As a masochist, I read conservative political blogs and also listen to conservative talk radio to see what the other side is up to. They are usually up to no good. The latest round of nonsense concerns attempts to demonize Barack Obama, now the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. There are reasons for this, not the least of which is that Republicans are stuck with John McCain, who has no charisma at all and is not a real conservative in the eyes of the radical right wing. So rather than rally round McCain, they are attacking Obama.
Attack anyone you want, I always say, so long as you focus on the issues. The problem is that our presidential elections do not concern themselves with the issues, that is, if you define issues as policy debates over war and peace, domestic priorities and the rest. No, our presidential elections focus on personality, which has almost nothing to do with governing. But it's a lot more fun that way.
Mud-slinging and other personal attacks have been with us for centuries. But, from my vantage point, politics took a sharp turn into the gutter in 1988, when Republican Vice President Bush (George W's father) ran against Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee. Bush was a man utterly without substance, a careerist who sought the presidency most of his adult life but did not really have the gravitas or even the resume for the job until Ronald Reagan plucked him from obscurity in 1980 and made him vice president, where he oversaw Reagan's horrific foreign policy for eight years and waited out the Reagan presidency for his own shot at the job in 1988.
Bush Sr. was known to have the best Rolodex in Washington. I guess no one uses Rolodexes anymore, but prior to the computer age, we had our phone numbers in a rotating device that stored our business cards and contact information which now gets programmed into the computer and our cell phones. As a high-profile vice president for eight years, Bush Sr. had a head start on his run for the presidency, with contacts from Maine to California, but those contacts were not enough. People thought Bush was a wimp, a terrible public speaker and an empty suit. He overcame those deficits with a presidential campaign that serves as a template for the current race.
Bush Sr. made the presidential campaign in 1988 all about personality. He attacked Dukakis as "soft on crime" and unpatriotic. It's easy to do this if you have a well-oiled publicity team at your disposal, and all Bush had to do was the hightlight Dukakis's tenure as governor of Massachusetts and his membership in the American Civil Liberties Union. Massachusetts is considered a liberal state, and, despite its role in advancing civil rights and liberties over the last century or so, the ACLU is deemed outside the mainstream by the anti-intellectual conservatives. Through the fall campaign that year, Bush Sr. claimed that Dukakis was a "card-carrying member of the ACLU," a subtle reference to the red scares of the 1950's, when demagogues claimed that certain liberals were "card-carrying communists." Bush Sr. also focused on the Pledge of Allegience, noting that Dukakis, a lawyer, vetoed an illegal proposal to force school children to give the Pledge every morning.
Without any serious discussion of any of the issues facing this country, Bush Sr. won the presidency in 1988. In retrospect, it's easy to see what we lost in this regard. The Soviet bloc collapsed a year later and the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, ending the Cold War once and for all. Two Supreme Court justices were appointed during the Bush presidency, and the economy slid down the chute as no one had any coherent plan to bring this country into the 1990's and the new century. The country went to war for the first time in a generation when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, and the Presidency rolled up his sleeves for that military action by invading Panama in 1989 and killing a few thousand people in the process. The monumental days of the Bush presidency (1989-1993) were preceded by a vacuous presidential campaign that did not give George H.W. Bush any mandate to run the country.
What have we learned from the pathetic 1988 presidential campaign? Nothing. Our campaigns are still devoid of substance and the pressing issues of the day -- war and peace, global warming, domestic priorities -- continue to get swept under the carpet. In 2000, the Republicans hacked away at Al Gore's presidential campaign by putting words in his mouth, reminding us over and over that he claimed to invent the Internet, something Gore never said he did. In 2004, the Republicans hacked away at John Kerry by promoting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who misprepresented Kerry's military record and made him look like an opportunist and fake war hero. This kind of bullshit wins elections.
Take a look at what's happening now. Obama is emerging as the front-runner, so the right wing is taking the following pot-shots:
1. They are questioning Obama's patriotism. Take a look-see right here, where CNN actually asked its readers if Obama is sufficiently patriotic to serve as President. The reason for this question is that right-wingers are upset that Obama stopped wearing an American flag on his lapel. Apparently, after 9/11 we have to wear American flags on our clothing until the end of time.
2. They also question his patriotism because he did not vigorously pledge allegience to the flag once. Read about it here. Maybe Obama should run to a flag factory for a good photo-op. That's what George H.W. Bush actually did in 1988.
3. They are attacking Obama's wife. She expressed satisfaction over her husband's success at the polls by stating that she is really proud of the United States for the first time in her life. Obviously, Michele Obama did not mean this literally; she probably said it enthusiastically the way we often exaggerate when we are not thinking. Somehow this is a scandal, and it can only mean that Obama, through marriage, hates America.
Obama is a different kind of presidential candidate. He is not a degenerate or scandal-scarred politico. His brief tenure in public office means his record provides little to attack him on. As we sit here today, Republican hatchetmen are thinking of ways to destroy Obama this summer. They've already started.
