(For no apparent reason beyond love, I am going to write "The Scenarios" in the style of Kafka's "The Sons." This is the kind of thing one needs to expect/endure from a man with a Kafka tattoo.)
I have three scenarios.
My first scenario is my favorite, and yet I have so little faith in it. While my heart supports it I fear that it is simply too impractical to survive in this world. This scenario insists that John McCain, who obviously has the GOP nomination in the bag now, is simply not something that the all-important Bible Thumping Inbred Nutcase wing of his party can accept. Said faction will instead create and promote their own independent/third party candidate, perhaps Huckabee. Or Fred Phelps. Or Jimmy Swaggart. Who knows. But thanks to the "brilliance" of Karl Rove, the GOP is now so heavily dependent on that portion of the electorate that their loss is not survivable. In this scenario, either Democratic nominee will coast to victory over a divided Republican Party. I wish this scenario all the best.
My second scenario is an ill-tempered and ungrateful one. It believes that there is nothing wrong with the GOP coalition, and its extremists will learn to love McCain as an arranged bride must learn to love the husband to whom she was sold for livestock.
buy ivermectin generic gaetzpharmacy.com no prescription
While this scenario does not include a third-party challenger from the far right, it does not believe that McCain can extend his support much beyond the hardcore GOP base. Too many Republicans and independents are disillusioned by 8 years of Bush to vote for another right-wing war hawk. The Democratic nominee wins, albeit not comfortably, over a united but weakened GOP.
My third scenario terrifies me. I loathe it but I realize that it is often the most immoral and horrific things that succeed in this world. It will be almost statistically impossible for either Obama or Hillary to put the other away now, as only ~1700 delegates remain and each candidate needs about 1000 more to win the nomination. As their fight drags on into the late summer, McCain – now essentially unopposed – will use the time to convince all of the "disaffected" suburban Republicans what a "maverick" and "independent" he is.
Look!, he says, Ann Coulter and James Dobson hate me! The tens of thousands of Republicans will slowly realize that they really only care about getting tax cuts every 18 months, and they will tell themselves that It's OK to Vote For McCain – He's Different!tm Of course they are right. He is different than Bush, which is to say he is more tolerable on a handful of issues and much, much worse on others.
Like foreign policy. They will sweep their It's OK Because He's Different, Therefore We Still Voted For Change candidate into the White House, and after 4 years of St. McCain (and VP Lieberman) we'll be drafting people to man the wars in Iran, Syria, North Korea, Lebanon, and so on. I would be ashamed of this scenario if my experience with the selfishness, lability, and powers of self-delusion among the electorate did not so clearly suggest that it is correct.
These are my three scenarios.
Kati J says:
Hey Ed. I didn't know you had a blog! How fun. I'm already sick of hearing about Barack and Hillary, and shit, I would give up my first born to have one of them elected. It scares me how appealing McCain is though. I think he's a great Senator, no doubt, but like you said, him being commander in chief would be an awful, scary thing.
JDryden says:
I realize that this is a subject into which you've already gone with some depth, Ed, but if I may, I'd like to request a post, at some point, as to the ways in which McCain has shown himself to be worse on some issues than Bush–that is, reasons why a McCain presidency would actually be *worse* than the Bush presidency. I'm so numb at this point to the general awareness that the past 8 years have been among our worst as a modern nation–with, yes, the caveat that we've done right by AIDS In Africa as an issue–that the idea that things could actually get worse causes me to cock my head to one side like a labrador after you've pretended to throw the ball while palming it. I can imagine it, but only vaguely…
I'll add that your third-scenario-cynicism is well-founded, though, particularly given the degree to which the Democrats have shown a propensity for designing their campaigns with the goal of depressing and alienating as many swing-voters as possible. Part of the reason I still hope that Hillary is part of the ticket is that she's shown that she knows how to get into office, by hook or by crook. It's not a pretty hope–it's actually small and ugly. But the Gore and Kerry campaigns have left me no other option.
Michael says:
Living in Alabama, I can tell you that years and years of politics from the pulpit have the unthinking right-wing sheep believing that a vote for a candidate who is anything less that 110% fully committed to outlawing abortion will damn them to hell for all eternity. Many, many of them will not vote for McCain for that reason. That's why Huckabee is doing so well in the deep South. I think McCain is going to have to name him as VP in order to ease their qualms and bring them into the fold.
pmayo says:
If McCain does win, I suppose you could write a post in the style of "The Savages"
http://www.digiworldinc.com/users/j/james/shorts.htm
Samantha says:
I love you for this post alone.