Last night, as I was waiting for the Oscars broadcast to begin, I was casually looking at Facebook to see what people were saying.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I almost never go to the movies anymore. There was a time when I did, but that was years ago. I eventually get caught up through home video or TV broadcasts, but it's been several years since I could select a favorite in an Oscar category based on firsthand knowledge.
For some reason, that has seemed especially true this year.
(I have taken to joking that this year, more than usual, I feel like Bill Murray on a Weekend Update segment on Saturday Night Live circa 1979 or 1980 when he predicted the Oscar winners based on which movies he had actually seen — and repeatedly dismissed nominees by saying "Didn't see it ... Didn't see it ... Didn't see it," punctuated by an occasional "Saw it, didn't like it.")
Since I rarely have a dog in that hunt — to use an old expression that is so Southern that, if it didn't originate here, it should have — I don't feel compelled to stay with the Oscars broadcast until all hours. And I seldom do.
But I do like pre–Oscar conversation. I know little about most of the nominees so I say little, but I am interested in what more knowledgeable (or supposedly more knowledgeable) people have to say.
I advise the student newspaper staff at the community college where I teach, and one of the staff writers authors the movie reviews. He knows quite a bit about all the nominees so I have enjoyed listening to what he has had to say in recent weeks.
(Turned out he was wrong about some of the winners, right about others.)
Anyway, the red carpet stuff doesn't really interest me so I was cruising through Facebook, as I said earlier, to read conversation threads on the Oscars.
About an hour before the actual awards broadcast began, the minister at my church (Methodist) posted this statement: "Oscar voters are 94 percent white, 77 percent male, with a median age of 62."
This set off a thread that drew comments for two hours. The minister at my church is vocal about his support for liberal causes (there was a highly publicized same–sex marriage here this weekend that had him and many others fired up) and the clear presumption of the remark was that these old white men would behave as right–wing reactionaries when casting their votes.
Within minutes of the original post, two people replied, "That explains a lot."
To make sure the point wasn't lost, another replied, "Just like the Republican Party!" (The good pastor was among half a dozen folks who liked that comment.)
Still another replied, "Are they from the south?" (The good pastor liked that one, too, but he was the only one.)
Another one asked, "How is that possible in what is reputed to be very liberal Hollywood?"
Notice that the original post only mentioned race, gender and age. I ask you: What do those characteristics by themselves have to do with political philosophy? My father would fit in all three categories, and he is a liberal Democrat.
(Remember that same–sex marriage I mentioned earlier? It was conducted by a retired minister who would easily fit in all three of the demographic groups mentioned in the original post as well — and I doubt that anyone would call him a conservative.)
To continue ...
Another person commented, "That explains why Sandra Bullock was nominated. And why 12 Years doesn't stand a chance." (The good pastor liked that one, too — and it proved to be 100% wrong in its assumption.)
Bullock did not win Best Actress. Cate Blanchett did. And "12 Years a Slave" did win Best Picture.
(Incidentally, Lupita Nyong'o of Kenya won Best Supporting Actress. And Best Supporting Actor went to Jared Leto for his portrayal of a transgender woman.)
Liberals like to tell themselves — and especially others — that they are tolerant, that they are above this sort of thing, but the fact is that no group, no matter how high–minded it believes itself to be, has a monopoly on tolerance, stereotyping or hypocrisy.
Showing posts with label conservatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conservatives. Show all posts
Monday, March 3, 2014
Saturday, March 31, 2012
The Theme for 2012
"Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."
Eric Fehrnstrom
March 21, 2012
It isn't too surprising, really, that Mitt Romney's rivals for the Republican nomination — and his other critics — have been getting some mileage out of Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom's unfortunate Etch A Sketch analogy.
That analogy plays on what has been possibly the greatest concern conservatives have had about this particular candidate — that he isn't genuine.
And it might have worked in Obama's favor, too — if the election had been held today.
But when the voters go to the polls in November, my guess is that conservatives won't be persuaded to stay home because of it. And most are not likely to gravitate to a third–party option, either. Defeating this president is too important to them; by November, most will go ahead and vote for Romney, even if he isn't everything they would like in a Republican nominee.
By November, I expect most of this Etch A Sketch talk to have faded and the political conversation to focus on the economy, jobs, high gas prices (and the higher commodity prices they will no doubt spawn) and the other kitchen table issues that should take center stage in this campaign.
But what should be in American politics is not always what is. This Etch A Sketch stuff might turn out to have legs, and we might still be having this conversation in September and October — instead of having a national conversation about energy and jobs and the things that will affect all our lives for the next several decades.
