To Undecided Voters: Going With Your Beer Gut
Who do you trust? Who are you most comfortable with? What lessons have you learned from 2000? 2004? Who scares you the most? Which candidate would you rather have a beer with? All questions, as Americans, you might ask yourself when entering the voting booth tomorrow.
And so, as I attempt to speak to undecideds in my historically red, but currently battleground-y home state of North Carolina, and beyond, I am reminded of a brief discussion I had with my mother earlier this year.
While my father and I consistently enjoy calling President Bush a “witless cocksucker,” (to which my conservative mother following the last eight years of national collapse will occasionally chime in with an “amen”), I believe this was only my second ever semi-political talk directly with my mom.
As I recall, we were in her tiny kitchen, eating cheesy poofs, drinking beers, and practicing our latest dance moves, when she nonchalantly slipped in that she was voting for Republican Mike Huckabee in the upcoming presidential primary.
Me: “What?”
Mama: “I like him.”
Me: “Can I ask you a question?”
Mama: ‘Sure.”
Me: “Do you want me rounded up and placed in a concentration camp on November 5?”
Mama: “Well, no.”
Me: “Then will you please vote for Hillary?”
Mama: “Sure.”
And that was that.
My mom liked Huckabee. Yes. Folksy. Honest. Smiley. Southerny. Huckabee. If he drinks anything other than the blood of Christ on Sunday, I suspect she might share a beer with him. Definitely a cheesy poof. He looks like he likes ‘em. Just like us.
Unfortunately she hadn’t given much thought to the repercussions of having an ordained Southern Baptist minister, who thinks gay marriage is a threat to civilization, governing the rights of her lesbian daughter. And while the imagery of me being loaded on a freight train with the other fairies was a slight exaggeration, it was a picture, without saying anything about what my mom might consider my abhorrent sexuality, that spoke a thousand words. Regardless of her conservative social views, ultimately she, like NASCAR’s Junior Johnson, wants her kid to have a better life. And she knew, in only seconds, the same amount of time you might spend in a voting booth selecting a “straight” ticket, that that meant choosing Hillary over Huckabee.
I am also reminded of the men and women in my life who either have already voted, or will be voting, for conservatives tomorrow—all folks who make less than $250,000 a year; all of whom have shitty health insurance like the rest of us; all of whom call themselves friends of mine. Friends of the gay. “Our lesbian friend,” they might call me. The token. The one with the short hairdid. The one who owns flannel; enjoys boots; will beat you in arm wrestling. I am their living, breathing stereotype. Safely and lovingly boxed and labeled for their pleasure.
When they pull the lever tomorrow, these very friends who warmly give me two-armed hugs, openly kiss my face, on many nights love to share a beer (or nine) with me, will be voting for a ticket—like my mother before them—that hates me. Will be voting to eliminate my right to marry, my right to visit my partner in the hospital, my right to work without fear of discrimination, my right to reproductive freedoms.
It is selfish, I know, to want these things that they have. These things that other people have. And but for our Constitution, that dazzling document that promises equal protections, I might chalk it up to my mother’s favorite adage, “life ain’t fair.”
So, my undecided and conservative friends, I ask only that you look around, or hell Republicans, simply just look at yourself, and ask not, “who do I want to have a beer with?,” but rather “what will this candidate do for you?” Not because he looks like you, is older, or safe; but because he is looking at you and telling you: He. Will. Make. Your. Life. Better. Not the life of millionaires; Your life. Better and better.
And remember, friends, if you stick to your beloved guns, and vote conservative tomorrow because you are either afraid of the black man or would rather have a drink with McSame, that one day, somewhere, I, the very drinking buddy of yours who listens, makes you laugh and comfortable, holds your hair over the toilet, will be running for office, and ready, willing, and able to make hypocrites out of all of you.
When your actual liberal drinking buddy is on the ballot, will it be about more than just the beer?
Then, dare I ask for the same rationale tomorrow?
Hell, you don’t even have to think of me tomorrow. After all, I am merely your drinking buddy. But when casting your vote, it might do you some good to cast a blind eye to the appearances of the candidates and look at yourself and what this election actually means. Even just for your middle-class, hetero life. As it exists now. Not as the millionaire you want to be.
