 | |||
| FEATURES | BLOGS | DAILY DIG | GEAR |
McCain, Obama Win in New Hampshire; the rest of us lose
By Mark Grueter on Tue, Jan 8, 2008 1:47 pm
del.ico.us
reddit!McCain in Manchester: Bomb Iran!
Celebrating early his imminent victory in New Hampshire, John McCain gave a speech on Monday to a raucous crowd outside City Hall in downtown Manchester. At times it looked like the diminutive McCain was about to be swallowed up by the mob of fans and media. After McCain finished his speech, his star struck supporters and a few random protesters began collapsing in on the candidate like a wave. Most people apparently just wanted to touch him. I can sort of understand the impulse to want to get close to a candidate in a frenzied atmosphere like that, but there’s something slave-like and pathetic about it all, as if the man at the center of attention were a God recently descended to earth.
When McCain’s campaign was virtually dead last summer, few cared to be near him. Now that he’s been resurrected by a media campaign/drive, we saw a huge bandwagon effect take place in New Hampshire. Most people simply like to be supporting whomever they think is going to win. So, many switched from Romney and especially Giuliani over to McCain. I hope it makes them feel better about themselves and their wretched lives.
The first thing I noticed at the City Hall event was a guy walking around holding up a large sign that read “Bomb Iran! Vote McCain.” I laughed, thinking it was a dark joke. But it turned out the exhortation was meant to be taken in earnest. When challenged, the McCain supporter’s justification for his violent proposition was that Iran was behind the attacks on 9-11: a view he didn’t even seem to realize contradicts the official version of those events.
All weekend we’ve been told about how well-informed New Hampshire voters are. Yet, not one of the big name reporters at the McCain event made mention of this ridiculous sign and its implications, though it was clearly visible to all. That’s because the media loves McCain to the point where they’re more than willing to overlook the fact that he’s a warmonger, who blithely encourages mass murder of civilians abroad, while receiving the support of people who reveal a dangerous ignorance of world affairs.
-----------------
As much as I’m glad to witness the demise of Hillary Clinton, the prospect of an Obama-led general election campaign should do little to cheer us up. Though not nearly as dull as Hillary on the stump, Obama never really says anything of substance. He promises to bring “change” the status quo by “reaching out” to Republicans – an idea that, for one thing, doesn’t make much sense, as John Edwards’ has pointed out. How can any principled liberal be impressed by such bland talk as wanting to end “bipartisan bickering”? Advocating “hope” and “unity” Obama has simply trotted out all meaningless cliches seen in previous election cycles. Obama is saying very little new or different than what John Kerry said and lost on in 2004.
The only remaining though admittedly far-fetched chance of stopping Obama now is if Hillary drops out of the race, which might allow the Tim Robbins and Ralph Nader-backed Edwards to effectively take Barack on by himself.
Dr. Hugh Cort for President
By Mark Grueter on Sat, Jan 5, 2008 3:47 pm
“My grandpa served in World War II. He was buddies with Patton and MacArthur.”
That’s what the buffoon Hugh Cort said on Friday night at the Alpine Club in Manchester. Cort is a Republican presidential candidate and because the Circle of Friends for American Veterans couldn’t attract any of the actual contenders, they had to invite Doctor Cort to speak instead, a man who is, in fact, on the ballot in New Hampshire (listed first, he excitedly told me, smart enough to suggest that some voters are so stupid or senile that they’ll fall for the first name that appears).
Mr. Cort is what makes all this campaign nonsense almost worthwhile. The guy just walks right up to you and starts racing off his campaign speech with a kind of crazed inhuman gusto. It’s a screed that emphasizes his inside knowledge of an imminent al Qaeda attack on 10 American cities. He recommends a full body search of all “the Mosques” in America as the only potential solution to the impending annihilation of America. To impress us and prove his seriousness, he name drops his “friends” Fred Barnes and some other guys from the ultraconservative Newsmax.
What I don’t quite understand is what makes this guy tick. It’d be easy enough to dismiss him as clinically insane, but there has to be more to it, some underlying causes. He must know that he has absolutely nothing to gain by running, but for whatever reason, that fact doesn’t stop him. What really motivates Hugh Cort, that’s what I need to know. Is it a death wish? Some sort of perverse need to be humiliated?
Cort takes himself seriously. He claims to be both a terrorism expert and, as if the joke weren’t sick enough, a psychiatrist. But behind his bizarre presentation, you do sense a real, live human being somewhere in there, which makes him interesting. He’s not a bad guy; I think he’s just sad, desperate and pathetic, which makes you feel bad for him, more than anything else.
I’ve never heard anyone talk as rapidly and as pointlessly as Dr. Cort. If you gave him 10 seconds to give his view of, say, toll booths, he’d take 45 and then go off on something else, even if you tried to interrupt. The host and moderator did try to interrupt Cort’s speech at the Alpine Club as he veered in several non-Veterans related issues, but Cort kept talking. Said he had to finish his speech.
Because his campaign speech suggested that al Qaeda got its nukes from Russia, I told him that I’ve actually lived in Russia, simply to try to hold the conversation together. But he immediately shied away from me after this, suspecting, perhaps, that I was about to challenge his peculiar ideas. As if I needed anymore evidence…
Will John Edwards ever start fighting?
By Mark Grueter on Fri, Jan 4, 2008 2:48 pm
At 7 am on Friday morning in Manchester, New Hampshire John Edwards again talked about how he will “fight” for the interests of the American people against corporate greed, etc. In fact, this morning, Edwards said pretty much the same exact things he’s been saying in Iowa: sound, passionate, populist stuff for what it’s worth but it wasn’t enough to win Iowa, so how can he possibly imagine it’ll be enough to help him catch up to Obama and Clinton in New Hampshire?
I like the newer, leftier John Edwards, his proposals and his message (I actually think his move to the left is heartfelt) but he doesn’t have a shot in hell in New Hampshire or anywhere else unless he starts criticizing his opponents or at the least starts explaining how or why Obama’s strategy for affecting “change” (one that focuses on reconciliation and “unity” in sharp contrast to Edwards’ blow up the system rhetoric) won’t work.
Edwards says, to change Washington, a President needs real “backbone” in order to fight against the vested interests there, but he doesn’t even have the backbone to go after his own opponents, the ones who are set to prevent him from waging his much vaunted war against DC. And now there’s almost no time remaining for Edwards. While he frequently alludes to his opponents and their supposed flaws, he fails to criticize the now frontrunner Barack Obama directly. He could easily say something like, ‘you can’t change this country simply by trying to make friends with everyone. That’s just not how it works. Politics is by nature a fight, a battle between competing interests.’ While perhaps adding, ‘My opponent Barach Obama is just preaching empty rhetoric’.
Edwards might also add that the Obama fuzzy feel-good strategy is no way to win a general election either. Listening to Obama this morning, I was struck by how much he sounded almost exactly like the failed Kerry/Edwards campaign of 2004. Just like the Kerry campaign did, Obama rails against “anger” and “partisanship” while promoting “unity” - but it’s completely unrealistic to think you can rectify, say, America’s economic and social injustices without a bit of anger and fight.
