Posted on 05/15/2008 1:45:25 PM PDT by crusher
Eighteen months ago I was asked about the upcoming presidential election. I responded by saying I could not foresee a scenario by which Hillary! wouldn’t win the election handily. I guess I could be forgiven for not predicting the messianic ascension of Saint Osama Obama, since he had been elected to national office only a few weeks earlier. My assessment of the electorate at Christmas 2006 was that they still revered the Clintons and would keep on voting for one of them until the cows came home. But I digress for a moment, as this piece is about the election, not Beelzebubba’s girlfriends.
The only thing I saw to stop her at the time was the Evangelical Dynamic, which by my analysis has been the single most important factor in national elections for the past 35 years. I’ll explain about that in a minute.
Since there was no attractive or compelling GOP candidate at the time (I was a Hunter guy myself), I assumed that the election of 2008 would be about one person: either you were for Hillary! or you weren’t. It didn’t really matter who was on the Republican ticket, the election was all about Hillary! In part I was right on the money, in part I was misdirected and now need to refocus my analysis. The election is still a referendum on one person, it’s just a different person.
I am admittedly someone who cannot think dispassionately about the Xlintoons, whose presence on the national scene is to me a stain from which the nation may never be cleaned. I mean, if we are still saddled with the sins of an incompetent goober like Dhimmi Carter thirty years later, how long will we have to labor to overcome the damage caused by Uncle Screwtape’s best disciples? I cannot comprehend fully the attraction to the Xlintoons by the electorate, but at least I can acknowledge it.
Unfortunately for my earlier analysis I assumed the Bolsheviks were infatuated with Beelzebubba and Hillary! Not until the caucuses and primaries did I realize that the Bolshevik Party was as sick of them as normal Americans were. But they were the Bolshevik’s SOBs and they were going to defend them to the bitter end. Until a seductive alternative emerged, that is. I had no idea that the Xlintoons were so soundly disliked that they would be tossed overboard by the Bolshevik media establishment (is that redundant?) in favor of an empty suit whose depth of antipathy towards his homeland is seemingly his only distinguishing characteristic.
Interesting to me now is that my original assessment model is still intact, however the subject of the analysis has changed from Hillary! to Juan “Global Warming” McLame, the leftist Republican nominee. (As an aside I must observe that any evaluation system that rates McLame as an 80% conservative is a fatally flawed grading system.) Anyhow, regardless of who actually winds up as the Bolshevik candidate, in my view the only consideration for the outcome of the election is whether or not McLame can resist his impulse to stick his thumb in the eye of his “base constituency.” Given the revelations about the Bolshevik candidates (“Hillary is a self centered liar! Who knew?” and “Hmmm, this Black Liberation Theology stuff sounds like it was created by Marx”), any life-like Republican should be able to skate to an easy win in 2008.
But there’s a problem. McLame hates Republicans, or at least he hates the ones who brought the party to electoral dominance for the past two decades after generations of irrelevance. His contempt and contention focuses especially on conservative activists and the evangelical foot soldiers who helped counter the structural imbalances between the Bolsheviks and the Republicans. He likes to flash his “maverick” credentials often, and in fact appears to be unable to resist the temptation to do so. Crusher’s Political Lexicon defines “maverick” in the following manner.
maverick; (n) 1. narcissist who subjugates all principles for nice coverage by the New York Times and related myrmidons; 2. a so-called conservative who betrays both conservative principles and the people who labor to give them prominence (leftists cannot be mavericks, they are merely traitorous vermin when they challenge their orthodoxy); 3. Leftist Republican; (var.) a Republican In Name Only who “grows” in office and becomes a Bolshevik.
McLame is clearly betting the farm on the proposition that he can become President without the ingredients that won so many Republican elections for the past 25 years. It is at best a risky strategy, built on the hope that the electorate will choose a tepid collectivist rather than a marxist with tried and true convictions. Since he has been posturing as a leftist wannabe much of the time in recent weeks, months, years..., his run-up to November will be fascinating to say the least. If recent history teaches us anything, we know he cannot or will not avoid offending his putative “base,” and will probably seek out opportunities to irritate them. It’s just who he is.
