Let me begin my convention observations by saying: I don’t trust the media. Whatever the Democrats and Obama do, it will be "the wrong thing" per the corporate media narrative. He still hasn’t "sealed the deal" and "closed the sale." He "lacks specifics" — a lie — and if he provided more, they would be instant red meat. If 75,000 people in the stadium hear one of the great speeches of our time — as happened in Philadelphia on the race issue — it will be swept away by the coiffed broomheads of television pundits.
As Michelle’s speech confirmed, the Obama’s have done everything the "conservatives" demand of black folks — and they’re still "foreign." He’s a celebrity — that’s bad. Americans "don’t know who he is" — as if they know who the hell John McCain is. He’s "not one of us" — as if that has any meaning in an America of diverse life paths, or that a former POW, longtime right-wing capo and rich consort of a beer heiress is "one of us." "One of us" is a stupid person, as the media would have it — because, after all, education and the ability to speak in complete sentences = elitism.
The best way to watch the convention is on CSPAN, so you hear all the speeches, not merely the prime-time ones that are filtered and "interpreted" by the bubbleheads. Of course, most Americans don’t do this. So they watch the prime-time spectacle as the Democrats try, again, to figure out how to beat the Republicans. Somehow eight years of misgovernment on an unprecedented scale isn’t enough. Nor is the obvious failure/scam that is "conservative ideas" in action. The right has wrecked the country and yet the presidential polls, if they are to be believed, show Obama struggling to stay even.
Hillary gave the best speech of her career Tuesday night. Had she been at that level of skill 18 months ago, she probably would be the nominee. Alas, she would also have brought the dysfunction and drama of Clintonism, too. The media would rightly be demanding to know everything about the donors to the Clinton library and foundation (a curiosity they largely lack about McCain’s record and riches).
Then factor in the reality that Al Gore won in 2000, and John Kerry probably won in 2004 — stolen in Ohio — and maybe 2008 is actually a Republican year in presidential politics.
I’ve been attracted to Obama’s resemblance to Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, in as much as he’s pragmatic, willing to experiment, rhetorically gifted and isn’t hindered either by long ties to the corporate oligarchy or to any rigid dogma. (And I am setting aside the huge issue of whether enough Americans will really vote for a black man). But FDR was elected because a national calamity far worse than anything we’re now seeing brought down the old order.
The ensuing New Deal was not a seamless era of reform, but a constant bobbing and weaving as FDR cannily navigated the extremists on both sides — when fascism or revolution seemed real possibilities — and constantly experimented. Thus the first New Deal involved an attempt at managing monopolies and planning, while the second New Deal focused more on competition. Conservatives and big business never stopped fighting, especially through a Supreme Court, that today’s right wing seeks to recreate, which would have prevented any government action to address the national emergency. But a liberal consensus eventually emerged that would bring about the reform institutions that we’re still living off. It was destroyed by Vietnam and the rise of today’s free-lunch right.
The point is that periods of reform and progressive action are rare in modern American history. It remains to be seen whether another is in the offing, or whether Obama has run out of gas and will go the way of William Jennings Bryan.
I know this much: Any Hillaryland inhabitants hoping that "worse is better" and four years of a McCain presidency will produce her moment — no. By then the right will have consolidated its grip even deeper into the judiciary, the regulatory agencies and every lever to give power to the powerful. The gridlock of McCain against a Democratic Congress will cause a Republican resurgence in the 2010 mid-terms. The oligarchs may find another bubble to manufacture a "McCain recovery." But America’s real economic, social, cultural and educational decline will be beyond correction. We may even had received a costly bloody nose in another foreign adventure.
It will be over. So 2008 is it, to see if we can recover this republic.
It is very disturbing to me that neither of the parties can seem to learn real lessons from their past victories or defeats. Bush arguably won in 2000 by courting the religious conservatives. Many have said that by getting the whole group mobilized he turned them into a block that made the difference (plus the Florida debacle).
Now, both sides see the religious zealots as the key to victory. This is the wrong lesson, the wrong conclusion. Bush found one group that was split between the parties and convinced all of them to both turn out and vote for him. The correct lesson is that mobilizing a split group can be decisive. It doesn’t have to be the fundamentalists (and it should not be).
The Democrats should identify their own split group of people that they can rally to their cause without compromising their principles. Instead, they try to portray themselves as religious me-too’s to try to recruit the same group. They are embarassing themselves by having faith-based speakers that actually speak against core Democratic planks such as free-choice.
It is consistantly depressing that the so-called leaders of our political parties (and therefore the nation) do so poorly at analysis of situations, drawing valid conclusions from actual evidence and developing strategies and tactics that are more mature than selecting the Prom Queen.