If his foes are still talking about the Etch A Sketch comment this fall, I suggest that the Romney campaign compare the Etch A Sketch candidate to Obama's Silly Putty presidency.
I played with both toys as a child — most of my generation probably did. And, if I must compare my preference in the presidential race to either of those toys, I prefer Etch A Sketch.
Etch A Sketch encouraged originality and creativity. I was never much of an artist so my drawings weren't very good, but, as a child, I found it to be advantageous to be able to start anew and apply what I had learned. I found, as I got older, that real life doesn't allow for do–overs, but the real lesson of the Etch A Sketch was that you and your knowledge and your skills are evolving things.
And I have long felt that it is a clear sign of maturity when someone can conclude that he has been mistaken in his approach to a problem and makes appropriate adjustments.
My father summed it up in a conversation we had when I was in my teens.
When he was a young man, my father followed my grandfather into an occupation that was not his first choice. Young men of his generation were expected to follow in their father's footsteps, and that is what he did, I suppose.
But many years later, after both of my father's parents had died, he returned to college to pursue a degree in the field in which he had always been interested.
I asked him one day why he had decided to do that. He was, after all, at or near a point in his life when most men probably would opt to stick it out to their retirement age rather than embark on an entirely new career.
Dad said, "Why should I feel obligated to a decision that was made by an 18–year–old?"
In much the same way, I prefer a president who is willing to apply knowledge he has gained to new approaches to problems and doesn't have so much of his ego invested in one approach that he won't try something else when a policy proves to be unsuccessful.
As Harry Truman said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit."
Silly Putty didn't encourage creativity. It was parasitic, feeding off others. You could press it against a page from a book or a newspaper or a magazine and make a copy of someone else's creation — but you couldn't create anything with it yourself.
Silly Putty was — and still is, I suppose — a special substance with many unique qualities. It was whatever you wanted it to be — it could be rolled into a ball and bounced like any rubber ball, but then you could flatten it like a pancake, press it on a page and transfer the image it picked up to the substance.
It was flashy and shiny, but it mimicked others — at best.
Give me Etch A Sketch any day.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
How Conservative Is McCain?
Those who only casually observe presidential politics assume that the Democrats will nominate a liberal this year and the Republicans will nominate a conservative.
Well, I guess they're right about the Democrat.
Barack Obama has some pretty high numbers from some left-leaning organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (83), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (100), Americans for Democratic Action (95) and the League of Conservation Voters (100).
And he's got some pretty low numbers from some right-leaning organizations, like Family Research Council (0), American Conservative Union (8) and the National Taxpayers Union (16).
Hillary Clinton has been in the Senate twice as long as Obama, and she's apparently been trying to cultivate a more moderate image.
On the liberal side of the ledger, her ratings are the same as Obama's with the ACLU, ADA and AFSCME, but her rating with the LCV is a more moderate (although still left-leaning) 71. On the right side, the FRC and the ACU give both candidates the same scores, and Clinton is only 1 point closer to the center with the NTU (at 17) than Obama.
By most accounts, there really isn't much difference between the candidates when it comes to political philosophy.
What about the Republicans? Is John McCain a true conservative?
Most of the conservatives I've heard on the radio and I've seen on TV don't seem to think so. Many of them say they will support McCain in the fall because he's more conservative than either Obama or Clinton, but most of them stop short of saying that McCain is a true conservative.
Whatever the definition of a true conservative is.
David Lightman and Matt Stearns report, for McClatchy Newspapers, that "If there's one constant to his 25 years in Congress, the last 21 in the Senate, it's that McCain has voted with conservatives often enough to have a legitimate claim to have been, as he frequently puts it, 'a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.' But he's also bolted from the right often enough to invite suspicion from true believers."
I guess conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin could be classified as a "true believer." And today, I heard him say that, while McCain barely qualified to be a member of Congress during what is called the "Reagan revolution" (he was elected to the House in Reagan's first midterm election, and he was elected to the Senate in Reagan's second midterm election), he wasn't a "foot soldier" in it.
The Lightman and Stearns article asserts that right-wing misgivings about McCain go back 20 years, back to 1988, when Republicans were choosing the successor to the lame-duck Reagan. McCain wasn't running for president, but he apparently made some appearances for his choice for president, Bob Dole.
Donald Devine, Dole's campaign strategist in '88, says he and his colleagues on the campaign staff "shuddered" when McCain accompanied Dole on the campaign trail.
