Thinking Up A Really Good Campaign Strategy After the Election

“But most people on public assistance don’t have a character flaw. They just have a tough life. I want to create more jobs. The focus should be on creating more jobs, not demonizing those who find themselves on hard times.”

Ah, it’s nice to be vindicated. I’ve been saying some variation of this since the first time I saw some hammerhead babbling about forced drug tests for welfare recipients. If I weren’t so inured to the vindictiveness of people who hate aid recipients (and their aversion to reading actual news stories), I would have been amazed that people continued to babble about it even after such a program in Florida uncovered a tiny percentage of drug users and ended up costing the taxpayers more than if they’d done no testing at all. So nice job, Florida. By the way, Midnight Oil called and they want their lead singer back.

Anyway, vindication. The quote at the top of this entry is not from any bleeding-heart liberal but from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, in response to Mitt Romney’s mind-boggling public statement that Obama won the election because voters essentially thought they’d get more “gifts” from a Democratic administration. This is a silly statement for anyone to make (particularly someone who was purportedly the best candidate available on the Republican side), equally silly for anyone with critical thinking skills to believe. I wouldn’t claim that no such voters exist, but I’d bet there are fewer of them than voters who went for Romney because they thought a second term for Obama would bring about an apocalypse.

Point is, Republicans are now, almost two weeks after the election, beginning to distance themselves from Romney’s “gifts” remark, and his speech about not worrying about “the 47%,” and everything else he did to make it clear that his campaign was aimed at a rich, white, male America. My question is Why? Why now? Aren’t there people whose jobs are to help candidates run a sensible campaign? Wasn’t there anyone who could suggest that “You know what? What do we have to lose by trying statesmanship? Can you do that? Can you at least act like you want to be president of all the people?”?

And, seriously, when someone in your party is painting poor people with such a broad brush—making them seem lazy and devious instead of just struggling to make a living—isn’t there someone else who can say “Knock it off”?

Before the election?

* * *

Couple more random thoughts.

I’ve seen moderate Republicans complain about how the religious right has “hijacked” their party, but I would caution these folks to remember that you invited them in back during the Reagan years—and you did so because you needed some dupes to think you gave a crap about abortion while you were working against their economic interests. So if there was a coup, it was a coup from within.

Also, I couldn’t resist. On the left is Florida governor Rick Scott, whose drug-testing program cost the state more than twice what would have had to pay those who failed the test. On the right is former Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett, who is a member of the Australian Parliament and whose politics are considerably to the left of Mr Scott’s. Now that I think of it, I should have put Garrett on the left, and—oh, never mind.

That Vote Wasn't Just For Me

And lo, there was much hand-wringing.

Sure, there would have much hand-wringing from the left if the election had gone the other way, but it probably wouldn’t have been along the lines of “I fear for the future of our country,” which I saw quite a lot of on Facebook this morning and which might be the hand-wringingest thing a person can say, ranking just ahead of “But what about the children?”

In any event, Barack Obama is in for four more years. I consider this good news for the country, though I also hope that one of the first things the President does is take a long hard look at his first term and rethink anything he did that flew in the face of progressive ideals: the use of drones, the indefinite detention segments of the NDAA, and our continued presence in Afghanistan, to name a few. Killing civilians in the most backward-ass region of the world does nothing to keep America safe, so since there’s no need to cater to the hawks at this point, let’s get our troops out of there and conduct the hunt for al-Qaeda on the sly.

Aside from those areas where Obama slid too far to the right for my tastes, I supported him for a number of reasons. When the early returns showed Romney with a slight lead last night, I steeled myself for a Republican victory and realized that no matter what happened, I’d probably be fine. As it happens, I can write somewhat engaging and persuasive advertising copy, which, believe it or not, is a marketable skill no matter who’s President. Plus, I figured there’s always going to be a need for comedy, so a Romney win last night would have resulted in some incredulous blog entries but not much hand-wringing on my part.

However.

