Just a reminder to New Yorkers: I’ll be at the 92nd Street Y on Wednesday night, along with Roseanne Barr, Monica Crowley et al., to discuss the outcome of tomorrow’s presidential election. For details click on the entry the “Events” sidebar to the right of the blog.
Coming in an Hour or Two
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Stay tuned. David is putting the finishing touches on “Death Cab for Sarah,” my second stab at the animated editorial cartoon format. I’ll post it here and on YouTube as soon as I have it in my hot little server.
Sneak preview: Against all odds, John McCain wins the presidency. But a certain ambitious former hockey mom from Alaska has designs to take his place. Once she sets her eye on the big job, nothing will stand in her way…not even murder.
Obama
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Barack Obama could not be more wrong about the war against the people of Afghanistan. No country has successfully invaded another one since the 19th century and, believe me, Afghanistan–of all places!–isn’t going to be the first.
Barack Obama is wrong about Iraq. We don’t need a negotiated settlement. Immediate withdrawal is the only prudent, sane, and rational solution to a problem that we shouldn’t have created in the first place.
Barack Obama doesn’t seem to understand how bad the economy is, or that nothing short of radical solutions–like my idea to bail out homeowners and renters–has a prayer of working. A national infrastructure program–I’d start with high-speed rail–would be nice, too.
Barack Obama has been too silent on the pressing moral issue of our time–torture. Nothing demonstrates how badly our values have been corrupted than the fact that our government has legalized torture, and that the American people never talk about it.
I am going to vote for Barack Obama tomorrow morning.
Normally, I am not one to vote for a candidate with whom I disagree on so many key issues. Because Al Gore was so close to W. on so many issues in 2000, I cast my vote for Ralph Nader. This time, however, is different for me.
Riding the New York subway, I see so many African-American commuters wearing Obama buttons. Around the Obama button table at 7th and 34th, a nervous and excited crowd, mostly black, gathers every day. They can feel it–they might get one of their own people (albeit not a descendant of slaves) into the White House. I’m voting for Obama for them–because, if I don’t, I’ll never be able to look black people in the eye again.
I read a recent poll that shows Obama polling 51 percent of white men. Frankly, it’s no big deal that black people are voting for Obama. THe fact that so many white guys are willing to reach outside their comfort zone or, better yet–have black people inside their comfort zone–sends a message to blacks. We white guys aren’t all a bunch of racist shits. Many of us, yes. But not all.
Obama’s Muslim background–yes, he did grow up in Indonesia, he did hear the call to prayer every morning, and had a Muslim father–will also send a clear message to the world that America is prepared to renounce the Muslim-bashing (and -torturing, and -murdering) policies of the past eight years. Symbolism matters. The next time I travel abroad, I won’t have to explain why “we” elected a neofascist moron as president (or allowed him to steal the presidency).
Someone drew an editorial cartoon of John McCain’s face with “Best if used before 2000” stamped across his face. McCain is well past his due date though, truth be told, he just doesn’t have the calm, measured, careful temperment of a president. He is rash and emotional and, obviously, doesn’t know shit about personnel decisions. As president, he would be a disaster. As president, he would not last long. Sarah Palin would likely succeed him in a short time. That thought alone should be enough for Republican voters to cast their vote for the Libertarian candidate, or simply stay home.
So I am voting for Barack Obama, not because he’s the best candidate, or even the best of the original field (that was John Edwards, with or without his horniness). I’m voting for him because Obama means a symbolic change, and that’s a change we need.
Don’t be surprised, however, if I’m as hard (or harder) on the Democrats than I was on Bush and the Republicans. Republicans, after all, are evil. Democrats know better, and I expect more of them. I was brutally hard on Bill Clinton, although it’s largely forgotten now (I’m working on expanded cartoon archives that will eventually go back to 1991, and you’ll see how mean I was). You wouldn’t believe how many hate emails I get talking about how I was OK with Clinton, but not Bush. As if. But I digress.
There’s a lot to dislike about Obama’s accommodationist, wimpy self. But I will toast his victory just the same.
As Shah Massood said–he was the Northern Alliance warlord who united the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion in the 1980s–first, we kill the Russians. Then we kill each other.
Vote for Obama. Then fight for real change.
I Predict: Obama by 3.7 points
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As I told The Washington Post, I predict Obama will win the official vote count by 3.7 points. Let’s see how I do.
Bear in mind, of course, that Obama is leading by 10 points in most polls. The 6.3 percent discount is for sleazy Ohio vote challengers, the Bradley effect, and the blocked/purged voter registrations documented ably by Greg Palast.
Awesome Sarah Palin Animation Out Soon!
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Master animator David Essman and I are about to unleash our second animated editorial cartoon. This one is about a certain vice presidential nominee and her aspirations to the highest office in the long. Stay tuned…we’re looking to release it Monday morning.
SYNDICATED COLUMN: Don’t Think About Reelection
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Why Obama Should Consider Himself a One-Term President
Barring some unforeseen cataclysmic event, Barack Obama will be elected president Tuesday. Please allow me to be the first to congratulate you, President-Elect Obama, on an historic victory following an extraordinarily disciplined campaign. Are you sure you’re really a Democrat?
Enough BSing.
As a student of history and the American presidency and a guy who plans to vote for you despite serious doubts, here’s the best advice I can give you: Starting on Inauguration Day, consider yourself a one-term president.
This isn’t exactly an original idea. When John McCain launched his own run for the Republican nomination, he originally planned to center his entire campaign around a promise not to seek a second term. “Less than a day before he was set to speak in New Hampshire on April 25,” The Atlantic magazine reported, “McCain ordered his aides to excise…the pledge.” But McCain was on to something. Voters want a president who isn’t constantly triangulating, studying polls, and sucking up to contributors.
