The Movement Class

AT THE  1976 Republican convention, Bill Batchelder, the Republican state representative from Medina, Oh,  fashioned his signature wide grin as he snake-danced through the hotel corridor with a number of his conservative delegates. 

 "What are you doing?" I recall asking him. 

"It's the Movement," he exclaimed, joyously.   "The Movement!"

That was my first encounter with the word as a battle cry for conservative conservative Republicans.  And although Ronald Reagan was narrowly defeated by a sitting Republican president, Gerald Ford, he would be triumphantly back in 1980 as the godly icon of the Movement Class - a phenomenon that has again revealed itself from the ashes of last Tuesday's GOP disaster.  Op-Ed pages, talk show gurus and eager Movement politicians are now ganging up for their born-again opportunities to lead the party to righteous victory in 2012.  They'll all be at the Republican Governors Association in Miami beginning tomorrow to seek out the nearest TV camera to offer a Good Housekeeping remedy for the party's ills.  

I doubt that they will come up with a workable solution  as each wiggles  to find a special place of prominence on Olympus when  the great mentioning game begins to identify a format for what is now generally regarded as a regional party. And a racially and ethnically barren party.  Not a single African American in the Republican House and Senate delegations.  Only one Republican Jew in the U.S House, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, who is somewhere to the right of  Rush Limbaugh and wants to be the minority leader.  At the same time, the president of the United States Conference  of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, has instructed  the bishops to confront Barack Obama on abortion, a conservative light switch.  

 The star attraction will be Gov. Sarah Palin, who hasn't convinced the Movement Class that controls the party that she is a political liability.  She'll be at the convention as a speaker and as a source of a number of national interviews.    But she isn't quite ready to announce her candidacy for president in 2012. In an interview with Fox News, she said she is awaiting word from God that He will open a door for her candidacy.  That should settle the commotion of where the party will go from here.  Conservatively speaking,  it's a start.   

Military service loses war for White House

AS POLITICAL scientists and pundits poke around in the remaining mulch  of last Tuesday's election for new insights,  is it a stretch to suggest that a candidate's military service has been sharply downgraded as a political asset? There are a growing number of instances in which the candidate with no military experience has advanced to the Oval office over a bona fide veteran.

Some evidence:  Ronald Reagan, whose "active duty" amounted to no more than strutting about in uniform in California and making war movies, defeated Jimmy Carter, who served commendably on submarine duty, and Walter Mondale, an Army vet.  In 1992 and again in 1996, Bill Clinton, who never put on a uniform,  knocked off two authentic military achievers: George H. W. Bush, a WWII Naval pilot, and Bob Dole, a decorated veteran with lasting scars. And didn't Dubya Bush manage to avoid the service and later slip by two war  veterans, Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry?  Yes, he did.  Finally, except for some aged veterans groups,  John McCain's widely  touted POW experience wasn't of much value against Barack Obama, with no military service.  There were other issues in these campaigns as well, and they prevailed.  And as the younger generation moves farther away from the old Selective Service System,  it will likely stay that way.     

Clothesgate, a bizarre finale

COULD YOU  have ever imagined last August, when the McCain camp rocketed Sarah Palin into the politicosphere, that it would have had such a bizarre ending as the current Clothesgate scandal?   I mean,  to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, not with an intended bang on election day but rather with a whimper?  While she was jetting back to friendlier turf in Alaska, her GOP detractors, obviously fussy about how some of their money was spent,  were said to be jetting a lawyer to Wasilla or wherever to retrieve the fashionable  wardrobe that Palin  laid out for herself and family for more than $15o,00o.  My guess is that they won't find  the kind of goods that would end up in a neighborhood rummage sale.  So far, Palin doesn't appear to be all that repentant about the buying spree.  Besides, she may need every last stitch if she runs for president in 2012.  Meantime, I await the photo ops of an eagle-eyed  Washington lawyer poking around in Sarah's closets with receipts from Saks amid her complaints that her privacy was being invaded by disgruntled McCain males.   On the day she was  assigned to the ticket with McCain, I  wrote that it was political insanity. ( Every now and then I get it right.)  And now Clothesgate.  Weird.  Folks, you can't make this stuff up.  

