November 03, 2008
Whilst I still think it unlikely—though not improbable—that McCain will win title to the presidency next Tuesday, it would seem that the burgeoning hubris emanating from the Obama camp is beginning to grate a bit upon the prosaic populace of the flat-earthed citizenry, like me:
ZOGBY SATURDAY: McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama’s lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all…
Anyone expecting Obama to glean a Reagan-style blowout, a la 1980, has no sense of history or even a rudimentary understanding of politics 101. Landslides, of the cataclysmic variety, are a rare occurrence, granted to a select-few anointed.
From the 20th century alone, going backwards, we can see the exiguous examples of Reagan 84 (Mondale still can count the votes he received on one hand), Nixon 72 (McGovern was taking campaign strategy from Warren Beatty: yes, the old drug-induced, whoremaster himself), LBJ (three presidents in one year”Kennedy 63 Johnson 63, Goldwater 64???…Mr. Conservative never had a shot), FDR 32 (yeah, it was called the “Great Depression”; bugger all, milord), and 1920″Warren Harding (remember him? Talk about whoremasters…).
What, then, is the common denominator in all this evading Change’s Obama? Largely, it is his lack of incumbency. Reagan, Nixon, and LBJ (a provisional incumbent, to be sure) were White House office holders; steady hands at the wheel for an epoch tested and forced to stare down the menacing threat of communism, in Russia and Eastern Europe for Mr. Reagan; and, ultimately, less threatening though thoroughly demoralizing and detrimental, in Vietnam for Nixon and Johnson.
Messrs. FDR and Harding, meanwhile, were inheritors of a vanquished nation, the likes of which modern man, in his glutted state, cannot fathom:
Old Moose Jaw took over a stymied economy from an inveterate bureaucrat who eschewed his conservative instincts, and tried to tax the country out of the Depression; Harding, meanwhile, still holds the winningest margin in history since the election of 1820, and consigned his opponent, Ohio Gov. Cox, to historical obscurity (though the same can”t be said of Cox’s running mate”the aforementioned cripple, Franklin D. Roosevelt).
Harding’s fortunes were won due to America’s fatigue over its entry into a regrettable interlude of”and even more regrettable, long-lasting taste for”interventionist policies: thank you Democrat, and George Dubya prototype, Woodrow Wilson.
America’s malaise, splendiferous as it is at present, does not nearly match up in the least”woe to ye, pampered Baby Boomers; and we, ye progeny”to the trammels forcibly baptized upon generations preceding us.
Blood, toil, tears, and sweat”though clearly the order of our sobering, nearly-met morn”have not been impressed upon a nation bereft of savings accounts, though rigged to crushing mortgages, dispiriting credit cards, flaky 401ks, ephemeral internet investments, and post-mortem belief in a ginned up and stratospheric DOW.
Whichever sap”the tax-raising, constitutional-tinkering, vile usurper of the first amendment…or Barak Obama”ultimately emerges as 44th president of the United States, neither will have gained privy to a mandate.
And for the Republic”or that which remains of it”that is a good thing.
