For all the speeches, the photo-ops, the superior organization, and the surge in first-time voter registrations.... it's all starting to smell very familiar. And frankly, it scares me...
Having lived through 2004, I often wonder.... if a country was dumb enough to "re-elect" Bush, in an election which in retrospect was far more consequential than this one, who's to say that they won't (once again) come out in droves and vote for whomever the conservative 527s and Fox News tell them to?
Why is Michigan still so close, and why would it be even closer if Romney is on their ticket?
And why are the polls static? Matt Stoller ponders that here
But the item that got my attention today, far more than the talking heads on the Sunday shows, was this article from the Washington Post. If you thought that Obama had the advantage with regards to money, think again...
"Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.
Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May"
Add to this the cash coming in from:
- Anti-labor, pro-NAFTA industry lobbies,
- Health Insurers who want to continue killing their subscribers with impunity,
- Free-market fundamentalists and Milton Friedman disciples (Mitt Romney, George Will, etc)
- Bible-thumpers fixated on abortion, gay sex, and capitalism (because that what Jesus was apparently; a capitalist... even though he spent his life helping the poor and healing the sick for... free? No?)
- Bigots (Tom Delay, Jim Bunning, Michael Weiner-Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Kinky Friedman types), and of course...
- Pro-Israel Neo-Con fascists (the David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith crowd)....
It all adds up to a lot of cheese.... bold prediction?.... McCain can win this in a close one; the map might just look the same as in 2004 (switch OH with PA)...
And no the "people" will probably never wake-up, or rise up because they're kept ignorant and uninformed by conservative fascists who purposefully undermined public education for years, and who deregulated and subsequently bought the media. And no Keith Olbermann doesn't balance things out all by himself...
Sometimes I think Rev. Wright was too polite when he said "God Damn America".....
So if you feel that everything is just peachy because the "optics" from Obama's trip were good (after all those Ray Bans looked sharp on Barack when he was talking to Petraeus)... then go ahead... relax and have a beer.
If you're like me, and know not to take anything for granted, go here and give $50