THE DAILY BLADE: Ready, Ready, Ready To Rock ‘N’ Roll
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson captured The Stiletto’s sentiments to a T when he wrote in a recent column, “Finally, we've got a real presidential campaign on our hands. Wake up, those of you in the back row, because it looks as if the long-running seminar is finally over.” After detailing the internecine fighting between Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL), Clinton and John Edwards (D-NC), Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee (R-AR) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Mitt Romney (R-MA), he adds, “Ain’t it grand?”
While some, like RealClearPolitics pundit Jay Cost, who pens The HorseRaceBlog, believe that negative campaigning is detrimental to politics on a macro level and to individual candidacies on a micro level, The Stiletto agrees with Robinson, who makes the case:
[R]ough, tough, even "negative" campaigning isn't a pox on the republic. For one thing, it's traditional; the politics of today are positively genteel compared with, say, a century ago. For another, the swordplay of attack and counterattack has a way of getting candidates off their standard, focus-group-tested campaign rhetoric and flushing out their unvarnished views - and also a way of letting us glimpse their character and judgment.
The gloves finally came off earlier this month in both the Dem debate in Las Vegas and last month’s Republican debate in Orlando.
Since then, Obama has wondered aloud whether being Bill Clinton’s wife is enough “experience” to be president, Edwards has said that being a co-president during the Clinton Administration is the wrong kind of experience. Both are very legitimate criticisms and will put the raison d’etre of the Clinton campaign to the test before her eventual Republican challenger has at her, should she win her party’s nomination.
And now, there’s even a new Willie Horton to stir things up on the Republican side, though Romney’s calls for Superior Court Judge Kathe M. Tuttman - whom he appointed in April 2006 when he was governor of MA - to resign may turn out to be unjustified because of foot-dragging and incompetence on the part of the state Department of Corrections – which lends credence to Rudy’s dismissive assessment that Romney was no great shakes as a governor.
Meanwhile, Fred Thompson, who matters less and less with each passing day, writes off Rudy’s experience as New York City’s mayor, prompting Rudy’s campaign to note that Thompson "is a Washington insider and lobbyist ... who played the role Rudy Giuliani actually lived on a television series.”
Yup, it’s getting ugly. But after months of hearing nothing but poll-tested, rehearsed sound bites masquerading as debate answers, voters will get the crucial information they need to assess the candidates. And that’s the beauty of negative campaigning.
Putting The “Boo” In Boomer
Writing in The Washington Post, WBZ-TV (Boston) political analyst Jon Keller recently put forth the interesting proposition that after eight years of Baby Boomers in the White House (Bill Clinton and George Bush were both born in 1946 – the former on August 19th, the latter on July 6th) Americans in other generational cohorts are fed up with “a disturbing trend in boomer political culture: the instinctive substitution of personal ego and self-aggrandizement for pragmatic judgment and civic accountability.” Keller, who wrote "The Bluest State: How Democrats Created the Massachusetts Blueprint for American Political Disaster," notes:
Of the 15 "major" candidates, only seven - Democrats Chris Dodd and Joe Biden and Republicans Fred Thompson, John McCain, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Rudy Giuliani - were born before the boom exploded in 1946. When Biden or McCain scold their boomer rivals for self-serving doubletalk and situational ethics, they're channeling the frustrations of many with boom-generation politicians. …
[I]t's balding, grumpy 63-year-old Rudy Giuliani who leads the GOP pack. It's 72-year-old Ron Paul who's setting Internet fundraising records. And 71-year-old John McCain is showing some life in the polls on the strength of an ad campaign that draws explicit comparison with the self-indulgent Woodstock generation. …
After 16 years of a Me Generation White House, could it be that voters, desperate for leadership that's less personal and more presidential, are likely to turn to what they see as more reliable retro models, shipping the flashy boomer merchandise back to the store? After all, when a country traumatized by terrorism and war is confronted with superficial candidates who tout their pristine lapels and casualty-free households as selling points, the torch clearly has been passed. And it turns out it's a lava lamp.
Editorial Note: Keller’s reference to “pristine lapels” is about Barack Obama’s refusal to wear an American flag pin in his lapel, and his reference to “casualty-free households” is about Mitt Romney’s refusal to explain why none of his five strapping sons has served in the Iraq war, which he supports.
Robbing Peter To Pay Paul
The Washington Post’s media critic turned political pundit Howard Kurtz describes a TV ad being run by HillaryClinton’s campaign:
[A] nurse named Joe Ward describes his son's need for a bone-marrow transplant: "We called Senator Clinton and asked for help. Her office called the next day, letting us know that the hospital was going to absorb the cost of the transplant. … I trusted this woman to save my son's life, and she did." …
Clinton consulted with Medicaid and insurance officials and helped persuade a Minnesota children's hospital to assume the remainder of the cost.
The Stiletto would have been more impressed if Clinton (D-NY) had dug into her own bank account and paid for the transplant herself out of the $40 million hubby Bill earned in speaking fees over the past six years. Let’s face facts: The hospital didn’t really absorb the remainder of the cost –
The Other Shoe Drops: Updates To Previous Posts
† China Takes A Page From Turkey’s Playbook: Remember when the Bush Administration pissed off China - a U.N. Security Council Member and America’s second largest trading partner - in the name of principle by allowing the Dalai Lama to receive a Congressional Gold Medal and feting him at a White House reception while simultaneously engaging in Armenian Genocide denial to kiss Turkey’s ass in the name of pragmatism? Well, U.S. troops paid the price when China refused to allow aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk to make a Thanksgiving port call at Hong Kong to be with their families. Several days earlier, China refused to allow two U.S. Navy minesweepers, the Patriot and the Guardian, safe harbor in Hong Kong from an approaching storm.
† The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws: After Federal District Court judge Charles R. Breyer issued an injunction against a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule that requires employers to fire workers within 90 days if their Social Security numbers do not match their names, the Bush Administration filed a motion asking that the case be suspended so DHS could rewrite the rule, and could conduct a survey of small businesses to determine the rule’s impact.
† Trademarking Town’s Name Not A Good Thing (second item): Katonah, NY – home to Martha Stewart’s 152-acre estate – has successfully thwarted her bid to trademark the tiny town’s name for a line of furniture and dozens of household goods and accessories. Time magazine reports that for months, residents waged an anti-trademarking campaign that was “the epitome of small-town activism,” complete with T-shirts; signs in shop windows; a parody newspaper, the Marthometer; and protest songs. “After months of negotiation, Stewart's company withdrew its trademark application in all categories except for four: furniture, pillows, mirrors and chair pads.”
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