"McCain was too unpredictable, too respected by Dole and too likely to offer him advice that was at odds with conservative dogma," Devine told Lightman and Stearns. "McCain's never changed, said Devine, now the editor of an American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation publication. Other Republican activists, as well as people who've worked closely with McCain, offer the same assessment: As president, they say, you never know what McCain might do."
It seems to me that, if he is a moderate, that might make McCain more like the usual Republican nominees in the last half of the 20th century. Most of the time, the party didn't nominate George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. Most of the time, the nominee has been Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford or George H.W. Bush -- with Nelson Rockefeller, Wendell Willkie and Thomas Dewey as top contenders if not the actual nominees.
In fact, last year, the History Channel ran a program evaluating Nixon's presidency. Dole was one of the people who appeared on the program and he said he didn't believe Nixon would be considered conservative enough to be nominated by the Republicans today -- particularly with his domestic record.
Nixon, after all, was the president who created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He imposed wage and price controls, he indexed Social Security for inflation, he created Supplmental Security Income (SSI). He also created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and he implemented the first significant federal affirmative action program.
Yet, people forget that the Republican Party only became the extreme right-wing party when Reagan and his supporters took over the GOP in 1980. Before that time, the Goldwater types weren't regarded as mainstream Republicans.
But things are different today.
Anatol Lieven says, in the Financial Times that, if McCain is elected, "a few years from now Europe and the world could be looking back at the Bush administration with nostalgia."
Today, the talk I've heard is that McCain must choose a "true conservative" to be his running mate if he wants to hold the Republican base in the fall.
And much of the talk I've heard lately is about Condoleezza Rice.
But Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe has her own choice -- Mitt Romney.
Wait a minute. McCain doesn't like Romney. Does that matter?
We'll see.
Who should McCain pick? Who is the best bet to hold conservative votes in November?
Well, I guess they're right about the Democrat.
Barack Obama has some pretty high numbers from some left-leaning organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (83), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (100), Americans for Democratic Action (95) and the League of Conservation Voters (100).
And he's got some pretty low numbers from some right-leaning organizations, like Family Research Council (0), American Conservative Union (8) and the National Taxpayers Union (16).
Hillary Clinton has been in the Senate twice as long as Obama, and she's apparently been trying to cultivate a more moderate image.
On the liberal side of the ledger, her ratings are the same as Obama's with the ACLU, ADA and AFSCME, but her rating with the LCV is a more moderate (although still left-leaning) 71. On the right side, the FRC and the ACU give both candidates the same scores, and Clinton is only 1 point closer to the center with the NTU (at 17) than Obama.
By most accounts, there really isn't much difference between the candidates when it comes to political philosophy.
What about the Republicans? Is John McCain a true conservative?
Most of the conservatives I've heard on the radio and I've seen on TV don't seem to think so. Many of them say they will support McCain in the fall because he's more conservative than either Obama or Clinton, but most of them stop short of saying that McCain is a true conservative.
Whatever the definition of a true conservative is.
David Lightman and Matt Stearns report, for McClatchy Newspapers, that "If there's one constant to his 25 years in Congress, the last 21 in the Senate, it's that McCain has voted with conservatives often enough to have a legitimate claim to have been, as he frequently puts it, 'a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.' But he's also bolted from the right often enough to invite suspicion from true believers."
I guess conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin could be classified as a "true believer." And today, I heard him say that, while McCain barely qualified to be a member of Congress during what is called the "Reagan revolution" (he was elected to the House in Reagan's first midterm election, and he was elected to the Senate in Reagan's second midterm election), he wasn't a "foot soldier" in it.
The Lightman and Stearns article asserts that right-wing misgivings about McCain go back 20 years, back to 1988, when Republicans were choosing the successor to the lame-duck Reagan. McCain wasn't running for president, but he apparently made some appearances for his choice for president, Bob Dole.
Donald Devine, Dole's campaign strategist in '88, says he and his colleagues on the campaign staff "shuddered" when McCain accompanied Dole on the campaign trail.
"McCain was too unpredictable, too respected by Dole and too likely to offer him advice that was at odds with conservative dogma," Devine told Lightman and Stearns. "McCain's never changed, said Devine, now the editor of an American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation publication. Other Republican activists, as well as people who've worked closely with McCain, offer the same assessment: As president, they say, you never know what McCain might do."
It seems to me that, if he is a moderate, that might make McCain more like the usual Republican nominees in the last half of the 20th century. Most of the time, the party didn't nominate George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. Most of the time, the nominee has been Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford or George H.W. Bush -- with Nelson Rockefeller, Wendell Willkie and Thomas Dewey as top contenders if not the actual nominees.
