The only good thing about being old is that you get to say, "I've seen this idiocy before!" It is increasingly apparent that the Democrats are planning to reprise the 1972 election--with a Republican that many Republicans didn't like, because he wasn't very conservative (the 55 mph national speed limit, wage and price controls) running against a
very liberal Democrat who talked a lot about idealism.
A little background for those of you aren't old enough to remember the age of disco, leisure suits, waiting in line to buy gasoline, and a time when no one worried about STDs. In 1968, Eugene McCarthy tried to get the Democratic Party nomination away from V.P. Hubert Humphrey--a machine liberal politician, but one identified far too closely with President Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. Democratic Party activists, however much they might have sympathized with McCarthy's "flower power" campaign (remember those little plastic flower appliques that antiwar activists put on their VW Beetles?), recognized that giving the nomination to a bunch of pot-smoking, antiwar, long-haired hippies, was going to be the twentieth century's equivalent of the Children's Crusade.
For those who don't know--
the Children's Crusade was a thirteenth century effort by children to retake the Holy Land where their adult ancestors had failed. The children, being of holy and pure spirits, would succeed where the sinful adults had failed. Many of them never even got close to the Holy Land, and unsurprisingly, after arranging for sea transport, a large number were sold into Muslim slavery. Purity and good intentions aren't enough.
Anyway, Humphrey ended up getting the Democratic nomination in 1968, and
came darn close to winning the election (perhaps helped by George Wallace's independent run for President). By the time the 1972 Democratic primary race was under way, the hippies had cut their hair, found suits, proudly took over the Democratic Party, and picked a far left Democrat, George McGovern, to lead the party over a cliff. And boy did he ever!
He won Massachusetts (and I think, DC). He didn't even carry his own state, South Dakota.
What the was magic trick to this? Contrary to what some tenured radicals want to believe, Watergate isn't what won Nixon the election. If anything, the small amount of bad press from it probably hurt Nixon slightly. What did it was that McGovern had been very far to the left, and had emphasized that during the primaries. He was, after all, trying to appeal to a faction of the Democratic Party that Nixon's campaign characterized as "acid, amnesty, and abortion." From my recollections of the time, that was an exaggeration, but it was not without some basis in fact. ( And I think my memories are more trustworthy than your graying professor's memories, because I seem to be one of about 48 members of my generation that did not smoke pot or drop acid during that time.)
During the general election, McGovern's campaign tried to run away from his radical positions--and one especially powerful Nixon ad showed McGovern's picture on a weathervane, spinning back and forth between his primary statements, and his general election statements. The radical positions upset lots of voters--and the flip-flopping, I suspect, upset radical voters who were still suffering from the delusive idealism of McCarthy's Children's Crusade.
Barack Hussein Obama is, by any sensible standard, pretty far to the left--and some of the positions that he has taken should just about guarantee a McCain victory in November.
I've mentioned his position in
support of restrictive gun control--a position that is going to force at least ten million voters to vote for McCain. (Many of them would do so anyway, but Obama's position on this will guarantee it.)
I see that Obama has also taken another quite divisive position--and
one that puts him in the minority, by a large margin:
Q: What us your view on the decision on partial-birth abortion and your reaction to most of the public agreeing with the court's holding?
A: I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don't make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy. And I think that's where most Americans are. Now, when you describe a specific procedure that accounts for less than 1% of the abortions that take place, then naturally, people get concerned, and I think legitimately so. But the broader issue here is: Do women have the right to make these profoundly difficult decisions? And I trust them to do it.
Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007
Pro-life voters, of course, are going to be unlikely to vote for Obama, but partial-birth abortion is such a repulsive procedure that even most pro-choice voters are prepared to make an exception, and ban it.
An August, 2007 Pew Research survey found that 75% of Americans wanted it to be illegal--only 17% thought it should be legal. McCain's support for stem cell research, which is the major black mark against him for pro-life voters, is pretty minor compared to support for partial-birth abortion.
Here's a twofer: an area where he gets to upset
not just smokers, but those who understand that the Constitution's division of powers between states and the federal government limits what the federal government can do:
Q: Over 400,000 Americans have premature death due to smoking or secondhand smoke. Would you be in favor of a national law to ban smoking in all public places?
A: I think that local communities are making enormous strides, and I think they're doing the right thing on this. If it turns out that we're not seeing enough progress at the local level, then I would favor a national law. I don't think we've seen the local laws play themselves out entirely, because I think you're seeing an enormous amount of progress in Chicago, in New York, in other major cities around the country. And because I think we have been treating this as a public health problem and educating the public on the dangers of secondhand smoke, that that pressure will continue. As I said, if we can't provide these kinds of protections at the local level, which would be my preference, I would be supportive of a national law.
Q: Have you been successful in stopping smoking?
A: I have. You know, the best cure is my wife.
Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College Sep 6, 2007
Fortunately, there's only one of Michelle Obama to go around. (I'll resist the urge to make a crude joke about this.)
Now, if I were going to just take a Machiavellian view, I would say, "Excellent! Obama will guarantee a McCain victory!" But as
I have explained in the past, there are real dangers in taking this approach. We need the best candidate from
each party, because you never know what craziness can happen--and there is a war on, you know.
