Conor Friedersdorf writes that some forms of culture-warring are understandable and defensible, but that politicians and parties that engage in them should be aware that any victory won on substanceless grounds (e.g., "He eats arugula!") will prove Pyrrhic. Excerpt:
It shouldn't take more than 8 years for the Republicans to learn certain lessons: that victories on style are defeats on the issues you weren't capable of fighting for; that the most emotionally satisfying symbolic victories are often a fig leaf for inadequacy; and that, as autumn gives way to a winter inauguration day, the fig leaf eventually falls. It cannot be otherwise.Substance always matters.
If McCain-Palin win not because they've put forth a credible program of governance, but because enough people liked him for the Hanoi Hilton and her for the "Caribou Barbie" image -- and, conversely, disliked Obama-Biden for equally shallow reasons -- then the presidency will hardly be worth having. This is why it's important (to me) for Palin to open herself up in a normal way to press interviews. We need to know what she thinks, why she thinks it, and what she intends to do as part of the next administration.
P.S. I appreciate Conor's defending Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture war" speech. I well remember at the time that the speech was generally praised as a legitimate example of culturally conservative rhetoric. It was only later that the myth that the speech was a shocking deviation from the norm developed. As Conor recognizes, there was a lot to dislike in the speech if you are a cultural liberal, but on substance, it was perfectly defensible (versus, say, a culture-war attack on one's opponent for being an arugula-eating girly man).
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Regarding Palin, there's no there there, Rod. We (as in, conservatives, broadly speaking) are gonna win this thing for all the wrong reasons.
If I may elaborate: We're gonna win primarily, if not exclusively, on biography - but with no governing mandate. Come January, "reform" and "clean up Washington" will start to sound pretty shallow, and the same 80 percent that now thinks the country is on the wrong track will realize there's nothing but gridlock on the horizon.
With Dems poised to gain more seats in Congress, maybe that's not a bad thing. One thing's for sure: the two years of this presidential campaign -- a highly emotional, substance free campaign driven by celebrity-style boomlets (Obama, Palin) -- are going to look awfully silly in the rearview mirror.
Well I don't think I was a cultural liberal in 1992. I was only 15 years old, but I believe at that age I avoided R-movies and believed in banning certain "out there" religions. I was into Confucius and St. Benedict. (I now watch R movies and don't favor banning religions unless they commit crimes)
Maybe as a "Crunchy Con" you like that kind of Paleocon doom and gloom, but I never did. I liked elements of the speech at the time, but I had an almost instant sinking feeling. I wasn't really interested in a new civil war or going on crusade. More importantly I felt it was going to alienate way too many people and I still believe it did. I'd actually liked Pat Buchanan before then, but from that point any sympathy I had to him declined and is totally gone today.
Then the presidency will "hardly be worth having"?
Um...
...I beg, beg, *beg* to differ. (and so does the military-industrial complex, the western oil industry that depends on it for tax-funded military adventurism (Google "Blackwater" & "BTC pipeline" sometime for just one example- or ooh!, try "Carlyle"), as well as anyone else who cares about who ends up representing the US (and wielding its unilateral veto power) at UN Security Council meetings.
I understand the rhetorical point this author is trying to make with such statements in the above commentary, and agree with that underlying point. A democracy in which leaders are "freely" elected by a public which approaches the decision in the same fundamentally shallow, consumerist way it has groomed by dominant culture to approach decorating, fashion, and American Idol choices, can hardly be called a democracy. At least not in the sense envisioned by the Framers when they hammered out the nuts and bolts of our constitutional democracy 220 years ago. They took for granted that elections would be "about issues"; the media as we know it today and the consumer mentality it supports (obviously) had yet to emerge.
My point? Yes, the process by which we acquaint ourselves with our potential future leaders, their policy positions, and their personalities has fundamentally changed. And while it is true that such a cheapening of our democratic processes would mean nothing less than an abrogation of the very spirit in which they were once so wisely conceived, this fact should not lead us to falsely conclude that in the real world, there are not real entities, with real interests in wielding the very real power of the largest military force in the world and very real authority of the highest executive office of the only real super power in the world. So, morally? Philosophically? In some abstract idealistic sense? Then yes, the author is correct; in the currency of meaning and substance, a presidency bankrupted by the triteness of personality politics *would* be a presidency not "worth having".
But the stakes are higher and more tangible than that, and even if our democratic process entirely rots away, and all that is left is the sound of chewing and swallowing by corporate media as it feeds on strategically rationed morsels of trivia and scandal--- there are nevertheless those for whom the American Presidency is incomparably "worth having"... worth untold billions. So, since I'm incredibly sleep-deprived, and kind of forgot what I was saying, I'll end this long and overly verbose comment with two really decent article linkz:
http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/ezmoneymatters/2008/09/triumph-of-the.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-schweber/representation-jefferson_b_124643.html
"If I may elaborate: We're gonna win primarily, if not exclusively, on biography - but with no governing mandate."
And with the economic forecasts looking gloomy for some time to come, McCain/Palin could become this century's Hoover/Curtis. Especially if the GOP maintains 41 votes in the Senate. Obstructionism can only last so long as a useful tool before folks start demanding action, and the Democrats will be happy to remind them that this is what you get when you put a Republican in the White House.
And once the election is over, the abortion issue will disappear from the radar of the GOP as the reality of the economy comes hurtling back after the holiday spending spree. Nobody outside of the pro-life activists will care about passing the HLA or any restrictions on abortion. Not when the next phase of bank failures comes home to roost on top of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailout.
Oh, and simply reminding us that the Democrats have no plan either will not help. If the GOP want to return to real power in Washington, they need something more than a war hero and a hunter babe. They need substance...something that this ticket is seriously lacking.
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