In fact, last year, the History Channel ran a program evaluating Nixon's presidency. Dole was one of the people who appeared on the program and he said he didn't believe Nixon would be considered conservative enough to be nominated by the Republicans today -- particularly with his domestic record.
Nixon, after all, was the president who created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He imposed wage and price controls, he indexed Social Security for inflation, he created Supplmental Security Income (SSI). He also created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and he implemented the first significant federal affirmative action program.
Yet, people forget that the Republican Party only became the extreme right-wing party when Reagan and his supporters took over the GOP in 1980. Before that time, the Goldwater types weren't regarded as mainstream Republicans.
But things are different today.
Anatol Lieven says, in the Financial Times that, if McCain is elected, "a few years from now Europe and the world could be looking back at the Bush administration with nostalgia."
Today, the talk I've heard is that McCain must choose a "true conservative" to be his running mate if he wants to hold the Republican base in the fall.
And much of the talk I've heard lately is about Condoleezza Rice.
But Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe has her own choice -- Mitt Romney.
Wait a minute. McCain doesn't like Romney. Does that matter?
We'll see.
Who should McCain pick? Who is the best bet to hold conservative votes in November?
Thursday, February 7, 2008
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle finds the behavior of conservatives criticizing John McCain to be juvenile.
"To the purists, elected officials are supposed to go to Washington to not work with those on the other side of the aisle," Saunders writes. "They don't want results. They want a food fight. This is not the conservative base; it is the kiddie wing of the Republican Party."
Frankly, there have been tantrums thrown by activists in both parties in this campaign, and we're just barely a month into the voting.
With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running neck and neck for the Democratic nomination, it might continue until the convention in Denver this summer. The Wall Street Journal suggests that we may witness a return to the infamous "smoke-filled room."
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney dropped out of the race today. Realistically, that should just about wrap things up for McCain -- except that he didn't exactly get a rousing welcome from the activists who heard his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this afternoon.
Addressing the organization a couple of hours after Romney's speech to the group served as his platform for announcing his withdrawal, McCain said, "I know I have a responsibility, if I am, as I hope to be, the Republican nominee for president, to unite the party and prepare for the great contest in November."
Some people in the audience applauded McCain, but others booed.
It's getting harder for me to see anyone uniting this country. There's been so much bitterness and hostility from both sides. And it's largely been aimed at rivals from within each party. Normally, this kind of venom is used against the other side.
Republicans have been finding McCain lacking when it comes to his conservative credentials. And they haven't hesitated to say so. You could hear it in his reception from the CPAC audience. You can hear it in the rantings of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
The Democrats aren't immune. I was listening to National Public Radio on my drive home from work this afternoon, and they were talking to women who have been working in Clinton's campaign. These women were openly hostile to Obama because of his gender -- and they seemed to think that was justifiable because the same kind of thing has been done to Clinton and other women in politics over the years.
On a personal level, I've been called "sexist" because I want to know the details of Clinton's White House experience. As far as I know, she never served in an elected capacity and had no authorization to participate in policy making. I'd like to know why she is qualified to be the "leader of the free world." I don't think I'm asking any more from her than I ask from any other candidate.
Do we want to get to the point where gender doesn't matter in American politics? If we do, somebody is going to have to be mature in dealing with it.
And when I hear from Obama's supporters, I hear the hostility in what they have to say about former President Clinton's blithe dismissal of Obama's position on the invasion of Iraq. They see it as a racial slap from a president who once was their ally.
I've been dismissed by Obama's supporters as "racist" because I question the legitimacy of his claim to have opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start. He was an Illinois state senator when Congress voted to give war authority to President Bush. Since the Illinois state senate did not vote on the issue, we have no record beyond what Obama has been quoted as saying, supposedly at the time of the invasion.
Obama is forthcoming about his lack of experience, but his supporters bristle when asked for evidence of the "good judgment" he claims to have. I don't think he's being asked for any more than other candidates.
Do we want to get to the point where race doesn't matter in American politics? If we do, somebody is going to have to be mature.
Being mature does not mean going out of your way to alienate those on whose support you depend -- or may depend in the future.
But I wonder if anyone connected to the presidential campaign has that kind of maturity.
"To the purists, elected officials are supposed to go to Washington to not work with those on the other side of the aisle," Saunders writes. "They don't want results. They want a food fight. This is not the conservative base; it is the kiddie wing of the Republican Party."
Frankly, there have been tantrums thrown by activists in both parties in this campaign, and we're just barely a month into the voting.