My vote is for Pericles

IGNORING the worldwide jubilation over Barack Obama's victory, the hardcore conservative ideologues have already set their agenda to take back the country from the jowls of socialism and a lot of other nastiness  that Obama  - they claim  - will bring to  America's Judgment Day.  It's pretty much what I expected, right down to bravura calls for rearming their side before the nation vanishes from the globe.  But I at least hoped that the mourning cycle  would not begin  with such dark overtones for a few days to allow all of us to get some sleep.

Conservatives?  That is, eh, too liberal a description these days.  What this gang is talking about are truly conservative conservatives, which is probably how Attila vetted his volunteers before another battle.  The leader of the conscripts in this instance, as always, is Rush Limbaugh, who shamelessly borrowed Obama's battle call  of "Yes we can" for what he says is the "Reestablishment of Principled Conservatism".  I confess there are times when I wonder about the meaning of such overreaching language.  

Then there is, I noticed, the raised arm of Grover Norquist who has built  a fortune on being an anti-tax lobbyist.  To him, Obama  is nothing more than "John Kerry with a tan."  I was going to ignore these whiners until I popped open today's Plain Dealer to discover on the op-ed page another desperate (truculent, really) column by Kevin O'Brien, the paper's deputy editorial page director.  O'Brien has a long history of whining about liberals, Iraq war opponents and immorality who once opined that the reason that the bridge collapsed in Minneapolis as the result of neglect was that government had too much to do these days to pay close attention to bridge defects.  But in his super-hawkish wisdom he did try to comfort me when I complained about George Bush's reckless plunge into Iraq by suggesting that I should be thankful that the president was trying to protect me. Must be something to that.  Hey, I'm still on my feet, aren't I?

Today's sermon from the O'Brien  Pulpit was that conservatives should not waste a moment in regrouping  their  forces in nanoseconds after Obama's acceptance speech, using such inspirationat gems as "ACORN got its man, but its voters for hire will be disappointed...".  Or that Obama will now have to make decisions, "something he has never, ever done..."  Or that Obama is a "blank slate".  Could the slate be blank if it exposed Obama as a guy who "never, ever" made decisions?  Jeez.  

But in setting up a recruiting office for conservatives on the op-ed page of the Plain Dealer, O'Brien saved his best effort for the final paragraphs, to wit:

"Now, stand for what's right, in season and out of season, and have faith that no matter whether it is rewarded by victories in elections, that steadfastness  will be rewarded with the knowledge that we have done our best.

"Above all, be of good cheer.  We have a country to save, and until the last conservative draws his final breath, that will be our brief.  Surrender never saved a country and moping never won a convert."

It doesn't quite come up to Pericles' funeral oration, but I'll make allowances for his sense of despair as he awaits the dawn.  

 

once 

Lady, it's really over

TWENTY FOUR hours have passed since Barack Obama strode to the stage to address the massive crush of supporters in Grant Park as victor of a bruising campaign for the Oval Office.  It has taken the length of a day to absorb the enormity of the event.  Not only in America did Obama seize an historic  moment as the first African-American to win the presidency. Reports were gathered from around the world of his accomplishment, from Australia to South Africa and across Europe and the Far East.  America was jolted upward in the esteem of others who had grown cynical about our pretenses of leadership, human freedom and racial parity.  As a nation, we needed that lift badly.    

The anti-Obama diehards have already checked in, some fearing him as the antichrist, a radical socialist, an alien.  Their frustration was expressed to a London newspaper by a woman at the McCain post-election gathering in Phoenix.  "It's not over," she cried.  "It can't be over."

Well, lady,  it is.  At least the vote count that confirms him as the  first African-American to take up residence in the White House to deal with the challenges that may be greater than the tasks of Hercules.  At the same time, I found it amusing that Karl Rove, whose "genius" continues to decline with each new loss on his ledger,  spent  his time on Fox News  reciting vote counts for Obama, Kerry and Bush to illustrate - I'm guessing because he lost me with his numbers - that Obama didn't do all that well.  Rove and Sean Hannity are now in hopeless denial.  