Because friends, I know if you’re my drinking buddy, you can’t afford not to.
Tonight’s Presidential Debate: What I’m Afraid John McCain Cannot Hear
“We Republicans came to power to change government,
and government changed us.”
-Republican Nominee John McCain, During Friday’s Presidential Debate
In tonight’s presidential debate focusing on foreign policy, John McCain admitted his party had been tainted–changed by its fanatical quest for power and primacy. It was never more evident than looking at John McCain, himself, smirk via split screen while Barack Obama spoke about the financial crisis on Wall Street and Main Street, McCain’s patronizing comments in rebuttal, and his inability to point out his own specific plans for the economy, other than nebulous attributions to “his record”and status as “a maverick.”
As moderator Jim Lehrer left the topics of the current global financial crisis to broach the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, relations with Iran and other rogue nations, Russia, and global terrorism, McCain’s responses appeared more twitchy, aggressive and condescending, at times bordering on angry, even when evoking Ronald Reagan’s measured diplomacy. His statements were largely countered by Barack Obama’s calmer, and seemingly more thoughtful rebuttals, during which the Democratic candidate held his own against an opponent touted as being vastly more experienced in foreign affairs.
Despite his calm, Obama did not appear professorial–never speaking down to Americans with abstract theory over political substance–but rather, the Illinois Senator had point by point plans for each line item and issue posed by Lehrer. And while pundits leading up to this debate called Obama a great speaker but a sub-par debater, nothing appeared further from the truth as Obama seemed to rise above McCain’s every attempt to bully the Democratic nominee. The convenient CNN cross-section audience reaction monitor seemed to rise across the board–among Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike–every time Obama opened his mouth. The opposite appeared true when McCain spoke, always seeming to be defensive, even when on the offensive, with bitter, codger-like remarks attempting to paint Obama as naive while lending little in the way of substantive solutions, in lieu of zippy one-liners such as this one, relating to recent Russian aggression:
“I looked in Vladimir Putin’s eyes and all I saw were three letters–a K, a G, and a B;” keeping in mind, McCain then followed this statement by saying that “I don’t actually think we’re moving back to a cold war”–a war, if you remember, that was largely based on propaganda–and not-so-cautiously hearkened back to with every glib reference to a Russian leader and his ties to the former Soviet intelligence agency.
Every McCain response seemed to be a history lesson–a look back to a “better” era under the Reagan doctrine–lessons which cannot be underestimated in these diplomatically-divisive times. However, for all McCain’s historical plundering for articulate and well-informed responses to debate questions, his recent voting record, largely in accord with the President, and of greater importance in this election than his mere knowledge of historical context, reveals a mentality more closely aligned to the foreign policy principles of the Bush doctrine. This doctrine, with its unilateral and reactionary policies full of preventative wars set to depose foreign regimes, stands now in even more stark contrast to the political realism of the Reagan era (now a reminiscent Republican favorite in light of the recent decline of neo-conservative cowtowing), and the current direction of the nation as a whole.
Every time McCain argued that Obama, “just doesn’t get it,” Obama would retort with informed responses, on multiple issues, platforms, or regions, showing just how much he does get it–what he called a “broader strategic vision, addressing all the challenges we face.”
Admittedly, McCain seemed to be at his attack dog finest late in the debate when debasing Obama’s foreign policy strategies for sitting down with other nations, the efficacy of the troop surge in Iraq, and dealing with Russia–creating a divide between McCain’s experience and Obama’s idealism. However, with every accusation that Obama is naive for turning the country toward diplomacy–no matter how measured–McCain discounts the American people’s dissatisfaction with the last eight years of U.S. isolation and unilateralism. For all of our American fear, which arguably gave Bush a second term in the White House, the nation has never been more focused on “the economy stupid,” and Obama’s foreign policy plans spoke to the very change–for global perception and financial policy–that Americans can no longer afford to pass up. In turn, McCain not only looked the part of a relic of an out-of-touch administration, but of a different era entirely, taking a while to get going in this debate, a point humorously captured in the following exchange:
McCain: “As President of the United States, people are gonna be accountable in my administration. And I promise you that’ll happen.”
