The 2008 Election: Some Additional Observations
The 2008 Election: Some Additional Observations
by
Ken Eliasberg
The 2008 election was like none other that I have experienced; there were either more new developments or exaggerated forms of old ones. At the outset, let me take a step back from my column of November 5th in which I was a bit too harsh with each of the candidates. First, Obama. I think that my assessment of his campaign advisers was wide of the mark; I minimized or possibly trivialized the job that they had done. Actually, I think that they did an excellent job, but the full measure of their excellence is somewhat diminished, or at least obscured, by the inadequate job done by Obama’s opponents (in almost every respect). First, Hillary Clinton. She ran a pathetic campaign — first, she never took Obama seriously, assuming that she was on her way to a coronation. She assumed that the whole thing would be over by Super Tuesday. Actually, it was — for her. Also, I don’t know who did her opposition research, but they obviously failed to uncover Jeremiah Wright (or, perhaps like McCain, they were reluctant to use this information if they had it in their possession for fear of some form of racial blowback). This was a huge mistake! If Wright had surfaced before Iowa, Obama would have been finished. Iowa was the turning point in the primaries for Obama; it demonstrated that, unlike Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, he could attract white votes. Once that cat was out of the bag, the blacks lined up solidly behind him, and many whites did as well. I need not mention that he came across as infinitely more likeable than Hillary for this would be damning him with feint praise; a rabid porcupine comes across as pleasant compared to Hillary (who always seems to be wrestling with her anger and contempt for the little guy right below the surface, while trying to put that veneer of a smile on her face).
Hillary and McCain have several things in common, all which, in concert, proved to be their undoing. Indeed, with qualities like these, it is amazing that they have come as far as they have. What are these qualities?
They are very angry people, and they have a great deal of trouble
concealing their anger.
They are very rigid and inflexible, both in terms of their
temperament and their abililty to be accessed to receive advice.
They have incredibly bad judgment, and, while this may only be
an understandable consequence of the attributes noted above, it also seems to operate independent of those considerations, i.e. to have a life of its own.
Another interesting facet of this election was that neither candidate was thought to be their respective Party’s first choice; a confluence of circumstances pushed them to the front of the line. How then to explain the height to which each has risen. Simple, both were to a greater or lesser extent, the understandable product of the times, i.e. Bush hatred and a very damaged Republican brand. Also, McCain was quite simply the last man standing, the other candidates having played their hands poorly — e.g. Guiliani waiting for Florida to make an appearance — or were just unable to find a sufficiently sizeable following in the Republican base. Hillary, on the other hand, has always advanced on the strength of her husband’s incredible political dexterity. Although I find Bill Clinton a fairly transparent snake oil salesman, the public loves him; one underestimates the importance of charm at his own peril. Hillary had kept the marriage going because without him, she is a political zero — an angry, charmless harpie with absolutely no political smarts. So there you have it; Obama’s path to power was certainly made considerably easier by the obvious limitations of his opponents (and, again, in the case of McCain, by an economic melt down).
All that notwithstanding, I believe that Obama ran an excellent campaign, and his 2 principal advisors — Plouffe and Axelrod — are to be commended. He, like Bill Clinton, is an incredibly charming fellow. Also, like Bill Clinton, he hides his anger well, a facility that, as noted, Hillary and McCain are unable to bring to bear.
Then there are my comments on McCain. They are all accurate; I believe that the man is a preening moron, who cannot be coached, or, worse yet, cannot learn. But that said, I don’t believe he could have won if he were a combination of Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Why not? Simple, the economy did him in. Once Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and one after another of the country’s major brokerage houses started to tank, it was over. Every time the Dow went down 300 or more points, Obama’s stock went up 1or 2 points. You may recall that before Lehman Brothers, McCain (despite his many glaring infirmities) was ahead in the polls. Sarah Palin (who is now being thrown under the bus, further demonstrating the stupidity of the people who ran McCain’s campaign) had energized the base, and they had returned to the fold. I speak to a number of Republican Women’s Groups, and the difference in the enthusiasm levels before and after Palin was extraordinary. Before Palin, McCain was flat-lining; after her, the base was on fire.
Again, the point here is that, while McCain may be a preening moron, I don’t believe that alone would have necessarily lost him the election. I think the economy did that, and there was nothing McCain could have done to alter the final result.
. While there were many interesting aspects of this election, the most prominent one — or at least the one that seemed most obvious to me — was the role of the media. While it is true that the media is always very far left and almost always devoid of a measure of objectivity, in this election they gave up the ghost. They didn’t even pretend to be fair; they just became a propaganda machine for Obama. And, part of their duties to advance his cause was to make certain that any and all unpleasantries from his past — i.e. his limited accomplishments, his very liberal voting record, and the radical people with whom he associated — were given as little attention as possible. For example, the mainstream media made almost no effort to examine and explore who Jeremiah Wright was and what he was all about. What is Black Liberation Theology — the foundation of Wright’s Trinity Church — all about, and how, if it all, does it bear on Obama’s stance that he represents all Americans, i.e. that he will be the great uniter?
What about Bill Ayers?What’s a former terrorist doing teaching in one of our respected Universities? How does that happen, i.e. shouldn’t that item on your resume be looked at somewhat askance by any University seeking to qualify someone to teach there? Who is Ayers, and how did he shed his terrorist garb to gain admission and acceptance in and bythe Academy? How about Khalidi, and Phleger, and Rezko and on and on. These weren’t just guys that lived in Obama’s neighborhood; they were very closely tied to Obama and helped to shape his thinking and career. No, the mainstream media (MSM) paid no more attention to these important considerations than was absolutely necessary. But they spent days on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe. How’s that for getting your priorities straight? The voting public is consumed with interest in Palin’s wardrobe, but doesn’t care that the next president of the U.S. might be tied very closely to racists and terrorists?
Of course, their task in this regard was made infinitely easier by John McCain’s not only taking Jeremiah Wright off the table, but by censuring those of his surrogates who refused to follow suit. In my many years in politcs, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything quite so stupid and fundamentally self destructive. Wright is who Obama is, and the public not only has every right to know who Obama is, they cannot intelligently exercise their vote without such knowledge. Although all of us have been intimidated into steering clear of anything to do with race — for fear of being called a racist, no matter how innocent your conduct — pointing out that a candidate himself may be a racist because of having spent 20 years in a racist church should certainly not be off limits. Again, I am not saying that if John McCain had done all the smart things that he might have done that he would have won; as noted, I don’t think it would have carried the day because the economy trumped everything. However, it would have eased the burden of many of us who carried water for him. When your leader refuses to help himself, it makes it that much more difficult to help him. He ran an incredibly stupid campaign, and I believe that he, not his staff, is to blame for that. I got the distinct impression that you could always tell John McCain, but that you couldn’t tell him much. And at some point “maverick,” P.O.W. hero, and “my friends” begins to wear a bit thin.