Presidential Roundtable Discussion

Jeff: This talk of moving out of the country is silly. McCain is not a bad person. He's a good GOP candidate. Hell, out of all the major Republican candidates, he was the most middle-of-the-road...that is until 2000, when he began running for president.

The whole "I voted with Bush 90% of the time" line all came from 2003 when, honestly, MOST of the Republicans (and even some Democrats) were aligning themselves with Bush, who was popular at the time. McCain had a feud with the Bush campaign in 2000, when they smeared him and threw him under a bus, so McCain had to play the political game, and "prove" to everyone how he supported Bush. For the next 4 years, he had to defend accusations that he was against Bush.

The fickle winds of politics now have the same people accusing him of supporting Bush. [Said in a sing-song voice] I-ro-neee!

Same with the Palin pick. This was done too satiate the neocons ("Populist Bush Republicans"). The irony is, if McCain had stayed true to his real "Maverick" identity, then he would actually have a good chance of winning in this election. His lust for the presidency led him to make strange bedfellows, which are now coming back to haunt him.

Mark (CNN): I don't think Palin was picked to satisfy the Neocons, although it looks like Bill Kristol had a huge crush on her. Rush Limbaugh was her biggest cheerleader in the conservative media.

The Neocons, the way I understand it, are dudes like Richard Pearle and Paul Wolfowitz who believe America needs to do everything to maintain its status as the world's dominant economic and military power. These are the guys who are incredulous that we haven't bombed Iran yet.

Palin is there to rev up the base. The social conservatives who believe that Jesus would never let gay people get married and that life begins at conception and abortion is essentially murder. Plus they were trying to leech off the Hillary Dems who swore they would never support Barack.

Jeff: Well, I include social conservatives as part of the Neocons. Maybe that's my fault. Semantics aside, we're saying the same thing.

Mark: Let's call em SoCons.

Tommy: Never put baby in the corner.

Jeff: NOBODY puts baby in the corner. Sheesh.

She get a married. Oh sexy girlfriend. [GONG]

Mark: It makes you realize just how great a candidate George W. was for Republicans.

Seattlest: What was this election’s biggest turning point?

Mark: The economic meltdown and stock market crash! Anyone tries to say otherwise will be shouted down in caps.

Jeff: Did this election really have a turning point? Was there ever a point when polls showed a GOP victory?

Luke ( Time Magazine): I will admit that the McCain I "used to know" would have been a fine president. Unfortunately, in trying to appeal to all the different voting blocks, he kind of turned into this gross amalgamation of all those parts. I'm still stuck on how you can make a huge announcement that you're "suspending" your campaign and then never announce that you're "restarting it." And all of this socialism/marxism/"Death to Israel" nonsense is just incredible.

I thought Obama's infomercial was stunning. To somebody like me, who reads every scrap of media I can get, there was no new information. But every time I feel like I have an understanding of the scope that this guy is operating on, he finds a way to completely obliterate my model. The dude just walks up to walls and kicks them over.

I really think we are witnessing an amazing period in history. Not in the "first black president" sort of way. Instead, I think that the structure of the worldview crafted in the generation after WWII is finally ceding its control over the national agenda to a new, more substantive, more cooperative perspective that has its roots in the fallout after the Vietnam War, the silent constituency that never fully bought into the "me first," trickle-down theories of the 1980s, and the growth of the energetic, community-minded youth groups that first appeared during Clinton's presidency. It's sort of a mature, actualized version of what politicians usually say, combined with a sincere belief that the problems we are facing are not as insurmountable or as insidious as we sometimes believe. It's faith, with a pragmatic appeal.

So when you hear this message, and then you hear what McCain and Palin have to say, you're sort of left with this confusion as to who they're talking to. It makes me feel like my grandpa has sat me down to tell me about how the world works while I struggle against the notion that his model no longer applies.

Jeff: That's an excellent point. I feel like the we're standing on a football field, and the GOP just walked in with a basketball, not understanding why they can't find any hoops to score points.

And the picture of Obama eating a California Baby Burger was a little uncalled for.

But I think this also goes back to Mark's point, the GOP is in a heap of trouble. The McCain candidacy highlights the real underlying hypocrisy and deep divisions within that party. The SoCons are trending away from the rest of the country. The moderate elements within the GOP are alienating themselves from their base. I think the party finds itself where the Democratic Party did back in 1968. They're going to have to re-invent themselves. (Or, wait for the pendulum to swing back after we're attacked again.)

Oh, and can I just say that watching the Obama infomercial made me feel proud to be an American for the first time in awhile. If he's all talk, then consider me officially snookered in. Because his message of hope and inspiration blows me.

Away.

Luke: For sure.

If Obama is a "player," he's a damn good one. I just hope in a year I'm not crying in my bathroom saying things like, "He told me he loved me."

Jeff: Whoa dude. You're weird. The only time I cry in my bathroom is immediately after masturbating.