Which brings me to the Evangelical Dynamic.
There are many ways to analyze electoral politics. Some models works, some do not. One which I have used for many years is based on the following simple proposition:
The outcome of every election since 1972 depends on whether or not the Evangelical base is excited about the Republican candidate. If they are passionate and energized, the candidate wins; if not, not.
For me this analysis holds true completely, (in fact evangelicals were as excited by Carter as they were offended by Nixon) and the coming election will be interesting to gauge by this metric. If McLame can overcome his own nature and refrain from irking this cadre, he might just get them to hold their collective noses and he can win. If he can undergo a personality and ideology transplant and start behaving and speaking like a conservative he can energize them and win in a landslide, and perhaps even reduce the catastrophe awaiting the party in November. I doubt the likelihood of this happening. It’s about as likely as W suddenly deciding to becoming a conservative. As a dear friend once said when I was venting frustrations about the current knucklehead in the WH, “Bush was never a conservative. He’s a Methodist!” Enough said. He knew I was an exile from the United Marxodist Church.
Given that McLame has campaigned to the left of Hillary! on many domestic issues, the fact that his so-called “national security” creds include maintaining an open border with a southern neighbor at war with us and tying the hands of interrogators but untying the hands of terrorists, and that he has eaten the envirofascist globaloney sandwich, the “base” is restless if not outright hostile. They don’t like him, and he celebrates the fact that they don’t like him. It defines who he is. Once those who are counting on him to appoint “good” judges realize the depth of his contempt for the Constitution (the McLame/Feingold Free Speech Suppression Act was simply treason and its supporters are traitors) his future is really in doubt. The only thing in his favor is that the Bolsheviks will put forward a hard core Anti-American Marxist and the country may not yet be ready for that. That will take another election or two.
In the end I believe strongly that Hillary!, Saint Osama Obama, or McLane could each bring about a 49 state landslide for or against themselves; a one vote victory; or anything in between.
You can take that to the bank.
Long winded and in the end you really said nothing.
Thanks. I’ve been on pins and needles awaiting that much electoral insight!
Too long, didn’t read.
That sounds a lot like my typical weather forecast: Looks like it'll rain, unless it doesn't.
;^)
In seriousness, I think you underestimated the number of Hillary! supporters who assumed their gal would win, and crossed over in record numbers to vote for McQueeg in open-primary states so we'd be sure and have a really lousy candidate.
I’m not taking much to the bank these days, :(, but I’ve got a feeling that whoever the next president is, s/he will only be a one-term president.
Of all the candidates, only Obama (Communist, Black Supremacist, and closet Mahometan) has swooning supporters, but they are not enough to sustain him. His presidency will look a lot like Jimmy Carter’s, only much worse with much more tragic results.
Hillary (Marxist Socialist) is only good for one term, because she has too many negatives and WAY too much baggage. She will also run the economy into the ground, but she isn’t as likely to compromise National Security as much as the closet Mahometan, Obama. You don’t see Hamas cheering her on.
McCain is too old to run for president now. He will be WAY too old in 4 years. Besides, most of those who will vote for him, including me, will only be doing so because the alternatives are so much worse.
“In the end I believe strongly that Hillary!, Saint Osama Obama, or McLane could each bring about a 49 state landslide for or against themselves; a one vote victory; or anything in between. You can take that to the bank.”
Take what to the bank? Every possible eventuality?
Did this make sense in your head before you wrote it?
I like your article. I agree about the evangelical base.
BTW, Obama was elected in 2004, not 2006.
Thanks. I guess I did succeed in characterizing the election accurately after all. Given the choices, the election is a long winded exercise about... nothing.
I don’t feel very satisfied as I was anticipating some really great analysis. lol.
I am so disappointed in the nominees. I could never vote for the democrat, but I cringe everytime I listen to McCain.
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