’s boy, Joe Miller, lost to a write-in candidate in the Alaska senate race.

Let’s recap: Palin has huge negatives and her personal support failed to put Joe Miller over the top on her own turf, but this doesn’t stop her from appearing on Good Morning America and insisting, without a hint of self-doubt, that she can beat President Obama in 2012.

Granted, Barack Obama is not the transformational politician many people thought he might be and many of his core supporters are deeply disappointed. Many expected Obama to challenge the status quo, but the man turned out to be the status quo’s staunchest defender, a fact that cost him and his party on November 2. Timidity and caution – on jobs, financial regulation, health care reform, state sanction of torture, and the never-ending wars – far more than the Tea Party, is what doomed the president in the mid-term elections. Stand for nothing, give ground on everything, and you will go down.

Thus far, signs that Obama learned his lesson from the mid-terms are not very encouraging. The president’s ball sack is still shrunken and his spine is as flexible as Gumby’s.

All things considered, however, it’s unlikely that American voters – dense and juvenile as they may be -- will abandon all reason and elect Sarah Palin president. Unlikely, yes; impossible, no. Weird shit is happening in American politics – check Michele Bachmann out if you doubt this – because the bar is set so low that a self-proclaimed witch could easily slither under it, and because the national economy is liable to remain in the doldrums until 2012.

So weird and perverse is the political zeitgeist that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hardly merited mention in the mid-term elections. No mystery as to why: both parties are totally complicit in these cock-ups and there was no advantage to gain by reminding voters of how much money and blood, for so little gain, has been poured into Iraq and Afghanistan. At a time when Americans are hurting for jobs and America is in dire need of rejuvenating social investment across the board, we’re dumping millions of our tax dollars into two countries where the population despises our presence. What’s astonishing is how little Americans seem to care. Obama’s 2011 troop drawdown in Afghanistan is in the process of being pushed back to 2014, solely because the US cannot stabilize the country in the next seven months. Hamid Karzai knows it. Mullah Omar knows it. David Petraeus knows it.

By 2014, the US will have been in Afghanistan for thirteen years and we will be no closer to victory then than we are today.

But swing back to Sarah Palin, the crazy lady who would be queen. If she does capture the GOP nomination, she’ll campaign on tried and true conservative tropes like tax cuts, tax cuts, and more tax cuts, along with mushy ideas like “freedom” and “free markets.” God will play a front and center role in Palin’s game plan, as will “personal responsibility” and “small government.” Palin will talk incessantly about the common sense of ordinary folks and the moral turpitude of Democrats and liberals and queers and university eggheads. Faith will be a constant theme.

Thinking Americans will be appalled and mortified that someone so ill-suited for any national office might actually fool enough people to win.

Here’s a thought that chills me to the bone: Palin is so ignorant that she makes W look smart.

Say another Hail Mary or pour another shot of whisky. Hold on. Here we go.