Obama: “He’s absolutely right we need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there’s a crisis…Ten days ago John said the fundamentals of the economy are strong…”
Jim Lehrer (To Obama): “Say it to him.” (Pointing to McCain)
Obama: “Ten days ago John, you said the fundamentals of the economy are strong…”
McCain (To Lehrer): “Are you afraid I couldn’t hear him?”
No, John. What we’re afraid you can’t hear is that the American public is in dire need of new leadership and a restoration of America’s standing and reputation in the world. I couldn’t hear that in you tonight, John. Tonight you seemed like “yesterday’s man” for a country that needs a new tomorrow.
Preceding the event, a pundit acknowledged the well-known addage, “Debates are never won. They are only lost.” But in a time when it seems this country is lost, especially from the perspective of the outside looking in, I’d give Barack Obama’s strategies for clear and decisive change the win.
Another Dangerous Bailout
[A] Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin. I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection—the air speed was about 500 knots.
I didn’t realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right arm in three places, and my left arm. I regained consciousness just before I landed by parachute in a lake.
-John McCain, recounting his bailout from a Skyhawk dive bomber on Oct. 26, 1967, in a story that originally appeared in the May 14, 1973,
issue of U.S. News & World Report.
With the news today that Republican presidential nominee John McCain wants to stop campaigning and delay the debates so he can focus on the economic crisis, he unwittingly embarks on another in a long line of dangerous bailouts, with the latest having the most dire consequence of all—transforming the image of McCain from war hero to candidate coward.
McCain’s first well-known bailout occurred over the heart of Hanoi on October 26, 1967. The Navy flier ejected from his downed dive bomber only to sustain crippling injuries, face capture and spend 5½ years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam. This experience has earned McCain the mantle of “war hero.”
Today, McCain abruptly suspended his campaign to turn his attention to another dangerous bailout—Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s $700.0 billion plan to assist the American financial system. As Paulson and Bernanke struggle to justify this massive expenditure of taxpayer money, legislators are justifiably growing increasingly aggressive in their rolling interrogation.
However, for all of his sudden urgency to get to plannin’ and a’ regulatin,’ Senator McCain acknowledged on Tuesday that he had not even read the administration’s three-page bailout proposal.
As recently as the September 21st episode of 60 Minutes, McCain defended deregulating Wall Street as “helpful to the growth of our economy.”
In fact, Sen. John McCain has spent much of his two decades in Congress pushing deregulation, despite his election year flipflop toward more government control of the economy as the nation faces one of its greatest financial crises since the Great Depression.
Regardless of what McCain knows (or so obviously does not know) about what got us into this financial mess and how to get us out, neither he nor Obama are the prime movers and shakers in the Senate on the issue of a financial bailouts. Any assertions by the Republican candidate that his campaign suspension, debate dodging, and return to Washington “to set politics aside…and earn the confidence of the American people,” is anything more than a political stunt should be as tough a sell to the American people as Lehman Brothers stock options.
In fact, in an interview today with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, eloquently called McCain’s move to return to Washington as “just weird.” “We haven’t heard hide nor hair of Sen. McCain in these negotiations,” said Schumer, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. “He has not been involved except for an occasional, unhelpful statement, sort of thrown from far away, and the last thing we need in these delicate negotiations is an injection of presidential politics.”
As The Huffington Post’s Matt Littman put it, “I can see it now—all the Wall Street head honchos, the Treasury folks, the political figures, the markets—all waiting to hear from the guy who just last week was shouting, “All is well!” and today, his running mate says that unless we enact a bailout fast, we’re headed toward a Depression.”
But as McCain injects presidential politics into this dangerous bailout, he proceeds with his most tricky ejection of all—removing himself from the presidential race now as a ploy to save his campaign in the home stretch. Instead of genuinely looking at any bailout proposal, economic data, or finance policy, McCain obviously only read the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll that shows him down by nine points. In turn, he responded today by pulling that familiar ejection lever yet again, this time on his downed StraightTalk Express, bailing out of a losing race and in the process, losing the respect of an already captive American public.
And in the end, the McCain campaign, blown apart by it’s own cynicism, is now in that familiar inverted, almost straight-down spin, headed for crippling results, with nothing heroic to glean from the wreckage.
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