I am a recreational anarchist.
I believe that there should be rules and norms and standards. I believe that there is a right and a wrong. For better or worse, I believe in the will of the majority.
But, to paraphrase the A-Team’s Col. John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, I sure do like it when a plan don’t come together.
That’s recreational anarchy.
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So it has been with great amusement that I have become totally obsessed with the ongoing presidential campaigns. How could I not? The Democrats have race- and gender-baited themselves into a tie. To attack Hillary for being a mean-spirited, shrill harpy is to demean women. To liken Obama to a cult leader with no clear plan for salvation other than to wait for the comet is to diminish the blacks. There’s absolutely no way for them to effectively tear each other apart without destroying themselves (isn’t that how the Cold War worked?) In lieu of negative ads and scorched earth victory strategies, the candidates have to be compared on their merits, which is interesting because the candidate with the most practical leadership experience is currently losing. In the end, it urns out, campaigning for president is a lot like running for Homecoming Queen. Sorry, Hill.
I believe that Obama will end up winning the popular vote and the pledged delegate race. Why? Because he sounds like the Rock, mostly, but also because he uses words like ‘we’ and ‘us’ in his speeches while Clinton focuses a lot on ‘me’ and ‘I’ and ‘you’. Inclusive language begets inclusivity, and the people behind Barak want to feel like they are a part of something. He’ll ask them to vote for him and they’ll crawl across broken glass to do it. Ask them to drink the Kool-Aid, and they’ll….okay, enough with the cult thing. You get the point. His supporters be crazy-mad for their candidate.
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With Barak winning the popular vote, he should be the guy. <!–[if !supportEmptyParas]–>However, the Clintons aren’t the kind of people to go down without a fight, so the convention falls into chaos when the Clintons : <!–[endif]–>
<!–[if !supportLists]–>a) <!–[endif]–>make a very clumsy, insincere play for the Florida and Michigan delegates who currently do not exist (trust me, this will be uber-transparent)
<!–[if !supportLists]–>b) <!–[endif]–>do something truly horrible to discredit Barak when the Florida/Michigan strategy fails (if they don’t do it before the convention)
<!–[if !supportLists]–>c) <!–[endif]–>intimidate/embarrass enough superdelegates to support Hillary to win the nomination (strongarming currently in progress)
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The most sickening part of the above scenario is that if it comes to happen, and the Clintons become the candidate, there are people who will actually cheer for the bastards and praise them for ‘playing to win’, which isn’t a whole lot different from how they talk about the winner on Survivor. Ordinarily, I come unglued at this point and launch into this whole diatribe involving cheating, meaningless records, and the cheapening of achievement in our ‘win at any cost’ society, but I’m taking new meds this week and don’t have the energy.
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On the flip-side, the Republicans haven’t done much better in picking their candidate.
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Last year’s front runner was effectively out of the race before people went to vote. The real cultist among candidates, Mitt Romney, dropped out right before enough Conservatives realized that the Mormons, for cultists, are a pretty family value oriented bunch. If they had wanted a Conservative, he was their guy, especially since no one could get Fred Thompson out of his trailer and to the set on time.
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So now they’re pretty much stuck with McCain, an independent minded, hot headed septuagenarian whom the Right Wing Conspiracy treats like a coke fueled, homo-abortionist. Talk about eating your young (or old, whatever). If I were Mitt Romney, I’d take the running mate position if it were ever offered. There’s no shame in taking over for a President who strokes out. Harry Truman did and he did okay.
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I asked this Republican I worked with the other day why he hated his own candidate so much. I was told that no one hated McCain, but they didn’t think he was Republicanny (my word) enough. He wasn’t a Reagan Republican, which, by the way, is something no one can define. Watch Hannity or Rush or Coulter, they don’t know what they’re saying, they’re just making noise. I ended up having to ask my co-worker what a Reagan Republican was. This is his answer:
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“A Reagan Republican is a… well…you remember Barry Goldwater? Well, he defined modern Conservatism and what it stands for. And Reagan was one of those guys, a Goldwater Republican, but he really wasn’t because all that shit those guys believe in, he wasn’t. His wife divorced him, his kids hated him, but he never bended or gave in. The whole time he was in office, he never gave in, right until the end with that whole Iran-Contra thin, but even then he stuck to his principals. But that wasn’t who he was. He was that other guy and…so…or.”
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Got it? Good.
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Personally, I think the Conservatives throw the term around because of the alliteration, which sounds a lot like literate, which is akin to literacy, which can only be achieved through a school voucher program, which is the king of bold, circle-jerk thinking that warms the cockles of their dark little hearts.
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And speaking of warm cockles, watching all this craziness play out gives this little anarchist something to smile about.
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