What It Takes to Win

If there's one thing you can take from the campaigns so far, it's that they have left the usual round-up of go-to talking mouths unable to figure out in advance what it takes to win. Back in summertime, the brainiacs had McCain DOA in Minneapolis/St. Paul, but now the Republicans appear to have settled on the senator from Arizona; go figure.

The former governor of Arkansas would argue that he's in it 'til the last dog dies. All I know is that every supporter of his who calls in to C-SPAN's Washington Journal can't even pronounce his name correctly.

Though it's a curiosity perhaps to see what brand of bass he sits in on - a Peavey, an Ibanez koa, or a Fender Huckamaster - Mike Huckleby, Huckerbee, or whatever you care to call him, has become like Kato Kaelin. He likes to say he's living on the loaves and fishes of biblical storytelling fame, but it's more like the modern, pragmatic fruits of Christian networking.

In other words, he's in it until he grows moldy or starts stinkin' up the place.

("Hey, do you guys know Sweet Home Alabama?")

John McCain has what it takes to win. But he's also a rotten choice for America, ultimately. We are a nation of deferred conversations and in no need of one more. We have been led, as if by tether and nose ring, through an amazing eight year ordeal of ignorance, subterfuge and, some would argue, malfeasance.

McCain is the choice for those in full denial. He is the living embodiment of those popular (if Orwellian) notions that opposition equals surrender, which equals don't support the troops, which equals blame America first, which equals every insult you can cull from every last transcript of Rush Limbaugh going back to when he was a novelty and not a mainstay.

Criticize McCain's positions and it will morph into an attack on a genuine war hero who knows better than you, whatever you're talking about; so shut up.

His seductive appeal, whether the Democrats choose Obama or Clinton, will be as anaesthesia (spelled with an extra "a" for America!) for those who haven't or can't turn buyers remorse into an examination of their own party, or a full out change in registration.

Without belaboring the point, somebody had to have voted Bush in, and then back in, all the while allowing the people's business to find the back burners while corporate interests received succor, bubbling away on the front.

John McCain will be the winner of the "look into the heart" test, the "want to have a beer with" test and the "loves America more than anybody" test. He doesn't have the record or even the appearance of a desire to join a conversation on what's best for America at this juncture. But he has what it takes to win. Four words: same old same old.

George W. Bush's final word on the subject comes in the form of a little walking around money. A little treat from your rich uncle Dubbya. Oh goody, will say most. Now we're safely two paychecks away from total ruin. Anything but a review of post-Reagan policies.

McCain, my friends, is not the anathema which the folklore from last week's C-PAC conference would lead one to believe.

He has an "82" conservative ranking from the folks who do those kinds of things, differs on only a couple, if hot button issues with the extreme right, and shares Dubbya's most winning characteristic: he can be molded into the best that modern marketing can come up with.

(Just look at his superficials!)

The die-hard Republicans, the ones who telephone C-SPAN and call Obama a "vacuum cleaner salesman" and Clinton any number of variants on the "b" word, do not want this election to be about Bush's legacy. Because most people choose retreat from an abyss, not dancing on its edge.

The GOP will have won, albeit figuratively, if they can make it through to next year with any momentum left to the ideologies which have brought America to its crossroads. Therein lies the preconditioning in this week's (I would say mock) ulta-conservative outrage over the prospect of McCain being the Republican candidate.

Just like our ongoing ones on race, foreign policy, energy, economics, morality, citizenship and the like, the chances of a reasoned conversation between and about the two candidates are hampered by those in the Republican hierarchy who would see that as a sign McCain doesn't have what it takes to win, before it ever got a chance to come across on Meet the Press.

The proof is in the Mary Matalin test, as I've taken to calling it.

If she had been in that Gambino crime family roundup last week, she could have been tagged Mary "the Custodian" Matalin. You know:  cleans up the blood on short notice.

For years, she has been the one to whine and cluck as a response to every pithy, yet two week old question about Powell's trip to the UN, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Cheney - a hundred times Cheney, and any from a Whitman's Sampler of the administration's blunders. That stuff is always behind us. Can't we move on?

For example, the outing of a CIA agent was an Armitage faux pas, not Cheney Machiavellism. Then came the Libby commutation. His reward for protecting Cheney from what, Mary? Anything?

"That's behind us. Can't we move on?"

Whenever she says "It's not about" such and such, it's likely that it is. Talking with radio personality, Don Imus, she let it be known that this upcoming election is absolutely, positively not about George W. Bush and his legacy.

(Hold on - does anyone know how to turn off the alarm on the Mata-meter?)

Next week: Precedence Day

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