Tom: Dare I say this? Since Nixon, the GOP represents a corrupt ethos that needs to be expunged from the planet. It PUBLICLY supports the suppression of homosexuals, enforces racist policies, favors the gain of a few in exchange for the DEATH of many, squashes education, prefers war to talking, screws over the elderly--should I go on? They are VILLAINS, plain and simple. I think the mess we are in--political, environmental, global--is a direct result of their damning influence on businesses and ignorant citizens.

It is like smoking--we always knew it was bad for us, and we can't delude ourselves any longer. This is why a non-white, non-Southern presidential candidate is going to win. Barack didn't start this call for change--it was us.

Jeff: Tom, that gave me goosebumps. You should be a writer or something.

John (The Los Angeles Times): I agree, the GOP is seceding from the Union. Will this escalate years down the road or is this the hacking and wheezing of a shrinking beast? We've seen a lot of splintering within parties this year--Hillary Dems vs. Barack Dems, GOP vs. Republicans, Nader vs. well, everyone. Which gives way to an interesting idea I heard recently: 2012 represents the end of everything in the Mayan calendar, but--if you don't take it literally--what if it means resetting the clock on our sense of history?

That is, as each generation looks back at the past (for example, pop-culture-wise, the '80s looked back to the '50s, the '00s looked back to the '70s, etc.), the distance between the current generation and the generation looked back upon is getting closer and closer. Will they meet somewhere around 2012? Now, to tie into our discussion, we've long since forgotten (instinctually, not necessarily intellectually) that the Grand Ole Party was a truly different beast in Abe Lincoln's time.

The modern-day GOP is hanging onto standards that were meant to change as America evolved. What is known officially as the Republican Party is evolving with the times. I wonder if the next presidential election will finally mark a substantial break in the two-party system. If it does, then these are the warning signs.

Jeff: By the way, if you guys haven't listened to it, This American Life dedicated an entire episode to explaining the Wall Street meltdown and bailout in layman's terms.

It's amazing. And I don't mean that in the Ryan sort of "this is the most amazing thing I will say is amazing in the next 5 minutes..." way. To distill it: a major cause of the collapse stems from non-regulated OTC (private) transactions called "default credit swaps." These should have been regulated or had oversight like most insurance policies. (i.e., I can't give you an insurance policy on your house unless I have the money to back that policy.) Should have...that is...until Senator Phil Gramm--who, until recently was McCain's chief financial adviser, and who famously said "Americans are whiners"--snuck in a 262-page amendment to a government re-authorization bill, which effectively allowed them to be private transactions and thus go unregulated.

Thanks, GOP.

Tom: Yes, the religious fundamentalists are wrong about 2012 being the end of the world. First, why "Christians" are heeding the word of a pagan Mayan ethos makes absolutely no sense--it would be like them agreeing with, say, Muslims. BUT, if they are indeed using it to prognosticate, 2012 is actually going to be a "paradigm shift," neither good nor bad, just a reality that we could not ever possibly imagine. (Like, say, a second term for a black president and the environment balancing itself?)

Jeff: Jonny and Tommy touch on convictions I've held. I've always felt that our country...at a social level anyway...lacked the maturity of a more established society. For example, look at other cultures that have been around for centuries. Tenets of those societies are honor, respect for elders, love for fellow-man (socialized services), etc. (Okay, women are treated like dirt, but I'm willing to overlook that in order to support my hypothesis.) I feel like the "me first" attitude in America is akin to our society being like a child. But maybe 2012...or this election...or whatever you want to pin it on..."social puberty," I don't know...but maybe our collective culture is growing up. Recognizing alternate points of view, loving thy neighbor, etc.

Or is this all just hippy-dippy shit?

John: I used to get hippy-dippy from the ice cream truck when I was a kid!

Or, alternately, "2012" (now the buzzphrase I'm using to denote this change) may break America open, showing it doesn't have the capacity to survive as the old European countries. I think that's why this election has more riding on it than we can understand.

Luke: I think most countries that at one time held the title of "most powerful nation on earth" had to decide in the waning moments of their supremacy just how they were going to move forward.

England, France, and Spain had to come to terms with the fact that imperialism was not going to be sustainable. Russia discovered that military dominance at the expense of social policy created a top-heavy facade that eventually fell over. The United States seems a little slow in understanding these fundamental lessons. We are toying perilously with the same mistakes.

I also think the spirit of what I call "uber nationalism" does us no good whatsoever, and actually hinders our ability to act objectively to problems. That "America is the envy of the world," "America is the model of democratic rule," "America is right, everyone else is wrong" mentality drives me crazy. Once you replace rationalism with nationalism, you're in a world of hurt.

America is A country in the world, with no directive or supreme favor from God. If we don't learn how to get along with the world community, we're bound to end up like the one cast member on Survivor every season who thinks he's the toughest, smartest, most competitive player, only to be voted off because nobody can stand his bullshit.

Jeff: I didn't feel like reading any of this until the Survivor analogy. That's the BEST show on television IN THE WORLD. Yes, EVEN going back to the Roman times.

Austin: 4. Dive head first into Goody Duck Vagina and take my chances.

Ryan (The New Yorker): How's this going for you so far, Seattlest?

Seattlest: Thank you for all of your time over the past few months.