• If there's some simple-minded answer for why Barack Obama stands athwart the Democratic party's nominating process today--some reason not related to his popularity as a candidate, say--then let me suggest to Ms Ferraro that the best place to look might be the massively sucking black hole at its center dating to the party's capitulation to the Reagan mystique, its abandonment of every principle save the principle of getting re-elected, and its failure--during a period when Ms Ferraro herself was nominally the second-most powerful person in the party--to distinguish itself from the clinically-insane bunch across the aisle to the extent that an entire generation of Obama supporters now imagine partisanship to be a two-way traffic jam. I'm no Obama fan, but he's managed to turn keynote-speaker/rising star buzz into a viable candidacy, which must to count for something and in fact counts for a lot. Compare Harold Ford, Evan Bayh, Mario Cuomo, and Mo Udall, who didn't, as well as Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan, who had no chance.
• I've been busy--I'll bring a doctor's note if you insist--so is there a reward out for the first person who can name a single solitary patriotic thing Jonah Goldberg has ever done in his nearly forty years of caloric intake?
i'd guess he probably bought several flag stickers for his car. and a pin.
ReplyDeleteMany of us regretted that Barbara Jordan wasn't the VP choice instead of Ferraro.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point. If you've conducted your party for 25+ years on the principle of no principles, maybe you shouldn't be surprised when a Smiling Young Man can run for the presidency successfully against someone who doesn't stand for much of anything other than, "It's my turn." Them's the breaks, eh?
ReplyDeleteNo
ReplyDeleteAnn Richards turned her speech into the Governor of Texas gig. She wasn't qualified to be governor and when she became governor she never broadened her appeal beyond limo-liberals. When a real Republican candidate who wasn't out of Looney Tunes ran against her, he became Governor--George W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteRichards had never done anything other than drink with the press, be a county commissioner and then Secretary of State running against a man who was indicted for that job.
She was the Obama of her day. And she beat an extremely well qualified candidate who was not likeable but had been elected Attorney General twice, served in the U.S. House and the Texas Legislature and had been an assistant district attorney. Richards married to a labor lawyer got her experience from her husband's connections but had never passed a bill, never made a difference other than making some nice speeches.
Sounds familiar.
oops I mean State Treasurer, not Secretary of the State of Texas.
ReplyDeleteOh please, Richards impressed *america* with her big speech and ran *locally* for governor where, at a guess, very few voters were swayed by her national recognition. Richards didn't run for president, and if she had no doubt she would have come in for the same criticism as obama has, except that it would have been aged and gendered differently. And of course she fell to bush not because he was a better candidate but because she was having problems with alcohol, illness, and a steady campaign of accusing her of being a lesbian.
ReplyDeleteI fail to see what this has to do with Obama or his success nationally.
Words cannot express how stunned I am that Goldberg finds any utterance or action by any Democrat not named James Webb (the token Dem he tosses in there to demonstrate how broad-minded he is) to be insufficient to meet Republican standards. Surprising, not the least, because patriotism, or at least the evocation of it, aside from being the last refuge of scoundrels, is often a hallmark of fascism. You'd think patriotism, then, is something Goldberg would think Dems possess in spades.
ReplyDeleteI thought 'It's my turn' was McCain's platform?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I'll take a stab: the most patriotic thing Jonah has ever done is NOT volunteer for the military; so other soldiers do not find themselves in the frightening position of having to rely on his pasty doughy ass for support during a battle in Iraq. Probably saved a few lives of far more worthy men.