Will the tealeaf readers in the mainstream media use a Republican win in Massachusetts to diagnose a nationwide repudiation of President Obama?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010, is like the moment when the croupier says "no more bets" and everybody listens to the ball circle around the roulette wheel and finally drop into one of the slots making some people very happy and others somewhat disappointed. For political pundits, it is reminiscent of the Stendhal story about the most basic bet. It is a binary choice: black or red. Here’s today’s binary choice: either the Democrat or Republican candidate will win.
The people, who have been duped into expecting an honest contest in Massachusetts, will be quick to point out that paper ballots will be used in today’s crucial election. Only Brad Friedman (of Bradblog fame) has pointed out that the results for the paper ballots will be counted electronically and that they could only be hand counted if the results are contested.
If you happen to be one of those ultra cynical observers who think that the electronic voting (or counting) machines are being used by some nefarious group to micromanage the election results, today’s election of a new Senator from Massachusetts will be seen as the crucial moment in President Obama’s reelection bid. This election day is like (mixed metaphore alert!) when the fate of a baseball team’s season hinges on a long fly ball that seems headed toward the left field foul pole.
If the Democrats win, the Republicans and the debate about filibusters can continue (go into extra innings). If the Republicans win, the suck ups in the (Pro-liberal?) mainstream media are poised to swarm all over the win as if it were the death knell for the Obama legacy. Haven’t there already been some "telegraph the punch" discussions on conservative talk shows? None of the shills will point out that such a unanimous pundit conclusion is based on just one election very early in the year.
The Republican leadership (Hi, uncle Rushbo!) will maintain a strict discipline over every one of their Senators from now until November 2012. Cynics will be too polite to say that the only thing missing in the Republican attitude is the old "solidarity salute," which originated with some obscure group of health fanatics in Europe, if memory serves correctly.
At this point some skeptics of the Cassandra warnings will gleefully point out that if the Republicans can micromanage election results the glaring gap in that argument is the Obama win. If the Republicans can select the winners, how then can the fact that Obama scored a clear victory be explained?
Yeah, Mr. Smartass, how do you explain that? Betcha can’t!
Journalists, who have worked a police beat, will have access to a source who can verify that when a hustler goes to work, he (or she) knows that it will look suspicious if they win every game of pool, every card hand, or every roll of the dice. Rule no. 1 is that in order to work your way up to the big score, you have to lose sometimes. You’ve heard the maxim: "You can’t win ‘em all." Haven’t you?
If you don’t challenge the Obama win in the 2008 Presidential Election, then you might want to ask this reactionary question: what exactly would the Republicans have to gain by "throwing the game" and letting him win back then?
For the Republicans; the Obama win took the heat off the challenges to the electronic voting (the German Supreme Court recently eliminated that method of voting in their country), it took the away some of the intense anger some Democrats have for George Bush (whom they see as an unpunished war criminal), and it has set up the possibility for another major advance in the long-term Republican strategy.
If the "micromanage" theory is correct, then a win today in Massachusetts will set the stage for a big Republican win in November and that, in turn, will increase the effectiveness of the Republican "sit-down strike" strategy which will then be used to make President Obama vulnerable to the "he did nothing" arguments when he tries to get reelected. We’ve seen indications that the Republicans will attack with the "whole lodda nada" label and that a win in Massachusetts will give them a running head start for setting the 2012 agenda in the mainstream media.
Can Democrats seriously contend that the "free press" will challenge a win? Will the Sunday morning talk shows dutifully pass along Republican talking points as their own "independent" analyses? If Bob Shieffer says the Massachusetts results prove that the entire country is repudiating the election of President Obama, will anyone dare to question it? (Look up his brother, John Thomas Schieffer [a close business partner of George W. Bush], on Google. Then tell me that the CBS correspondent is impartial in his pronouncements.)
Since the Republicans had been so critical for so long about Mrs. Clinton, it seems that getting a new untried rookie into the White House would be a great way to provide a better opportunity for a counter move in 2012.
Some people make good money by providing quality advice to rich people regarding jury selection. The FBI profiler program is quite effective. Could psychologists be paid for political advice about who would make a good straw man for the Democrats? Could that advice, in turn, and the electronic voting machines be used to put an easy win in place for the future?
Would a profiler be able to pick out a Democratic "Potemkin village" style candidate, who would be easier to manipulate? Could a very good healthcare bill have been passed last summer by using reconciliation? Would Hillary ever have avoided a chance to put one over on the Republicans by using reconciliation to pass the centerpiece for her program? Will Obama’s pride permit him to settle for a tarnished reconciliation healthcare win? Would Fox News label a reconciliation win, an example of political "cheating"?
If Obama is stymied by the Republican sit-down strike strategy being used in the Senate, until the 2012 elections, could the Republicans then stoop as low as a whisper campaign that implies that they tried to warn Americans about a lazy quota hire guy? Could they not then (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) infer that that was about all they expected from America’s first Negro President? Can anyone, other than Karl Rove, say with a straight face, that the Republicans would never do such a thing and that such hypothetical (at this stage) scenario is impossible?
Wouldn’t a humiliating 2012 loss for President Obama add an additional hurdle for any future attempt by an African-American politician to become the second one to win the Presidency? How would Republicans feel about causing that?
Could Republicans greet the harsh speculation in this column with the same level of enthusiasm that a pool hall hustler would have if he heard this: "Hey, aren’t you the guy who won hundreds playing pool with my buddies back in Scranton about two years ago?"? Shhhh! Let’s not talk about that, amigo. Isn’t it bad manners to talk about a no-hitter while it is being pitched or to spoil a sting that’s in progress?
At that point the question becomes: who would be the most likely Republican nominee in 2012? Sarah has stepped aside, so who would be (to use a boxing reference) the "great white hope"? Is there a Republican whose name rhymes with "Johnny Reb"? Is there someone who could bring a return to the Bush agenda in 2012? Is there a Republican whose name carries with it subconscious associations that indicate he would be at home in the Oval Office?
Would the implementation of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) eliminate the costly primary system now in place? Could IRV be used to sell a winner take all consolidated voting that could be compared to a National equivalent of the Super Tuesday in the Primary season? You want effective use of scare tactics? Just say "save money" during the Second Great Depression. Yes, sir, this IRV innovation could save millions for cities, counties, and states!
The people who fall victims to swindles are often wonderful trusting souls who project those qualities onto the perps. Anyone who tries to warn them about con men is often seen as a cynical old malcontent and might possibly get attacked if their columns aren’t read very carefully. Cynics don’t often get swindled. It’s the nice little old lady types who do.
W. C. Fields epitomized the Republican political philosophy when he said: "If a thing’s worth having; it’s worth cheating for."
Now, it is time for the disk jockey to play Johnny Horton’s "Johnny Reb," "Fortune Teller," and "Stagger Lee." (Later will the disk jockey swear that he thought we called for something by Jerry Lee?) It’s time for us to start working up a column about the history of sit-down strikes just in case we need one for tomorrow. Folks in California don’t like the idea of a groundswell anything, so have the kind of great week which could not possibly have been foreseen just six weeks ago.