Meantime, there was Joe Lieberman, one of McCain's servile courtiers and a minor nuisance, saying  that he was now fully prepared to set aside political  differences and work with Obama.  What gall!   Joe couldn't even help McCain in his home state of Connecticut, which Obama carried with 60 pct. of the vote.  You've had your fling, Joe.  Now get out of the way and go to the movies or something.     

    

Morning in America

THE MORNING AFTER:  Despite the rush of polls in the final days, nobody was more surprised by the size of Barack Obama's victory as I was. With vivid memories of the 2000 and 2004 elections, I winced when MSNBC political analyst Chuck Todd in mid-evening examined some voting figures and said,  "It's beginning to look like 2000 and 2004."  Shortly thereafter a funny thing happened to the equation:  Ohio turned over its 20 electoral votes to Obama and the 7 million vote rout of McCain was on in an election that was  widely viewed around the world.  The influential Italian newspaper, La Repubblica,   rushed into print with a  big quirky headline  that declared, "Obama presidente, l'America cambia pelle". (President Obama, America changes skin)   The editors probably  thought better of it and soon replaced it with "Obama presidente, E un altra America". (President Obama, it is another America." )

The point is, Europeans care deeply about what happens in our politics, which is a kind of flattery that we do not extend to them. I can't imagine any American newspaper running a big headline on front page recording a victory by Silvio Berlusconi.  

So, some bleary-eyed random thoughts:

As the New York Times noted this morning, the hard work now begins.  Considering the profoundly ingrained mess at home and around the world, it is fair to ask why anybody would work a couple years for a job that is fraught  with so many obstacles.  In Obama's case, it may be a major test of the irresistible force vs. the immovable object.  Let's hope not. 

For the Republican Party, when will it wise up to the fact that its "base" represents no more than 25 pct. of the electorate;  I thought it might have learned that much in 2006 when Ken Blackwell, a social conservative who claimed the support of a sea of ministers, was pummeled in Ohio's gubernatorial contest by Ted Strickland, who kept his own ministerial background out of view.  

More bad news for the aging GOP:  two-thirds of the voters under 30 years old cast ballots for Obama.  The Republicans' farm system is still mostly tied to senior citizens and rurals. Where, one might ask, would Obama have ended up in the party primaries if he had been a Republican? 

As for McCain, his finest moment came in the somber half-light of his concession speech; for once he seemed to be dictating his own conscience rather than the orchestrated cliches that misfired time and again.  His endless insistence during the campaign that he would curb lobbyists and veto earmarks was intellectually dishonest, to say the least, inasmuch as his campaign manager, Rick Davis, has been paid $2 million  as a lobbyist  to build a firewall around Fannie  Mae and Freddie Mac against regulation.    And what of Charlie Black, his senior advisor, who served well as a lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile  who led us into Iraq with his misinformation camapaign?  So now McCain will return to the Senate and his advisors will return for their big loaves of daily bread on K Street.  

As for Sarah Palin, one of McCain's horrendous campaign decisions (with plenty of nudging from his advisors) she can go back to Alaska to prepare for her 2012 presidential campaign.  No one up there will blame her for McCain's defeat.  Alaska is a numb  politically isolated state that even sent a convicted felon back to the U.S. Senate yesterday.     

Oh, George Bush and Dick Cheney?   I'm sure there are some back doors at the White House where both could slip out in the middle of the night with all of their cronies and not be seen again.  I never thought Bush's two terms would ever end. But we're getting close.  As of today, 76 more days, and as Gerald Ford declared upon succeeding Richard Nixon:  "Our national nightmare is over."    

Organizationally, there might have been a strong hint of the outcome when McCain called to Joe the Plumber in the crowd and Joe wasn't there.   I have a hunch that would not have happened with Obama's ground troops.

As for me, I'm going for a long walk.  My Steelers have a tough game on Sunday with Indianapolis and I want to figure out a game plan.  Maybe I can call on Obama''s textbook-perfect organization to offer me some hints.   On the other hand, we may all be too weary to do anything for... oh...three or four hours.    