What I also realized is that my vote for Obama was not just a vote for me and my situation. It was a vote for women, a vote for gay Americans, a vote for anyone on the wrong side of the gap between rich and poor--a gap that seemed likely to grow under the supply-side policies of another Republican administration. Over the course of this interminable campaign I grew increasingly weary of voters obsessing over people who are worse off than they are. “Drug-test welfare recipients!” “I saw a person using food stamps while talking on a cell phone!” “Obama phones!”

The implication is that the complainer’s tax dollars are being (a) used for something the complainer doesn’t approve of, (b) used by someone the complainer doesn’t like, or (c) stolen out of the complainer’s pocket. Rarely, if ever, do we hear such a complainer rant about hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to profitable oil companies, or the $500 billion thrown away in Afghanistan. No, the complaints are always directed at those who are already struggling.

My vote for Obama was a vote for empathy.

I caught part of a conversation on Facebook this morning in which one Romney supporter noted that “Same-sex marriage won’t create jobs!” The original poster’s calm response: “Neither will opposing it.” You know what does create jobs? Demand. I might have spent most of my time in Steve Schmutte’s Intro to Economics class drawing Dr Zap cartoons, but I did pick up on the fact that you can produce all the goods and services you want, but if people don’t have the money to purchase them, your investment has not been a wise one.

In a time of recession, there’s not much the private sector can do the stimulate the economy. Fortunately, the government can fill that role nicely. I’m not talking about the big overreaching government that Fox News has conditioned people to fear (except when it’s reaching into your bedroom), but about the government as it was originally intended. The one comprised of We the People. That government still exists, but it’s only going to work if elected officials start answering to their constituents and not whomever offers the biggest money-stuffed briefcase.

My vote for Obama was a vote for the idea that no one has a corner on being American. Rich or poor, male or female, gay or straight, religious or not--we’re all in this together. A philosopher by the name of J. Christ once said that “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.” I would add this corollary: “Whatever you do for the least of Americans, you do for America.”

Throwing Cake on the Floor

There’s a common misconception that shortly after Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said that the goal of Republicans in Congress was to make sure Obama was “a one-term president.” McConnell did say this, but it wasn’t till October 2010. The quote itself shouldn’t be all that surprising--after all, I think we can all safely assume that politicians will be rooting for their own party in the next election. Call it an a permanent underlying goal if you wish, but for crying out loud, could you at least publicly state that your first priority is to build a stronger America on behalf of the citizens you’re serving?

This article by Michael Cohen in The Guardian makes a pretty solid case for how the GOP was gone out of its way to block and sabotage Obama’s efforts toward economic recovery. One would think that such obstructionism would have the opposite effect on the GOP’s “one-term” goals. I mean, if someone bakes you a cake and you throw it on the floor, you can’t really blame the baker for the fact that you can’t eat the cake.

I wish I could say for certain that voters know who’s at fault. But I see a lot of nonmillionaires planning to vote for the Republican because they either aren’t aware or just don’t care.

I got off track there. The main reason I started this post was to joke that if Obama wins next week, I’m looking forward to McConnell saying “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure he’s a two-term president.”

If Democrats Are Power-Mad, They Have A Funny Way of Showing It

The election is one week from today and Hurricane Sandy is knocking the hell out of the east coast. Subways are flooding, substations are blowing up, and millions are without electricity. I have yet to see any paranoid reactionaries claiming that Obama is going to use this disaster to postpone the election and remain in power in perpetuity, but that might be because I haven’t read the entire internet yet.

On the other hand, I had already heard similar ranting even before Sandy hit. “The Dems will do anything to stay in power!” according to one ranter. Yes, indeed--like pushing for voter ID laws aimed at disenfranchising people most likely to vote Democratic (here). And systematically losing, discarding, or destroying Democratic voter registrations (here). And misleading Spanish-speaking voters into thinking voter ID is required (here). And just plain telling different Spanish-speaking people the election is on Thursday the 8th (here). Man, we Democrats are ruthless.

