In recent weeks, I've been re-reading Hunter S. Thompson's seminal political work, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72." It's been an instructive reading, not because the '08 campaign is some kind of mirror of '72, but some of the dynamics of the campaign benefit from Thompson's analysis (think about Muskie as the Only One Who Can Beat Nixon and the early Hillary Clinton assumptions).
Tonight, I read something from HST that perfectly explained why the McCain campaign has descended into the gutter of negative campaigning. Check out the quote below.
A career politician finally smelling the White House is not much different than a bull elk in the rut. He will stop at nothing, trashing anything that gets in his way; and anything he can't handle personally he will hire out -- or, failing that, make a deal. It is a difficult syndrome for most people to understand, because few of us ever come close to the kind of Ultimate Power and Achievement that the white house represents to a career politician.
The presidency is as far as he can go. There is no more. The currency of politics is power, and once you've been the Most Powerful Man in the World for four years, everything else is downhill -- except four more years on the same trip.
There are numerous other insights Thompson provides that have their parallels in 2008 (the veep selections may be another parallel, depending on whom each candidate chooses), but that one stood out for me. It's not a particular strategy, or a particular process observation, but an observation that cuts to the central truths of human nature, and especially the nature of the political animal.
So when we see McCain lying about Obama's tax plans, or playing the "elitist" card, it shouldn't surprise. It's the ego of the bull elk at play.
I don't see the same "bull elk" ego working in Obama, but that's a personal observation that would probably be disputed by some others. He seems much more at ease in his skin than McCain. While he wants it, and he's pushing for it, one gets the sense that he wouldn't cease to enjoy life if he lost. I don't get the same sense from the McCain camp, at least the way they are acting these days.
It is truly a tragedy that Thompson isn't around to chronicle this year's campaign. I don't know if anyone will ever fill his shoes. But at least we have his F&LOTCT72 to remind us that some things in politics don't change.