Saturday, September 08, 2012

20 Bits Down the Road to Perdition, to Kurtz's Horror

Yes, they are....... [1] This election could go either way. True..... [2]If Obama squeaks by, he will have done so with the help of a Democratic party that has taken a large, open, and disturbingly leftist turn. True.... [3] I think we’re missing the significance of that. Speak for yourself, Kurtz. [4] Conservatives can’t cut through the media filter. The MSM Party Line is totally dePravda, dude........ [5]The conservative case can’t break through the left-controlled education system that has profoundly shaped the Millennials It'll make a Charly outa ya, Kurtz..... [6]Do demographics doom the expansive liberal welfare state, regardless? Yup...... [7] Yet if Obama is in the driver’s seat as our fiscal woes mount, he will use the crisis to further his restructuring. Yes, He Can. Yes, He Will..... [8]California is our advance guard The very Vanguard of the Revolution...... [9]The Romney campaign has avoided an assault on Obama’s ideology. Had too much fun assaulting the Tea Party. Rich Boy's tired..... [10]Romney’s strategy is to downplay the ideological battle Sort of like Ethelred the Unready, who just downplayed the whole battle part.... [11] Krauthammer says that the counter to all this is exposing Obama” ..using his presidential power to enact the same “ambitious left-wing agenda” he “developed in his youth. Well, yes, at the bare minimum, Stanley....... [12]So far as I can tell, however, this sort of argument is the last thing the Romney campaign wants to make right now. Duh, what a sharp eye you mealy mouthed wuss...... [13]I can’t say for certain that Romney’s strategy is wrong. Brave of ya..... [14]>But I do think it’s far riskier than we realize. What's so risky about defacto capitulation on what you claim to believe? It did Planet Pepe proud..... [15]Republicans won big in 2010 by defining Obama as an overweening ideologue. Yet that was the Tea Party’s doing, not the Republican establishment. So very very True. Not that the Establishment learnt that lesson.....= [16]Were Republicans smart to hold their fire? Is it smart to be a bloomin' idiot reading from the Book of Rove with the other Ivy Idiocrats? You decide, Stanley..... [17]Republican reticence on these issues has been going on for a while. No shit....... [18]Beginning with John McCain in 2008, the party establishment has done a weak job of challenging the core Democratic narrative Stanley, if you had said "beginning with Bush Sr. in 1988" you would have been far closer to the truth...... [19]Yet I worry that the Romneyites are fooling themselves. What, you worry? There's always Andromeda...... [20]Technocrats and fixers from a state where liberals dominate, they are neither inclined or prepared to show how the Obama Democrats are slowly redefining American exceptionalism. "We'll work Harder and Better in Building that Road to Perdition!". Inspiring, eh? Besides, Mr. Kurtz, it ain't so slowly anymore. The vessels of our destruction have damned those torpedoes are Full Speed ahead to Forward!

5 comments:

Tecumseh said...

McCarthy and Kurtz deliver a 1-2 punch today, all accentuated by the free fall in the polls.

Getting back though to an earlier point, let me try another tack. Let's compare the situation today with that in 1980. The economy was about just as bad -- worse in terms of official unemployment, but with less despair, I think. The inflation rate was awful, but the debt was negligible by comparison. The dollar was much stronger. There were two or three key points, though, in which things were much different:

* Reagan was a much better candidate than Romney, or any other GOP presidential candidate since then (duh).

* Even so, Reagan had a much more even playing field then than Romney has now: even someone of the Gipper caliber would be in a very tight spot now, what with 30+ years of forward-marching progressivism.

* In the end, what made things break Reagan's way in 1980, I think, was the stark difference he presented vis-a-vis Carter in military and foreign affairs, especially after the string of advances by the Soviets in the mid-to-late 1970s, and Carter's utter failure in Iran.

Now, what surprises me the most in this campaign (and not just now, but throughout the primaries), is how the GOP has basically ceded the field on military/foreign affairs, and basically stopped even talking about these matters, except for occasional platitudes.

This used to be the GOP's forte for generations, certainly every national election since 1968, with the possible exception of 1996-2000, when foreign affairs were also kind of neglected in the campaigns (reality bit back shortly after 2000, on a September morning, just about 11 years ago).

At any rate, am I the only one who seems to note this? Even pundits like Kraut, McCarthy, and Kurtz don't bother with this angle anymore.

In the meantime, the world doesn't stand still. You guys didn't seem to have noted this post. Others are paying attention to what's going on.

Arelcao Akleos said...


"At any rate, am I the only one who seems to note this?"
Well, on the national level many have...but they are not on the Rove-House of Bush approve list. The 'wot", already a travesty under Bush in his last few years, is now approaching a great national tragedy. The killing of our young, and amongst the very best of our young, on a cause our Government has already decided it does not believe in. On a cause our Government is coming very close to being an enemy of.

Arelcao Akleos said...

"You guys didn't seem to have noted this post [vis a vis the Death looming over the Middle East]. Others are paying attention to what's going on."
Of course we have.... and we have touched on it, somewhat tangentially, in that DNC "fuck God and Israel" discussion. But what can we say? It, like the related harrowing of Syria, is one of those moments in History with such breathtaking consequences, such darkness visible, that it numbs the soul.

Tecumseh said...

The soul is numbed, that's for sure. Perhaps on a lighter note, here is Goldberg, piling up:

Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to have become Dukakified. It was Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, who insisted that the election should be entirely about “competence, not ideology.” Romney has avoided saying that in so many words, but it’s certainly how he’s campaigning. After running to the right in the primaries and boldly picking Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate, Romney bizarrely seems to have retreated to an ideological and even intellectual crouch.

Ouchhh...

Tecumseh said...

Kristol puts in his 2 cents:

When a challenger merely appeals to disappointment with the incumbent and tries to reassure voters he’s not too bad an alternative, that isn’t generally a formula for victory. Mike Dukakis lost.

As the examples of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992 suggest, successful challengers don’t just jab lightly, parry punches, and circle the ring. They go for at least a few knockdowns. It’s not enough to float like a butterfly. You have to sting like a bee. No sting, no victory.