These paranoid fantasies spring up every election year, and tend to be believed by people predisposed to believe the worst about the party they’re not voting for. I wasn’t concerned when I heard the rumors in 2004 (remember how Bush was going to postpone the election because, uh, terrorism?), or in 2008 (believe he was going to declare martial law that time). I’m not concerned now, nor should anyone else be. For one reason, the president doesn’t have the power to reschedule an election. For another, remember these are Democrats we’re talking about. Even if there was an ounce of deviousness in the party, they’d look for a way to use it in a bipartisan manner.

If Democrats really wanted to stay in power, they’d do a better job of persuading nonmillionaire voters not to screw themselves by voting Republican. But I don’t see that happening.

Rebooting the Runes Again

I used to have this idea that I could send humorous opinion pieces to magazines, get paid for them, and parlay that experience into a regular position as a columnist who writes humorous opinion pieces. This didn’t happen, of course. I sold a handful of essays at the rate of about one every two years, and at no time did an editor ever say “Hey, we like your stuff, why don’t you give us 500 words on Republicans or cat hair or something?”

Part of the problem was that I’ve never been a prolific essay writer. The rate at which I was writing humorous opinion pieces wasn’t that much greater than the rate at which I sold them. And yet I’ve always wondered what I could have done if my job had been to write humorous opinion pieces. Could I turn out five a week? Three? One? Would a paycheck be a good substitute for a muse?

We’ll never know. The idea of writing humorous essays for money was never a dream, only an idea, and has long since been abandoned. But I do still occasionally get the urge to write some wry commentary, and that’s why I started the Runes way back in 2005.

Looks like I’m averaging about eight-tenths of an essay per month since then. Probably about eight-tenths of a reader too.

And yet here we are again. We’re one week from the presidential election and I have some thoughts that are longer than the usual Facebook status. Let’s see what happens.

God Issues Earthquake Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Earthquake Result of Shift in Tectonic Plates, Not Divine Retribution

The creator of the universe has issued the following statement about the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that hit the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. this afternoon:

"Before anyone gets the idea that today's earthquake was some sort of divine punishment of people who support same-sex marriage, universal healthcare, taxing the wealthy, or a woman's right to choose, let me just state that nothing could be further than the truth, and that this quake, like all previous quakes in the history of the world, was in fact the result of two tectonic plates getting a little bit stuck and then breaking free.

"I'm issuing this preemptive statement because I know some of you are getting your sound bites ready. I'm looking at you, Pat Robertson. Just keep it to yourself this time. You too, Falwell. Wait, Falwell's dead? OK, well, Limbaugh or Beck or anyone else that sees heavenly retribution when and only when it's convenient to their cause. I don't have time to keep track of them all or remember their names, but I can assure you I find their supernatural interpretations of natural disasters quite tiresome, annoying, and presumptuous. Thank you."

Can We Afford Another Norman Conquest?

Michele "Don't Know Much About History" Bachmann makes the Runes again today after a radio interview in which she noted that Americans are worried about "the rise of China, the rise of India, and the rise of the Soviet Union," which would be a pretty neat trick considering the Soviet Union has not existed for 20 years.

Twenty years. Does Bachmann ever read the newspaper? I mean, even if she didn't read the paper the day the USSR broke up into independent countries (December 1991), has she read one since then? Has she looked at a world map in the last couple of decades?

I mean, the last time the Soviet Union existed, Elvis Presley had been dead for 14 years. By the way, happy birthday, Elvis.

I'm one American who isn't worried about the rise of the Soviet Union. However, we should probably keep an eye on the Prussians. For that matter, those sneaky Visigoths should never be counted out either. I've also heard the Babylonians are massing on the Assyrian border. And can we really afford another Norman Conquest?

Of course, to be perfectly fair, I'm guessing 90% of Bachmann's supporters aren't aware the Soviet Union no longer exists either.

* * *

Bachmann went on to say that thanks to the debt-ceiling bill, President Obama is going to "whack $500 billion at a time when we're fighting three wars." She didn't happen to mention that any fighting we're doing these days isn't actually a war and isn't actually necessary.

