Deanie Mills on Thinking Conservatives
I’m curious what my favorite “thinking conservative” (Craig, I mean) thinks about this: Hell just froze over.
I’ve been following some of the back-and-forth in the comments on my last-but-one post, and I gather that Craig thinks Obama should have been more forthcoming about the real nature of his relationship with Bill Ayers. My own take on that is that Obama gave it as much forthcomingness as it deserved, back when Hillary raised it in the primary, and I don’t see why he’s obligated to say more about it now. But I’m willing to set that aside, and agree to disagree. Because I think we have more important things to talk about.
Craig, I wonder how you feel about the tactics being used at the McCain and Palin rallies over the last few days. I wonder if your views are similar to those of the “thinking conservatives” that Mills talks about in the piece I linked to above. And mostly, I wonder if you believe a case can be made that, given the realities of what the two campaigns have been saying lately, John McCain and Sarah Palin really are the best choice to lead the country for the next four years.
I’m willing to give such a case my careful, honest, sober consideration. And of all the people I can think of who might be willing to make it, I think you’re probably my best shot at getting it.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:58 am
As far as the article itself, it mostly reads like a committed liberal trying track a blueprint of an imagined logic tree for conservatives to follow towards enlightenment. The barely concealed contempt is shown by defining conservatives that begin to see the merits of Obama over McCain as “thinking”. So the tone turns me off despite some reasonable broad points in the story.
My opinion right now is that I am dissappointed in the Republican party that McCain is the best it can offer right now. He is a good man, a good patriot, a good Senator, and a good leader, but he doesn’t really inspire me with a clear vision of how he plans on leaving his mark of the presidency and this Country. Palin is a calulated political choice, as is Biden. Neither are Presidential timber. The world will not come to an end when (I said when) Obama becomes President. He also wants to see the best for America, through his vision. There are numerous things I agree with him on. But there are some things that I fear he will be forced to do by demand of his hard left base, such as pull out troops in a way more beholden to a calender than to actual events, among other things. (I also have a nagging concern that he and the Democratic congress will be pressured to spend more energy and resources on investigations on the current Administration than on an economy crumbling around us.)
That being said, it always interests me at the way we humans can see the faults in others before ourselves. Politics is a great example. We see the blinkered ignorance of the other party’s committed base but not our own (such Republicans can only seemingly utter “9/11” and “war on terror”, while similar-minded Democrats endlessly recite “hope” and “change”). We see our own candidate as being outside politics as usual but the other mired within it (a marketed myth on both counts). We see only a banner of truth from our preferred candidate’s campaign and only a blanket of lies from the other.
At the end of the day, politics are populated by politicians. No exceptions.
To your question on the McCain campaigns current attacks, I see it as one of the few buttons that he has left to push. It was always a tough sell to be the reform candidate within the party to be reformed. And despite the shared blame for our current economics, people will instinctively seek a new set of people to address it, regardless of the fact that neither party (nor anyone else) has a firm grasp on how to handle something out of anyone’s direct control. McCain may be using a fairly conventional approach to try to make inroads on Obama’s perceived lack of full disclosure, but fear has a way of co-opting the intent of a message and taking things in its own direction.
Again, Politics rules politicians, so don’t convince yourself that Axelrod hasn’t or wouldn’t play the game of direct or passive messaging to the lowest common denominator and people’s base fears or flaws. Ask Hillary (and Sarah).