|
|
|
Last Updated: Jul 21, 2008 - 9:45:03 AM |
Even a cursory look at the dynamics in play between the two races
reveals the chance for the Democrats to emulate what President Lyndon
Johnson's board of strategy achieved almost a half century ago, when
the Democratic incumbent secured an overwhelming popular vote victory
of 23 points with an overwhelming 61-38 % landslide.
Johnson later told interviewers that Goldwater lost all opportunity to
become a credible candidate when, in his acceptance speech at the
party's San Francisco convention, the Arizona solon made a statement
that brought him his hottest, most resounding response of the night
from his in person audience of zealots, including Ronald Reagan, but
left a vast majority of voters cold in November.
Referring to the fact that Democrats were seeking to paint him as a
right wing extremist, Goldwater took the bait in a personally harmful
way and delivered one of the most memorable lines in convention history:
"... (E)xtremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the
pursuit of justice is no virtue."
The Democrats took the statement and ran with it. By the time the
smoke cleared, the Republicans had been reduced to their lowest
congressional representation since the popularity peak of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.
Rather than seek to finesse himself away from the comment, the badly
wounded Goldwater continued throughout the campaign to appeal basically
to the then far right-dominated Republican Party, doing no more than
solidifying a base he always had while alienating the vital center that
controls American national elections.
For instance, Goldwater lost any hope of capturing Tennessee with a
comment that he would sell the Tennessee Valley Authority, even if it
brought only "one dollar."
Johnson's press secretary, George Reedy, advised Johnson ultimately
that he was wasting his time campaigning and should go back to the
White House since "Your opponent is campaigning for you."
The last eight years under Cheney-Bush has been badly mislabeled by the
mainstream media as "conservative" rather than be investigated and
concluded to be a right wing extremist kook show that would make the
Goldwater campaign at worst appear moderate.
Despite showing one side that was unyielding and fed the party's right
wing base with red meat, even Goldwater recognized that it would be
best not to further explore a statement he made well before the 1964
campaign that Social Security should be made voluntary.
Goldwater's vice-presidential running mate, Congressman William Miller
of New York, even attempted to run away from the position by falsely
claiming that Goldwater had been "misquoted" on the subject.
George W. Bush sought to tie Social Security to the stock market. Many
economists noted, as did savvy political analysts, that the end result
would be stripping the program of the funds it would require to sustain
it, which was the general idea all along.
George W. Bush sought to tie Social Security to the stock market. Many
economists noted, as did savvy political analysts, that the end result
would be stripping the program of the funds it would require to sustain
it, which was the general idea all along.
On the topic of comparative extremism, nobody in the Goldwater camp was
ever quoted making a comment as narrowly rightist as that of
Bush-Cheney adviser and prominent think tank activist Grover Norquist.
It was Norquist who said that the federal government, excluding
defense, naturally, and including all of the safety net protective
programs implemented in the New Deal-Fair Deal administrations of FDR
and Harry Truman, should be figuratively "drowned" in a bathtub.
Goldwater and his supporters argued that the federal government
dangerously imperiled personal freedoms of U.S. citizens.
While liberal and moderate Democrats were on solid ground in
proclaiming such a charge as nonsense, it should be noted that the
Goldwaterites never went on record supporting preventive detention,
searching without probable cause, waterboarding, rendition and
substituting signing statements for U.S. laws and ultimately the
nation's constitution itself.
While McCain launched his political career as a "maverick" and once
opposed so many of the above-referenced blueprints for destroying
democracy, in order to outflank his opponents in the Republican primary
he adopted the Bush-Cheney program with its emphasis on destruction of
liberty and elimination of a citizen's economic safety net.
Just as Goldwater's statement defending extremism was used repeatedly
against him in 1964, Democratic strategists could shrewdly use McCain's
statement of remaining in Iraq "for 100 years" if necessary to cripple
his chances beyond the hard core 25 to 30 % kook fringe that is
brainwashed on nut diets of drug addict Rush Limbaugh and full speed
ahead segments of Fox News.
Despite a bogus Republican claim that the "100 years" comment is a
canard, such is not the case. The only point where certain Democrats
have been mistaken was to assert that McCain said that it would be
acceptable to "fight" in Iraq for a century or more. What he did was
to compare Iraq to long term United States presences in countries like
South Korea and Japan.
To in any way compare Iraq, where the majority of its citizens as well
as post-Saddam Hussein government figures have strongly indicated a
desire for the U.S. to leave, a position emphatically echoed throughout
the Middle East, to Korea and Japan indicates how truly out of touch
John McCain is on the subject of Iraq, the Middle East, and foreign
policy in general.
Democrats should spend plenty of money showing McCain making that
absurd comment as well as others where he indicates confused ignorance
on the Middle East.
How about a segment on Joe Lieberman whispering in McCain's ear?
Like Goldwater, McCain is checkmated by the political reality of
holding his right wing base for fund raising as well as electoral
purposes.
With Democrats employing the correct attack strategy McCain could be
successfully checkmated from reaching out to the broad mainstream of
voters and isolated with a diminished base of Limbaugh-Fox News
extremist Republicans.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
Top of Page
|
|
|
|