“So what do you think of the election so far?” my friend Brian
asked me. This was back in March, when the Republicans had settled
on McCain but the Democrats were still undecided. All American
discussion, Brian behind the counter of his neighborhood hardware
store, me out front using the copying machine.
“I think McCain beats Hillary, but Obama beats McCain,” I said.
“If Obama’s elected, Congress will eat him alive.”
Shows you how much I knew.
Another parallel experience: I’ve been printing out my columns
and putting them in a binder for my boys. Way at the back end of my
archive, I found “The Essential Bush,” which I printed on
this site on April 8 of 2002. Boy, did I know a lot back then.
Here’s the nut graf:
Republican and Democrat operatives alike looked at the
famous USA Today red-and-blue map of Election 2000, and in
it they read the lineaments of political doom. Democrats saw Texas
and Florida governed by Bushes, and knew they could not control the
country with just California, New York, and the Volvo states — the
rest of the map was hopeless. Republicans saw that, if Democrats
buried Texas and Florida the way they had flooded California —
primarily via Hispanic immigration — the GOP would be reduced to
permanent minority status, and the federal system would effectively
come to an end, as the country was ruled by the seaboard
elites.
I was right, too, but you can see what “right” gets you. Things
didn’t work out that way. Why not? George W. Bush and Karl Rove
apparently thought they could wipe out Democrats altogether as an
electoral force. Some Democrats appear to contemplate the same
thing in reverse now. What’s the lesson? That the U.S. appears to
be good for a fight, almost no matter what the defects of one party
or the other.
TAKE THIS ELECTION, FOR EXAMPLE. For a while, it was supposed to be
a Hillary coronation. Then it looked like it might be an Obama
coronation. Both stumbled on their way to the crown.
(N.B. There is no such verb as “to coronate.” “Coronation” is
the nominative form of “to crown.”)
Democrats have correctly observed that the Republican act has
grown old. It didn’t grow old with Ronald Reagan, but it has with
Bush and the sloppy, self-dealing Republicans in Congress these
days. The GOP act has grown so stale that the party ended up
nominating John McCain, the Senator the New Republic’s
Jonathan Chait described as (during Bush’s first term) “the most
effective advocate of the Democratic agenda in Washington.”
REPUBLICANS HAVE DONE “HOLD YOUR NOSE” ELECTIONS BEFORE. This
one’ll take the Pepe LePew.
But two or three things have played out John McCain’s way.
First, the McCain campaign has proved a total surprise with both
its nimbleness and its willingness to go for the throat. The
McCainiacs jab, they counterpunch, they float like a butterfly and
sting like a bee. They’ve got Obama completely off his footing,
indeed, seem to be able to make him do what they want him to do.
Arguably, the GOP’s advertising made Obama deliver a different
acceptance speech than he had originally contemplated.
Whatever happened to the Stupid Party? Remember those guys?
Leadfooted, lumpen geeks with no clue? The guys who looked so
hapless up against Slick Willie?
No, this time around, the Democrats look slow and clueless. This
may not continue. The McCain camp may stumble, or a well-plotted
surprise may blow up in their faces. But so far, they’ve got the
golden touch. They’re setting the public and media agenda. So long
as the McCain camp keeps it up, they can win.
In addition, the Democrats seem determined to paint McCain as
“four more years” or as Bush II (or III). And he is not, not
ideologically, not in his tactics, not in his campaign strategy. It
benefits McCain to have the Democrats attacking an imaginary enemy,
while the real opponent runs them over.
Now McCain has made an inspired choice of running mate with
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Let’s see what the convention
delivers. The Democrats left a lot of room for the Republicans to
supply some happiness and hoopla (as Peggy Noonan has pointed out),
and McCain may just deliver.
WE’RE IN THE HOME STRETCH NOW, forgive the cliche. McCain has found
his stride; Obama has lost his footing. It’s awfully hard to turn a
race around that has been clearly defined so late. We may well look
back on the last week of August and say, that’s where McCain won
it. Right there.