Browns Brew: Bad to the last drop

WATCHING Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards drop another pass yesterday - he's the NFL leader in aborted receptions - I had to wonder whether the Browns had ever considered enrolling him in one of State Farm's "good hands" insurance policies. Either that, or give him a pair of catcher's mitts , one for each hand, and throw the ball to somebody else.  

The shame of McCain's refrain

SHAMELESS. How else can you describe the torrent of political pornography gushing from the McCain-Palin camp in the final days of the campaign?  John "Country First" McCain, desperate to put himself first, has left no rumor, whisper or slander unturned in leading his mob of Republican lemmings to the living rooms of American voters.  

Unable to clearly articulate his plan for America other than resorting to  such cliches as  being "pro growth and pro jobs" - whatever the hell those rhetorical placebos mean - McCain's only other non-radioactive bid to stroke the voters is that he is, um... tested.  Surely no one would discredit his POW experience, but he is in fact saying that any POW- and there were many -  is prepared to be president.  I think not. No more so than Sarah Palin is prepared to be president.  Since she was summarily added to the ticket she has proved to be no more than an anatomical expression for leering guys and a vacant substitute for Hillary Clinton as a not so subliminal walk-on role for the benefit of the ladies in her audience. 

In the final days, the McCain camp's rap sheet on Obama has included outrageous charges that he threatens to bring on a Holocaust (courtesy of a rightwing Republican Jewish organization), that he would be a threat to the peace and tranquillity - with maybe even bodily harm - to your family and mine  (you must know the origins of those fears with an African-American challenging McCain);  that Obama favored criminals over cops; that he was not an American citizen (don't kid yourself, folks; this is as racist as it gets without mentioning the n-word. )

The GOP has fallen so low into the muck that the Rep. John Boehner, the Republican minority leader from Hamilton, Oh.,  didn't hesitate to refer to Obama as "chicken shit".  Boehner? Wasn't he the guy who was seen passing out lobbyists' money on the House floor? 

However Tuesday's election turns out, neither McCain nor his party deserve to win.  The antagonists in this race would need more than $150,000 for clothes to freshen up their images after giving their brand of moral values a bad name, not only in America but to a watchful world whose support the U.S. will desperately need in the months and years ahead. The only   good news landing in the Democratic camp from their adversaries is that some guy named Cheney heartily endorsed his friend, John McCain.  With friends like that, you don't need many  enemies. 

Hemingway once described courage as "grace under pressure."  I didn't see any of that in McCain's frantic appeals to our worst instincts as we headed  to the polls. No honor.  No decency.  Even for the hysteria of ugly politics, it was despicably out of bounds.

And error in progress

Oops.  If you see a deletion on the past post I can assure you that I was not trying to deny Sarah Palin her First Amendment rights. Actually I erred on the post from FARGOZ on the Night Before Christmas and somehow it was credited to me.  Because I am not Blog Smart, I was unable to remove my name from the top of the FARGOZ post and as you will note, despite my hunt-and-peck efforts to remove Grumpy Abe from the credit line, it's still there.  However, I did manage to credit Fargoz this time.  Phew!   There are days when I long for my old Smith-Corona.    

He ain't finished yet!

PRESIDENT BUSH,  the self-proclaimed decider  who has been exiled by his own party since the GOP convention, is still trying to recapture a few moments of past glory in the closing days of his residency in the Oval Office.  Apparently hopeful that he will be best remembered by the people who sustained him for 8 dark years in the White House, Bush is calling for new  rules to relax federal regulations  on several environmental  fronts:  disposal of radioactive waste, mining exploration, commercial fishing, auto emissions, etc.  I would place this in the category of a reverse Hail Mary pass.  But for those of us who found little cheer in the Bush presidency, I would offer this consolation prize:  As of today, there are only 80 days left to his nightmarish run since the fateful day when the U.S Supreme Court, by a single vote, granted him the job.  You can celebrate, if you wish, by going shopping.