This op-ed piece from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer echoes a thought that has crossed my mind about the presidential election, particularly after Obama’s “victory lap” tour last week: it’s beginning to resemble the 1996 election, where Bill Clinton established his lead over Bob Dole early on and didn’t need to do much more than show up. From a distance, it’s easy to see McCain assuming the role of Bob Dole, the cranky and sometimes bitter old white man who’s best qualification seems to be that he was badly injured in a war that was fought forty years ago. I think Dole was a better legislator than McCain is, and a good deal less “ethically challenged” to boot, but both men represent a political landscape that is long gone. Bob Dole would have been the last hurrah of the old guard of the GOP, McCain would be nothing but a caretaker while the party licks its wounds and retrenches.
Obama does bear some comparison to Bill Clinton in his willingness to do anything to make himself look good at anybody’s expense. Clinton did a much better job of not letting his big ego show. Any way you care to slice it, Obama’s world tour showed an astonishing amount of arrogance and hubris. Clinton was generally satisfied to take what he got in terms of public approval, but Obama seems to NEED to be Jesus Christ Superstar, and I think that’s going to bite him in the ass when the inevitable day comes that his public approval plummets. He might not be as hated as Bush, but even the best-loved presidents have found themselves on the wrong side of the X-axis at some point. Clinton triangulated to maximum effect and even survived the humiliation of the impeachment as a result. That’s the real reason he could glide through the 1996 re-election. Obama is sailing solely on the breeze of the public’s present level of infatuation. That may work to get him elected in 2008, but he won’t have such smooth sailing in 2012 if the public’s disenchantment sets in.
That’s why this election also reminds me of 1976, maybe even more than it does 1996. Jimmy Carter won a popularity contest running on his big smile and pleasant demeanor against yet another old man Republican, Gerry Ford (who, not coincidentally, had Dole as his running mate). Until George W. Bush came along and redefined the term once and for all, Carter wound up as the very symbol of “presidential failure” and attained nearly as low an approval rating as Richard Nixon. He very nearly lost the nomination of his own party four years later and handily lost to the man who transformed the Republican Party into the beast it is today, Ronald Reagan. Carter has managed to rehabilitate his personal public image since then, but not the overall assessment of his presidency. I have no doubt that Barack Obama would similarly manage to improve his personal standing down the road, but we all might pay the price in the meanwhile.
Bob Dole v.2 vs. Jimmy Carter v.2 makes me incredibly sad.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