Bachmann Fails Government 101

See, why would you take the time to poke fun at a picture of Michele Bachmann eating a corn dog when all you have to do is wait a few minutes for her to say something idiotic? Eating a corn dog doesn't make someone a bad presidential candidate, but not understanding how the government works sure as hell does.

In an interview with CNN, Bachmann trotted out the tired old phrase "legislating from the bench" in reference to Varnum, the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision that allowed same-sex marriage here. She's opposed, she said, to legislating from the bench. She's opposed to judges "substituting their opinion for that of the people," which is what she thinks happened in Iowa.

OK, listen closely, Michele: Judges have one job, and that's to interpret the laws in light of the Constitution. Judges do not consult "the people" before making their decisions. They don't have to. If judges based their interpretation of the laws based on the will of the people, we wouldn't need judges. Hell, we wouldn't even need law schools.

Does Michele Bachmann really not know this?

I mean, I can understand pretending not to know it in order to appeal to the uneducated. But those people are already going to vote for her. How does a real or pretend misunderstanding of how government works help you win over the undecided? The independent? The people who actually know what role the judicial branch is supposed to play?

The CNN interviewer asked Bachmann what harm she thought had been done by the 2009 ruling. She didn't answer the question, but rather said it was more important for people to "weigh in on the laws they choose to live under." In other words, she thought the people should have been able to vote on same-sex marriage.

But what people, Michele? The bigoted? The self-righteous? We had a vote last November and a slim majority of Iowans--incited by out-of-state special interest groups--fired three Supreme Court justices. Not for malfeasance. Not for corruption. For disagreeing with them.

For doing their jobs right, essentially.

I wish Bachmann had attempted to answer the question about what harm had befallen Iowa since gay men and women were allowed to marry. If she were truly honest, she would have had to admit that the state has proceeded apace with nary a blip attributed to Varnum. If on the other hand she was just being Michele Bachmann, she would have come up with something. I have a feeling, though, that she probably would have just echoed what the State claimed during the 2009 hearing might happen if same-sex marriage were allowed--harm to children of same-sex couples, basically. The Court found these arguments specious and unsupported.

Of course, "specious and unsupported" means "perfectly logical" to the people Bachmann is trying to appeal to.

The Corn Dog Affair

By now everyone has seen the ridiculous picture of Michele Bachmann eating a corn dog at the Iowa State Fair, and of course there have been scores of lascivious comments about how it looks like she's performing fellatio and isn't that hilarious and ha ha Michele Bachman is going on down on a corn dog and so on and so on.

The jokes are tiresome, and they're cheap, and even taking into account what a nasty human being and even worse presidential prospect Bachmann is, they're not really fair. Yeah, remember this date, because this is going to be the first and last day the Runes ever sort of stands up for Michele Bachmann.

Let's approach this from a comedy standpoint: Corn dogs are not a new invention. They've been around since the '20s. Everyone knows what they look like. Everyone knows they go in your mouth. So if you believe that someone eating a corn dog appears to be performing fellatio, then you have to believe that everyone eating a corn dog appears to be performing fellatio. Thus, there is no joke. You can't pick and choose: "Hey, this person I don't like looks as if he or she is knob-gobbling that corn dog--but of course it looks perfectly respectable when I do it."

Some pundits and bloggers and Facebook commenters have said that publishing the unflattering picture of Bachmann is an attempt to sexually humiliate a female presidential candidate. (One person, apparently new to the planet, asked "Would the same picture have been published if it were a man with half a corn dog in his mouth?" Uh--yes.) Others are taking a more sophomoric approach, posting remarks implying that Bachmann is sure enjoying that phallic substitute, wink wink. The former group might be jumping to conclusions; the latter group's leering is misguided because, again, you can't make fun of someone else's enjoyment of, uh, corn dogs if it's something you enjoy yourself. After all, to borrow (and truncate) a quote from Lenny Bruce, "...that's one nice lady."

There are plenty of good reasons to make fun of Michele Bachmann, including the fact that she thinks aligning herself with the right-wing fringe is going to make her electable in November 2012. But hey, as a corn dog eater she has nothing to be ashamed of.