Spinning Around The Bend, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #294 | @MDWorld
October 1, 2012 Mike Gold 12 Comments
Now is when it starts getting good. Screw the new teevee season; this is where the action is. We’ve got the Republicans panicking, the Iranians foaming, the Democrats snickering, the Catholics revolting, the debates beginning and the media trolling. This is sort of like the road show to Sons Of Anarchy, as performed by the cast of Community. On ice.
Right now Obama is solidly ahead in the polls, particularly on an electoral vote basis, so the Republicans are just freaking out. He must be a Muslim: he decided to go on The View instead of going down on Israel Prime Minister Benji Netanyahu. Gee, you’d think that African Communist must be opposed to nuclear holocaust or something.
What drives the Republicans all the more crazy – if that’s possible – is that the American Jewish vote remains solidly for Obama. According to figures released last Friday, 65% of Jews surveyed support Obama. By way of comparison, in 2008 only 57% of Jews supported Obama. So his support had grown by 15%. That appears to be a strong vote of confidence to me.
Or, perhaps, American Jews are actually Kenyan Muslims.
Obama also didn’t meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (it’s pronounced the way it’s spelled). I suspect the Secret Service wouldn’t let that happen. What if Ahmadinejad bit him? Two words: President Biden. Who, by the way, has the support of 72.6% of American Jewish voters.
While I’m on the subject of religion, it’s interesting to note that Obama has had a massive turn-around in the realm of Catholic support, presently leading Wilfred Romney 54 to 39 percent. That’s the Pew poll; Gallup has the numbers somewhat tighter. So if you’re a Republican into poll-shopping, you’re screwed either way.
Historians tell us that reelection campaigns are referenda on the President’s performance. Maybe so, but from what I’ve seen, it appears for American Catholics the 2012 election is more a referendum on Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Dolan is extremely vocal in opposition to Obama’s policies regarding abortion, gay rights and contraception. Evidently, his flock disagrees. Despite my life-long study of politics and my growing up in America’s largest Catholic city, the machinations of the Church is beyond my ken. It’s easier to explain the first half-century of X-Men continuity. But I do know this: Cardinal is not an elected position.
So here we are, on the eve of the first of three debates. We can count on the following with 100% assurance: the Romney supporters and Fox “News” will declare Wilfred the winner, the Obama supporters and MSNBC will declare Barack the winner, and reruns of The Brady Bunch will out-poll the debates. To the extent that there might be enough votes to swing a state that will swing the election – and I’ve been saying in this venue for weeks just how unlikely that is – it’s unlikely that the debates will change the outcome…
… unless one of the Presidential candidates screws up big-time. That can happen. That has happened, but not very often. Such an event would likely require the questions to be both hardball and unexpected, and neither one is likely. Of course, the vice-presidential debate is a Jon Stewart wet dream.
So we’ve got the candidates spinning around the bend in the great 2012 presidential horserace. I’m reminded of statements made by two great Americans: philosopher Yogi Berra, who said “it ain’t over ‘till it’s over” and that most certainly is a great truth. However, the great truth in political organizing was voiced by Chicago West Side boss Bernie Neistein, who said “Don’t make no waves, don’t back no losers.”
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com , every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week (check the website above for times) and available On Demand at the same place. He also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.
Rene
October 10, 2012 - 12:05 pm
Just out of curiosity, why wouldn’t you want to be part of a poll, Bill?
Interestingly, I just refused to be polled today. Nothing ideological about it, I was just going home from weightlifting and the thought of standing 20 minutes in the hot sun answering questions wasn’t attractive.
Bill Mulligan
October 10, 2012 - 12:52 pm
Unless I had excellent reason to know it was one of the major pollsters, it seems like I’d be potentially giving out a lot of information to a stranger. And most of the polls I have done quickly became “push-polls” which are just arguments disguised as polls. I’m not arguing with a guy who is being paid to disagree with me, unless I get a cut.
A small part of me does not want to announce my political affiliation to the world…which of course is completely undone by using my real name on all these forums, I guess. But hey, we’re all friends here. What I would never do is have, say, a Romney bumper sticker n my car. I spend a lot of time in Chapel Hill and I like my car the color that it is, unkeyed burgundy.
“I fully understand the reality that many people are inextricably wedded to their political ideologies to the extent that they just choose not to see past blue or red. Sometimes the human animal just can’t overcome the constraints of either culture and/or environment. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.”
Well….that’s better. But is it still so hard to imagine that someone could, you know, not just rationally and logically end up picking a candidate that differs from the one you picked rationally and logically?
Some people are single issue voters and will ignore all else. Some look at the big picture. Some vote purely on personality. Some use a mix and weight the various factors differently. If you think there is an actual valid formula that we can plug these guys into and get a score that will determine, with mathematical certainty who will do the better job, let’s hear it.
Rene
October 10, 2012 - 1:33 pm
I don’t mind announcing my opinions to the world. But I remember one political poll I took part in. The pollster didn’t argue with me as much as tried to understand why I didn’t like their guy and what they could do to change my perception (as I remember not much could be done).
As a voter, the only defining factor for me is that I’ll never vote for a politician with a socially conservative platform. It’s simply against my worldview. Economically I can go either way.
Reg
October 10, 2012 - 3:11 pm
” But is it still so hard to imagine that someone could, you know, not just rationally and logically end up picking a candidate that differs from the one you picked rationally and logically?”
Well…I think that even the most ardent conservatives would agree that the GOP’s spate of candidates for this election cycle has been exceptionally weak. It’s been a maladroit season for the elephants from virtually all sectors.
Also, I never said that everyone with a brain in their heads should be voting for President Obama…I just expressed that based on the fumbling, bumbling and just demonstrably false and flip flopping statements that have been part and parcel of Romney’s position and campaign, I find it passing strange that so many voters (or responders to pollsters)are apparently able to easily ignore or overlook these truths.
Personally speaking, if I’m someone who’s able to see beyond the “Red or Blue, do or die!” blinders and actually look at the things critically I would have MAJOR challenges with a candidate who tells me that …’I have a plan, but I won’t tell you what it is until after I’m in office’, or “All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to take care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.” Especially if they in turn REFUSE to release their own tax returns for public review.
For me to support a candidate whose candidly stated POV apparently reflects an accurate assessment of the internal character of one who is looking to assume the highest job in the land towards the purpose of representing and serving the best interests of all of her citizens…well…it’s a wee bit hard to find supportable logic or rationale to convince me that this would be good ground wherein to drop my seed of a vote.
Mike Gold
October 10, 2012 - 4:13 pm
I have friends in Massachusetts who, at the time, thought Romney wasn’t a bad governor. Of course, that health care thing (now called “Obamacare” for some reason) made a positive impression on these folks. Today, Mitt doesn’t have as much support among those people. Well, actually, none.
My problem with Romney, and it is the core problem, is that I do not have a clue who he is or what he’s proposing. He hasn’t offered any plans, just contradictory promises. He has disavowed much of what he used to stand for, and in the past week he seems to be flipping back (or, at least, half-way back) towards some of his previously voiced beliefs.
Therefore, I get no feeling other than the man wants to be president and he’ll take whatever position he needs to in order to get the type of support he needs to beat Obama at any moment in time. If, in last week’s debate, he used his admirable passion and zeal to actually propose specific plans — starting with exactly how he’s going to cut everybody’s taxes 20% — Barack would be toast.
This story has two morals; the first is that you can put lipstick on a pig even when he’s still in the poke, and, two, 48% – 52% of the electorate will vote for a pig wearing Heath Ledger’s lipstick.