Category — Political

The questions keep coming about McCain’s VP vetting process (or lack thereof), rightly shedding a disturbing light on his decision-making style - if one might describe a lack of analysis, thoroughness or careful planning any kind of a decision-making process.

Maybe he’s just a decider.

Now it seems McCain plans to hide his VP nominee from the national media, where she might otherwise be asked - oh, I don’t know - serious questions about domestic and foreign policy? Consider: The only outlet that’s been allowed an in-person interview since she joined the ticket is People magazine. Now there’s some hard-hitting reportage to help voters make an informed decision. She’s got cute kids! War? Economics? Energy policy? Not to worry.

So don’t expect to see the VP nominee making the rounds of news shows because we all know (I guess) that the “elitist media” is not what matters; it’s convention speeches and TV ads and other pre-produced events where candidates present themselves directly to the voters, unencumbered by the media’s “agenda” and “sexism” or any kind of policy analysis.

Welcome to McCain-Palin ‘08. Fast food politics.

Here’s the thing: Can they really get away with it? Hasn’t the new media of blogs and YouTube and the Daily Show finally created an informed, sophisticated electorate?

We’ll find out soon enough - although agreeing to a sitdown with “tough as nails” (puh-leaze) Charlie Gibson shows how careful they’re going to go about this. You remember Charlie, he of the softball questions during ABC’s Hillary/Obama debate inanity back in April.

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen the video from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” where McCain spokesperson Nicole Wallace is asked about this lack of access, then put away sharp instruments and click:

I’m an admitted politico-junkie but right after the end of the Hillary campaign I pretty much tuned out of politics, assuming my interest would come back sometime around the first debate. I don’t think I was alone in this. The Hillary-Obama battle went on for a long time. Fatigue was in.

And then lo and behold, here comes Sarah Palin for VP and it’s super-charged political junkiness all over again. What’s more fun than watching the Republican Party scramble against a gathering media storm built on their own incompetence? TPM summarized the litany of governor’s problems here (hat tip to Moue Magazine for the link) - and that was two days ago.

Richard Cohen jumps on with a bulls-eye:

Nothing like utter incompetence on the part of the Grand Old Party to get one’s political interest level sparked up to full speed. Odds are already out that she will withdraw. I’d take them.

Of course, there’s also a chance she won’t withdraw, that she’ll weather the storm, and that McCain will win the general election, thereby placing in power a(nother) president who makes vital decisions about the country without analysis, thoroughness or careful planning.

And this really is the issue - it’s not Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy, or the hockey-playing boyfriend (please) but rather the utter incompetence in choosing a vice president who’s in the midst of a local political scandal, or who’s been associated with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party (AIP), or who attended a church that preached Bush critics “will be banished to hell” and that Alaska will be a “refuge for the End of Times (yikes).” In other words, a candidate with tremendous baggage. Suddenly, the Palin story becomes more than just political intrigue, and not so funny after all. This person could be the president some day. But first we’d have to survive the presidency of the person who chose her.

So those of us who’ve been dozing for a while, thinking that at least McCain - as bad as he might be - would never be another Bush - well, maybe it’s time to start paying close attention again.

Is it me, or does every day the calendar flips one number closer to 1.20.09 seem to bring a little more sunshine to the world? Check this little pocket of joy, by way of the AP this morning, “States Vote to Oust Balloting Machines“. Now there’s the kind of headline to warm your heart in the morning.

If you’re new to the electronic voting machine insanity, then put your coffee down and head over to Scientific American for a very succinct, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me overview of the problem. A few eye-popping nuggets:

If you want the full shudder, consider that most electronic voting machines run on Microsoft Windows, not a name that makes you think “security”.

In the meantime, if you want to get involved with election reform, aim your mouse pointer to Black Box Voting and get started. And there’s the always on-target Brad Friedman’s BradBlog , in case you want a little irreverence with your election fraud.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan proclaimed “government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem” bringing the modern conservative movement into the mainstream, marking an end to the New Deal concept that public works - i.e., “the people” can be employed to smooth the edges of capitalism’s sharper sides. A generation later and you’ve got to marvel at the way market-driven, laissez-faire strategies dominate public policy. Few among the mainstream even question the approach. For that, you’ve got to give those conservatives some credit. They’ve been fabulously successful.

Until now. More and more you read about the crisis facing the movement, the trouble for conservative think tanks, and the poor Republican chances in 2008, while conservatives search for strategies to recapture the American mindset. What you don’t see - yet - in the commercial media is the reason conservatives are scrambling in the first place: The fanatical attempt to shove every social policy within a free market framework has failed.

Sometimes, the message stops resonating because the philosophy stinks.

Case in point: The NY Times had a good read a few weeks back called “Conservative Thinkers Think Again” analyzing how the intellectual right struggles to articulate “solutions to emerging problems like energy, the environment and immigration” within a conservative ideology. What’s missing is the point that these desperate social problems exist as a direct result of the market-driven, hands-off conservative policies of the last twenty-five years.

I mean, c’mon already. Not mentioned in that Times article are other problems, like the shift in wealth to the top percent, the wild gulf between super-rich and everyone else, the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, out-of-reach college costs, suffocating personal and family debt, the destruction of our downtowns, black box outsourced voting, and on. In fact it’s hard to find a modern problem that you can’t connect back to the corporatization of our society and its priority of profit over people that so defines the last twenty-five years.

Listen, I am not saying that free market solutions are wrong, always, end of discussion. The point is that no single ideology fits every situation. That’s fanaticism, and it’s as dangerous on the right as on the left. A more moderate approach - call it the “Progressive Middle” would choose appropriate strategies to address particular social challenges according to the most reasonable method. Need new technologies to solve a worldwide energy crisis? Free market innovation through competition (albeit backed by government incentives) might be just the thing. Need to provide every sick person with affordable, effective health care? A government-run Single Payer system is the way to go.

My argument is that there’s a balance somewhere between “all free market, all the time” and a Soviet Five Year Plan. Talk to your friends in Europe and you’ll see that life can be financially stable for a majority, provide an effective social safety net for those who need it, and allow people to live satisfying lives. (And you get to take four-week vacations in the summer, imagine that.) Yeah, I know, the taxes, the taxes. Most likely there are lot fewer millionaires in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, Italy, etc. But I know there’s a lot more contentment, less stress and more leisure time than the US, AND there’s excellent social services, reliable public transportation, and a high quality of life overall. Is it utopia? Well, no. But can we learn a thing or two? You bet.

I’m not addressing in this post the hypocritical side of the modern conservative movement which - in practice, if not theory - has been one of the greatest bait and switches in history, a philosophy that says “small government” is fine when it involves working or poor or middle class folks, but a whole different thing when it involves military or corporate pockets. Instead, I’ll just quote Howard Zinn:

The good news is that words like Zinn’s are finding an audience among the mainstream, finally. It seems that the insanity of our corporate American dystopia here in 2008 is starting to become recognized, understood, and rejected (that happens a lot during really bad economic times.) But it’s probably what’s behind Obama’s charge (even as he tacks to the right) and it’s what’s been driving the Netroots movement as well.

Fingers crossed, but as we start the new century it’s possible that new ideas will find footing. Worth hoping for, anyway.