13 days ladies and gentlemen

It is a strange and somewhat exhilarating thing when one considers the fact that we are a mere 13 days away from electing the next President of the United States.

At this point, I hope for their own sakes that the conservatives lose. I want to see the utter destruction of the Far Right along with social conservatism as we now know it and the runaway supply side economics and trickle down economics that are simply not working.

I want to see a simpler, fairer tax code emerge, and better, more straightforward regulations. I'm not a protectionist but I also realize that we can do more as a country to save American jobs. We need not enrich the investment class while bankrupting everyone else. We can still be a part of globalization.

I want to see the utter destruction of the Far Left, too, and I think nobody will do that better than Obama. A McCain presidency will only invigorate them. I look forward to a New Center. That's my own personal pipe-dream.

Conservative reaction to the debate

Once again I see this completely out-of-touch reaction amongst conservative bloggers to last night's debate. Once again there is this notion that he did wonderfully. Comment threads reveal this idea that he "smashed" Obama.

I just don't see it. I really don't. I've been extremely neutral--even leaning toward McCain for the vast majority of this race--and I try to listen to these debates the way moderates and independents would. Conservatives are having a hard time understanding this. They think the echo-chamber will work. They think the attacks that have failed will somehow suddenly start working. Ayers is a dead end.

What am I saying? McCain is a dead end at this point. It's sad, really. I hold very few politicians in as high regard as John McCain, and yet this election has changed him. Big time.

Realistically, who's surprised that the conservative bloggers are hailing this as a win? McCain did do better than usual, but a win???

Heather MacDonald is, like, totally not into Palin...

Via City-Journal:

I’m, like, man, I really don’t know if I’m ready for a vice president who goes: “My son’s, like: ‘Mom, I’m in the army now,’ and I’m, like: ‘I’m so proud.’” And who’s, like, “And [my son] goes, ‘O.K., well I’ll be praying.’ I’m like—total role reversal here, that’s what I’ve been telling him for 19 years.’” Or who goes, “This is a time when, man, politics have got to be put aside.” (As Alaska governor Sarah Palin told Sean Hannity, William Kristol, and Katie Couric.)

And, lest you should miss the sarcasm and not get the point, the rest of the article is rather more serious...for instance:

Palin’s verbal hodgepodge may say nothing about her qualifications for the vice presidency. Judgment and political acumen could well rest on different mental capacities than the ability to order thoughts into smooth sentences. But the inability to answer a straightforward question about economic policy without becoming tangled in words suggests either ignorance about the subject matter or a difficulty connecting between ideas. Neither explanation is reassuring.

The Palin nomination has unleashed among Republican pundits and voters a great roar of pent-up rage against liberal elites, much of it warranted. But the conservative embrace of Palin comes at considerable cost to conservative principles. The populist identity politics that Republicans are now playing with such gusto may come back to haunt them in the future.

Another conservative slap in the McCain/Palin face.

H/T The Confabulum's Conor Friedersdorf of the fantastic site, Culture 11.

Jim Sleeper on David Brooks

Jim writes:

This time, the choice facing Brooks is too stark and time-bound for his usual gyrations. He can maintain his intellectual self-respect only by breaking openly with McCain/Palin in the next couple of weeks.

I wrote here months ago that I could almost imagine him jumping to Obama, as some conservative Republicans have done because they've concluded that more Bush-style governance will destroy both Republicans and the republic. Surely David Brooks, who has made a career of being liberals' favorite conservative, can do likewise.

Then again, breaking so starkly with Republicans would cost Brooks his comfortable raison d'etre and niche opposite Mark Shields on PBS and E.J. Dionne on NPR. I don't think that he has enough integrity to renounce decisively what McCain and, more generally, conservative republicans have become. I think he's gotten himself stuck in that fold.

Four reactions to the debate

Culture 11 is a relatively new, and very modern Conservative website. I actually like it a great deal, and plan to spend more time there in the future. I especially like this new four-part editorial

David Kuo writes:

Today’s conservatism is lost. It is so lost it doesn’t actually know if it lost at sea, lost in space, or lost in a desert. It lacks moral courage, a philosophical core, and intellectual certitude. McCain’s defeat will help change all of that because his defeat will lead to a debate within conservatism unlike anything in several decades.

Peter Suderman writes:

Obama, as always, appeared sophistacted, urbane: He held the mic in that delicate, refined way of final-level American Idol contestants, and constantly seemed to be holding an imaginary pen in the air and trying to visualize it. He will solve America’s energy crisis with telekinesis.

McCain, on the other hand, came off as less the high-toned maverick and more the self-satisfied frat-boy goof: He started several of his answers with an Igor-via-Beavis-and-Butthead chuckle: heh-heh, heh-heh. Sorry dude: not funny.

One thing that’s clear from this debate is how little there is to John McCain and his campaign.

Conor Friedersdorf writes:

One striking thing is what didn’t happen. After days of staring into television cameras telling America that Obama is a closet terrorist sympathizer, Senator McCain blinked when they were face to face. How will Americans who watched those speeches and ads — and then watched this debate — react? My guess is that they’ll find the Illinois Senator a pretty regular, level headed guy, whatever they think of him on the issues. Talk about lowering expectations before the debate! The McCain campaign prepared the nation for a new Che Guevara. What we got is a candidate who Aaron Sorken might’ve written onto The West Wing.

James Poulos writes:

A crippled economy and a stalwart opposition gives a transformational president little to work with. But, paradoxically, perhaps that’s the greatest hedge against overactive presidencies from either Obama or McCain. It’s easy to think we’re headed for more sweeping change in government, given what’s wracked the world private sector. But the weight of bureaucracy and the inertia of government means we’re largely locked in. Ironically, it may be the case that Obama will not be truly transformational enough, and McCain will be too apt to precipitous, impulsive change.

Elitism in Politics

Call me crazy, but I am all in favor of having elitists run the political scene in our country. You know, guys like McCain, who have become quite spectacular at what they do, brimming with knowledge, depth of insight, and so forth. Electing someone for their colloquialisms on the other hand, seems foolish. Electing someone because they are "just like me" seems absurd.

Sam Harris writes, in Newsweek,

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country....

...Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence.

What I found so appealing about the McCain campaign prior to the Palin pick was the experience of John McCain compared to the inexperience of Barack Obama. Now, however, a new element has entered my decision making, and that is the other qualities of Obama, especially the ones that distinguish him from Palin.

As Charles Krauthammer writes,

In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory. He has not at all distinguished himself in this economic crisis -- nor, one might add, in any other during his national career -- but detachment has served him well. He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well....

...He's been moderate in policy and temper ever since. His one goal: Pass the Reagan '80 threshold. Be acceptable, be cool, be reassuring.

Part of reassurance is intellectual. Like Palin, he's a rookie, but in his 19 months on the national stage he has achieved fluency in areas in which he has no experience. In the foreign policy debate with McCain, as in his July news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama held his own -- fluid, familiar and therefore plausibly presidential.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a "second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament." Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition -- do you really know who he is and what he believes? Nonetheless, he's got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president.

Looks like even Krauthammer sees an Obama victory, and isn't too worried about it. That's probably the most interesting turn of events I've seen in, well, days....