So let’s get two things out of the way.<\/p>\n
I think Obama’s going to win.<\/p>\n
I think Obama should<\/i> win, that we’ll be better off if he does – so listen up hawks.<\/p>\n
And once he does win, I think it’s going to rain hard rocks on the heads of a lot of us. I think we’ll see institutional death spirals in the major parties and in the media. And, shockingly, I kind of look forward to it all.<\/p>\n
Let’s get through these one at a time.<\/p>\n
I. OBAMA’S GOING TO WIN<\/p>\n
Look, McCain and Palin haven’t shown that they’ve got the punch to hang with Obama and the media. There’s punch there to be had – if Patterico<\/a> and Ace<\/a> and Confederate Yankee<\/a> were running the messaging part of the McCain campaign, I think he’d be doing better, bluntly. I started out really impressed by Steve Schmidt. Today – not so much. Look, it’s not fair that the media are looking through Palin’s used Kotex with a microscope and a gene sequencer and ignoring major stories about Obama. It’s not fair that they are editing out whole sections of speeches that McCain is giving and then slamming him for his silence.<\/p>\n But you know what? Politics at this level isn’t fair, and we pay our leaders to solve problems like this. There are ways to do it. Buy airtime. Run better ads. Give better speeches while you’re at it. Route around the media to the extent you can, and flood the zone with talking heads, letter writers and Youtube videos to the extent you can’t.<\/p>\n Managing the media beast is the first job for a president, because the first job for a president isn’t governing, it’s not managing the mechanism of the government, it’s messaging. It’s running psyops on us to keep our beliefs and hopes aligned with his (and vice versa, I should add).<\/p>\n So, bummer, John and Sarah, thanks for playing, see you next time (one of you at least).<\/p>\n II. OBAMA OUGHT TO WIN<\/p>\n Yeah, I know all the arguments for why he shouldn’t. Iraq, Iraq and Iraq. Reprising Kennedy’s flop in Vienna in Tehran. Launched his political career as a member of the kinda-socialist New Party. <\/p>\n Big Deal.<\/p>\n Look, I continue to be someone who sees one primary issue as central to the history of our time – are we going to kill (or allow to be killed) a shedload of Arabs because we allowed a crazed ideology to be funded by kleptocrats and delude their people into believing that they could defeat the two Satans if they really tried? I’d like to avoid this, thank you very much. And avoiding this isn’t a matter of accommodating footwashing stations in university bathrooms (although that’s something I’d be having a long hard talk with some regents about…). Sadly, the other side is more – well more millennial than that. And if they truly gain power – power over the masses of the Arab world, who today mostly just want to stop being screwed by their governments – then we’ll have a problem. Not as bad of one as they will, but a problem nonetheless.<\/p>\n I see two steps to avoiding that problem. The first is, simply, being stronger by being united. In the comments here and in discussions I’ve had elsewhere, the fracture line over the war appears to be the de jure boundary between parties. That’s wacked, but true. We need to stir the pot. And since I’m convinced that nothing we do can or will tip the balance if the GOP stays in power, they need to take one for the team and lose. I believe deeply that the innate impulses of even Barney Frank are in the right place. I believe that our leadership class does truly love the country an that they – like JFK – will try to do the right thing once they stumble once or twice.<\/p>\n As someone with skin in the game, I expect them to stumble, but really, really, hope they do not stumble too badly.<\/p>\n And, as I’ve said before, we’re strong enough to err on the side of calmness. Let’s go talk to people; let’s step back – having shown that we do have teeth and may use them – and let’s try chatting with people before we have to decide to shoot them.<\/p>\n On the domestic side, I hate to say it, but I really do support Obama. Look, he’s a crony capitalist liberal – a true denizen of the Skyboxes. But some tough decisions are going to have to be made in the next few years as we readjust our fiscal expectations a bit, and I think both that a Democrat will be able to get more from the public sector unions than a Republican will, but that in balancing the scales of sacrifice, Obama will tip them more in the direction I believe they ought to go.<\/p>\n III. IT GOING TO BE UGLY WHEN HE DOES<\/p>\n The GOP will start the slugfest as the Reagan coalition deconstructs itself. The GOP has been this weird accumulation of insider traders, courtiers selling favors, small government true believers, strong America advocates, and those seeking to recapture a traditional America which – while a great and necessary myth – really never existed. They are going to be seriously pissed off at each other after November.<\/p>\n