I realize that telling anyone you’re a one-termer would be dumb. Why tie your own hands by declaring yourself a lame duck on Day One? So don’t.
I’m suggesting that you privately adopt a state of mind. Back in 2007, you laid out three guiding principles to your campaign: “Run the campaign with respect; build it from the bottom up; and finally, no drama.” It worked. Now it’s time to transmit a new guiding principle to your cabinet officers: “We don’t care about 2012.”
With one exception, I’ve never understood why presidents worry about getting reelected. The “second-term curse”–the tendency of lame-duck presidencies to flounder in scandal, blowback and impotence–has prevented every modern president from accomplishing anything worth bragging about during years five through eight.
Harry Truman squandered his credibility by playing footsie with McCarthyism and doubling down on a disastrous stalemate on the Korean peninsula. Johnson screwed up in Vietnam and on the burning streets of American cities. Nixon had Watergate; Eisenhower and Reagan succumbed to virtual senility and scandal (the U-2 spy plane affair and Iran-Contra, respectively). Of course, Clinton had Monica.
The exception, of course, was George W. Bush. His quest for a second term was understandable. “Bush knows that he did not carry the popular vote in 2000,” Gus Tyler wrote in The Forward in 2003. “He ran a half-million votes behind Democrat Al Gore. He knows that he really did not carry Florida to give him his thin edge in the Electoral College.” Dubya wanted to win in 2004 because he lost in 2000.
Technically, 2005-to-2008 was Bush’s first term. Nevertheless, the second-term curse struck again. Bush had an ambitious agenda, but it was thwarted by both circumstance and the consequences of policies he pursued during his first four years. Privatizing Social Security, tort reform, stricter test standards for high school graduation–all abandoned and forgotten in the fires of Iraq and the maelstrom of Hurricane Katrina. Bush’s approval rating is now 23 percent, the lowest in the history of the Gallup Poll. He wasn’t even invited to the Republican National Convention. He seems destined to be added to the short list of our worst leaders.
So forget that second term. They never do anyone any good.
George Clinton said, “Free your mind and your ass will follow.” Give up the hope you can’t believe in and embrace the reality you have already achieved.
So, President-Elect Obama: It’s true. You face challenges: Iraq and Afghanistan (which you are wrong wrong wrong about) and torture and our international standing and–obviously!–the economy. But think of what you’ve got going for you. You are young and sharp-minded and vigorous. The electorate is desperately worried, and thus more willing to embrace big changes. Your party will enjoy a commanding majority in Congress–I’m guessing 58 seats in the Senate and 268 (to 167) in the House, the biggest since Watergate. I’m pretty sure you’re going to pick a team of top officials that will make Americans wonder how they ever tolerated intellectual midgets like Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice–the Best and the Brightest for the new millennium. The rest of the world already loves you, and you haven’t even begun.
But be careful. The second you move into 1600 Penn, you will be surrounded by people, many of them your close friends, who will want nothing more than to keep the cool jobs you give them for as long as possible, i.e. eight years. Beware the “permanent campaign”–the drive to make every decision based on how they will affect you and your party’s chances for reelection. “[Pollster] Dick Morris even asked voters where Bill Clinton should go on vacation,” remembered Joe Klein in Time.
“[The permanent campaign] has been a terrible thing,” Klein continued. “Presidents need to be thinking past the horizon, as Jimmy Carter belatedly proved. Some of his best decisions–a strict monetary policy to combat inflation, a vigorous arms buildup against the Soviet threat–bore fruit years after he left office and were credited to his successor, Ronald Reagan.”
Radical problems require radical solutions. Guess what? We have radical problems. Your kids-only healthcare mandate concept would be a Band-Aid where major surgery is required. Iraq and Afghanistan don’t need another division of Marines here, another detachment of Special Forces there. Nothing short of immediate pullout will satisfy the world, our ruined national budget or, for that matter, the Iraqis and Afghans. Your 90-day proposed moratorium on foreclosure evictions is nice as far as it goes–well, 90 days–but it’s going to take years of direct government assistance to millions of Americans to save the country from economic disintegration.
Even with a bully pulpit and a Democratic Congress, it’s going to take some serious nads to ignore the special interests. Big insurance companies like the current healthcare “system” just the way it is. Defense contractors are psyched about our serial preemptive wars against anyone and everyone (except those who actually attack us). And the banks aren’t going to stop taking people’s homes unless you take over the banks. It isn’t going to be easy.
But running the country as if you had nothing to lose–running your first term as if it you knew it will be your last–will make it a little easier. For all you know, it might make a second term more likely.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
A Totally Irrelevant Quote
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From Mark Mazower’s “Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe”:
The early 1940s are thus a prime example of how the violence of war—especially when short-sighted and ideologically driven political leadership is combined with overwhelming military superiority—may lead to an almost limitless escalation in the use of force and a constant revision of rules and norms. The Nazis embraced the idea of pre-emptive war and did not regard themselves as generally bound by international law; as a result, only their own ethical constraints (which intense racial nationalism weakened where non-Germans were concerned) set limits to what they regarded themselves as justified in doing. Yet if war allowed the regime to conquer territory, it was also a means—as Hitler himself well understood—to change the Germans and their values.
Totally irrelevant.
Portland Radio Interview with Greg Palast, Lloyd Dangle, et al.
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I was interviewed on Portland radio this morning. You can listen to the online.
BBC News in Spanish
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There’s an interview with me and several other U.S. editorial cartoonists on the BBC’s Spanish-language website. Scroll to the middle of the page and click the cartoon graphic.
