i'm becoming disheartened by what i'm seeing from the democrats the past couple days and i'm honestly frightened they're gonna throw this one away too. obama gave an amazing speech on thursday night. but we can't sit on that. anyone see zogby today? even after that amazing speech, the race seems to be a dead heat. we underestimate this sarah palin thing at our own peril.
many otherwise very intelligent people have been saying things like "oh, no hillary voter is gonna fall for this" AS IF the mccain team thought they would! sarah palin is NOT about pumas. that's a red herring, and everyone's falling for it. this is about the republicans realizing they can't win without the fundie base. obama gave the democrats the safe choice that bores the hell out of the liberal base, and mccain gave the base the wingnut they've been begging for. and they love it. you are not dealing with people who care about intelligence and experience- these people HATE intelligence and experience. they want someone who is "like them." they want a fundie wackadoo.
last saturday, when i saw that biden was obama's choice, my heart dropped and i thought "well there goes the election." admittedly, i have strong personal negative feelings about joe biden because i can never forgive him for his hypocritical and morally bankrupt support of (nay, enthusiasm for) the 2005 bankruptcy bill, but i also think even people who like him should admit he was a really safe, establishment, boring choice. and i knew at that moment that mccain was going to choose palin (or carly fiorina) but i basically said all last week to anyone that would listen that it would probably be palin. and really nobody listened. (except for the husband and my boss- and on friday morning she did give me props the moment she walked in the door for calling it the moment.) i saw all this laid out in a long, painful vision. our discourse has become stupid enough for this woman to become extremely popular, reinvigorating the base, and pushing mccain to victory.
and now many are chortling about gustav raining on the RNC's parade. another fatally stupid, stupid move. don fowler got himself caught on camera laughing about it and the wingnuts are all over it. good work, dude. can you people not understand how ridiculous it makes the party look? how easy it is for the republicans to use this to point to, saying "look at the heartless elitists who don't care about you and only care about politics while WE are going to turn our convention into a telethon to help all the people!" once again they get to be "serious" and we look nuts. not to mention, gustav gives them a plausible reason to keep bush and cheney as far away from the convention as possible. which they've been trying to figure out a way to do for a while! good lord people, just open your eyes.
i really really hope i'm just being pessimistic and that it's going to be obama in a landslide. but i live in the echo chamber of a big blue city in a big blue state, and i implore my fellow liberals to not be lulled into complacency that this can lead to. we are so not out of the woods. this crap is just beginning. we had better pray and pray hard that bob barr's campaign picks up steam and peels away enough conservative/independents and libertarians from mccain.
