Last week, at the end of the Dem Convention, I made the comment that it would be interesting to see how the Republicans positioned their party in the week that followed. Turns out to have been an interesting week as predicted.The Obama campaign has been very successful at sinking home the message of Change. Time for something new, something different in Washington. I have a friend who said his father, an old man nearly eighty, was for the first time in his life thinking of pulling a lever for a Democrat. He said to his son, "Who does not want change?" The son had no answer.
Well, this week the McCain people addressed this very hunger for change by spinning the campaign theme this way: We are the candidates of change. We, McCain and Palin, are not about going to put up with the status quo politics that has become standard fare in Washington.
I watched from the PR spin angle sidelines and see it as a brilliant position to stake out. Even though John McCain has been a Washington insider for more than a little while, he has a reputation as a maverick. (It was amusing to see a delegate on the floor of the convention in St. Paul holding a sign that read, "Mavrick"... )
The night before, the convention speakers set the table with Palin's achievements. For sure, you could not get further from the beltway with this governor from Alaska. Her reputation was staked out as being one who fights corruption, who is not afraid to take on special interests. She was not afraid of a fight. Of herself she said the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is the lipstick.
And, of course, John McCain, it was repeatedly noted, is himself a fighter... This is where the orchestration comes in. The theme all week of McCain the fighter and maverick all connects to our grass roots "people against the machine" desires. But it was also a setup up for his bearing of the soul to reveal his motivations. Like Obama the week before, McCain told the story of how he came to care so much for his country. He shared how he had been a proud young man, but met his match under torture. What kept him going was having to live for something bigger than himself.
McCain and Palin are now claiming to be carrying the real banner for change, painting Obama and Biden as "more of the same."
GOP originally stood for Gallant Old Party. Somehow over the years Grand Old Party must have sounded better to someone.
Fortunately, there are less than two months now to the election. Hopefully there will be no hanging chads or other disputes when the votes are tallied. But comments on the future of voting (i.e. eVoting) will be saved for another day.
Y'all come back now, ya hear?
>>>>>>GOP originally stood for Gallant Old Party. Somehow over the years Grand Old Party must have sounded better to someone.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was "God's Own Party".
(sarcasm)
Here's something laughable I just ran across, regarding the GOP convention:
"You're gonna love this. Remember the weird green screen behind McCain as he was speaking last night? As his speech went on, we realized it was grass - grass from a larger photo of a house or some big mansion or something. In fact, the picture was of Walter Reed. No, not Walter Reed Army Medical Center where injured troops are treated - though that was clearly McCain's intent, to use our injured troops as a political prop (just as last night they dared show footage of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, and the towers falling) - no, in fact, McCain posted a photo of Walter Reed Middle School, a school for kids in California that has nothing to do with Walter Reed the military hospital. They actually thought the school was the Army hospital. Apparently McCain just discovered the Google.
Great vetting."
http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/mccains-weird-green-screen-it-was.html
I pretty much skipped the speeches from both parties, but was entranced by watching the black-shirts slam people around and detaining them, many without charges against them -- including accredited reporters simply covering the protests, their faces slammed into the concrete, with a knee on the neck as they were being handcuffed. "Detained, then later released without charges being filed."
And there were "preemptive" raids on houses. (You're presumed guilty of what they've determined you just might do in the future.)
The cops in Denver looked just like the cops in Minnesota -- dressed in black, all of them, their faces covered.
(Side comment: In a country which eats so much hot pepper, no one I've talked to here can even imagine mixing peppers with a liquid and spraying it into people's eyes. And when I mentioned that women get the same treatment, their eyes really got big. I have to explain what Tasers are, too.)
My fear is that those black-shirts will soon be out in force everywhere. I have an eery feeling that the Republicans are not going to allow themselves to lose this "election" (which is why it doesn't really matter what kind of nincompoops they nominate, since the president is just a puppet to corporate interests, anyway).
Both Obama and Biden have talked about filing criminal charges against those who committed crimes. I can't imagine the party of "personal responsibility" giving into such "unfair treatment", without resorting to fraud and violence to prevent it, even against the American people. I sure hope I'm wrong, but it certainly would be par for the course. Last week was just the latest example. It's a sad state of affairs. I remember when the US was a nice place to live.
Very strange... I wrote a reply to this earlier today but it is not here. Must have done something wrong or mis-read the squiggly letters.
ReplyDeleteI may have written a little about what I saw in D.C. during the MayDay protest and riots in 1971. It was not pretty. In fact, it was downright scary.
As for today's "black shirt" ... well, I do not share the same level of concern that you do, but tend to be an optimist, so it may be in part my unwillingness to believe it can get as bad as those fears can suggest.
I do know (or should I say, believe) that power is more important than truth at the highest levels of government. That is why the Founding Fathers favored limited government as well as checks and balances. The Nixon admin showed that even the checks and balances can be run over roughshod....
Be well.