Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Honey Extraction Moon<\/p>\n
My representative.\u00a0 Michele, my belle, Bachmann.\u00a0 Even the very low tide of American political consciousness that washes up on our civic beach heads these days has the collective will to turn back Michele.\u00a0 My instincts have been wrong before, but I cannot imagine an American election where a person with the ideological baggage Michele has wins.\u00a0 I think the election in recent memory that seems similar is McGovern-Nixon in 1972.\u00a0 That time, I was a member of the analog to the Tea Party, the anti-war movement, New Left wing of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Nixon was not a popular president, but he was lucky.\u00a0 He ended the Vietnam War and opened a way to China.\u00a0 The economy was ok, too.\u00a0 McGovern’s nomination felt like a real victory for the American left.\u00a0 Finally, a banner carrier in the race.<\/p>\n
Oops.\u00a0 Forgot.\u00a0 The American electorate votes centrist politics, perhaps center-right a bit.\u00a0 Think Bill Clinton or Gerald Ford, even George Bush in his first race.\u00a0 Michele’s power right now comes from her energized base, a cohesive and well-funded movement on the far right of even her own party, the Republican.\u00a0 To win a national election she has to widen her base beyond the Tea-Party and Libertarian right and I don’t see that happening.<\/p>\n
Here’s a cynical thought I’ve had lately, though.\u00a0 You know the gaffes that keep on coming?\u00a0 Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire.\u00a0 Congratulating Elvis on his birthday which turned out to be the date he died.\u00a0 And most recently her admonishment to watch out for the rise of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
What if these are a carefully orchestrated attempt to separate her from the “elites”, that is, most of you who read this blog, the college-educated upper middle class and upper class folks who run most of the countries businesses and institutions.\u00a0 And the reporters, artists, intellectuals and political operatives of the left like union organizers and community organizers.<\/p>\n
Here’s how I imagine it goes.\u00a0 Michelle makes a gaffe.\u00a0 The elite delights in running articles proving how stupid and unaware she is.\u00a0 Just like the Bushisms and now Perryisms.\u00a0 The result is that those Americans who wouldn’t know how to answer the questions either–general knowledge is at an all time low in America–have\u00a0 a moment of fellow feeling with one of their own, a victim of the elite’s petty insistence on knowing everything.\u00a0 This fellow feeling gives her a wide margin of error with those folks,\u00a0 in fact a presumptive imprimatur.<\/p>\n
We need to debate her on the substance of her proposals and their impact on middle and working class families, not sit on our degrees and howl with laughter at the rube, my representative, Michele, my belle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Honey Extraction Moon My representative.\u00a0 Michele, my belle, Bachmann.\u00a0 Even the very low tide of American political consciousness that washes up on our civic beach heads these days has the collective will to turn back Michele.\u00a0 My instincts have been wrong before, but I cannot imagine an American election where a person with … Continue reading Michele, My Belle<\/span>