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public financing. if i had a ton of money, and was preparing my coffers to
receive tons more, i myself would probably not want to tie myself up in
public bondage. is it really ‘as a politician’ only that i would make such a
choice? my difficulty in understanding this is not in how either side is
trying to spin it. i understand how that echo chamber is panning out.
what i dont get is the reality of the position he is taking. oddly, both
spins seem to be accurate if in a hybrid form. he is opting out of the
system, a system he said he would agree to if it was a consensus (ie him &
mccain). on the other spin side, brit hume had an interesting comment
(motivated by his own desire to undermine public financing). “obama really
has proved that the limits necessary… do not merely screen out the /evil
influences of all the rich people/ in america but they also make it
impossible for a great many individual donors to make their voices heard
through their contributions…” (remember, /…/’s indicate sarcasm)
sen. graham is a cockbag, as anyone can tell listening to him at any point
leading up to but especially speaking of MTP on sunday. he seems to be weepy
about obama opting out of the system, about his ‘broken word’ and shattered
promise. thing about it is, i think the right honorable senator is trying to
play so many sides of so many arguments on oil or finance, and he has been
playing it in such a viscerally snake-oil salesman kind of way for the
benefit of himself, mccain, and every other gop-member they are trying to
make moderate by creating not a unity platform but a compromise platform.
graham’s compromise platform, and the base upon which mccain hopes to draw
upon will run dry very soon. its not about reversal, its not about
doubletalk or walking back words spoken or misspoken. the reason a real
platform will drink the milkshake of a compromise platform is plainly
evident in Kerry’s defeat in 2004 (who should have lost by substantially
more in my opinion and i must say it was a brilliant effort on their part
that they were able to inflate their support).
a real platform doesnt even need to be a good one, its just essential that
it not over reach beyond its substance, which is exactly what mccain is
doing now. though they do seem to be moving him forward at a reasonable
pace, his 300$m battery idea and other panderlusts will get lost when they
introduce that into a hot news cycle that is all about doubletalk this week;
energy is so last week. i like the barrage of what appear to be grant-based
subsidies for BP et al, but to introduce a bunch of micromanaged elements
like the battery into the electorate’s datastream results in non-strategic,
wasted detritus.
he needs real sustenance for the electorate (a big bone to gnaw on for
awhile) and a compromise platform is not a unity platform (where the good
bones are made). and when he has graham and lieberman out there shilling for
him he wastes so much anti/non-partisan capital. under this artifice, he is
no unifier (unless you mean he is a unifier like 2000 W Bush). those two
embody two absolutely necessary conditions for alienating unity. graham
is… well hes him. and lieberman makes many moderates and every democrat’s
skin crawl. he is the crooked talk express if ever there was one. he is the
bane of decency and sportsmanship in Democracy (whether you agreed with the
MI-FL argument advanced by the obama campaign in situ, lieberman owes his
cultural currency to exploiting the opposite side of the coin).