With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running neck and neck for the Democratic nomination, it might continue until the convention in Denver this summer. The Wall Street Journal suggests that we may witness a return to the infamous "smoke-filled room."
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney dropped out of the race today. Realistically, that should just about wrap things up for McCain -- except that he didn't exactly get a rousing welcome from the activists who heard his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this afternoon.
Addressing the organization a couple of hours after Romney's speech to the group served as his platform for announcing his withdrawal, McCain said, "I know I have a responsibility, if I am, as I hope to be, the Republican nominee for president, to unite the party and prepare for the great contest in November."
Some people in the audience applauded McCain, but others booed.
It's getting harder for me to see anyone uniting this country. There's been so much bitterness and hostility from both sides. And it's largely been aimed at rivals from within each party. Normally, this kind of venom is used against the other side.
Republicans have been finding McCain lacking when it comes to his conservative credentials. And they haven't hesitated to say so. You could hear it in his reception from the CPAC audience. You can hear it in the rantings of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
The Democrats aren't immune. I was listening to National Public Radio on my drive home from work this afternoon, and they were talking to women who have been working in Clinton's campaign. These women were openly hostile to Obama because of his gender -- and they seemed to think that was justifiable because the same kind of thing has been done to Clinton and other women in politics over the years.
On a personal level, I've been called "sexist" because I want to know the details of Clinton's White House experience. As far as I know, she never served in an elected capacity and had no authorization to participate in policy making. I'd like to know why she is qualified to be the "leader of the free world." I don't think I'm asking any more from her than I ask from any other candidate.
Do we want to get to the point where gender doesn't matter in American politics? If we do, somebody is going to have to be mature in dealing with it.
And when I hear from Obama's supporters, I hear the hostility in what they have to say about former President Clinton's blithe dismissal of Obama's position on the invasion of Iraq. They see it as a racial slap from a president who once was their ally.
I've been dismissed by Obama's supporters as "racist" because I question the legitimacy of his claim to have opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start. He was an Illinois state senator when Congress voted to give war authority to President Bush. Since the Illinois state senate did not vote on the issue, we have no record beyond what Obama has been quoted as saying, supposedly at the time of the invasion.
Obama is forthcoming about his lack of experience, but his supporters bristle when asked for evidence of the "good judgment" he claims to have. I don't think he's being asked for any more than other candidates.
Do we want to get to the point where race doesn't matter in American politics? If we do, somebody is going to have to be mature.
Being mature does not mean going out of your way to alienate those on whose support you depend -- or may depend in the future.
But I wonder if anyone connected to the presidential campaign has that kind of maturity.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Would Rudy Split the GOP?
A source in the Dallas Morning News suggests that the nomination of Rudy Giuliani to head the Republican ticket in 2008 will lead to a split in the Republican ranks, resulting in a third-party candidate who espouses traditional Republican positions on social issues like abortion, gay rights and gun control.
The outcome of that, the head of the Morley Institute for Church and Culture told the Dallas newspaper, would be the "siphoning off" of 5-10% of Republican votes -- and the election of the Democratic nominee, presumably Hillary Clinton.
Giuliani may have been the man at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. And many people may be supporting him now because of their memories of his role on that day. But it remains to be seen if, as the Dallas Morning News suggests, "The Giuliani campaign is ground zero in the fight over the future of the religious right."
Giuliani's campaign is clearly counting on the belief that religious conservatives are more concerned about national security right now than they are about social issues. But that would mark a radical shift for them, a shift I'm not convinced has occurred.
If another terrorist attack happens, national security will become the top issue for both parties -- and all bets are off. But the more distance there is between 9-11-01 and the primaries, the more likely it is that voters in both parties will forget how it felt on that day. And the more likely it is that voters in both parties will continue to vote on pre-9/11 concerns.
Stay tuned.
The outcome of that, the head of the Morley Institute for Church and Culture told the Dallas newspaper, would be the "siphoning off" of 5-10% of Republican votes -- and the election of the Democratic nominee, presumably Hillary Clinton.
Giuliani may have been the man at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. And many people may be supporting him now because of their memories of his role on that day. But it remains to be seen if, as the Dallas Morning News suggests, "The Giuliani campaign is ground zero in the fight over the future of the religious right."
Giuliani's campaign is clearly counting on the belief that religious conservatives are more concerned about national security right now than they are about social issues. But that would mark a radical shift for them, a shift I'm not convinced has occurred.
If another terrorist attack happens, national security will become the top issue for both parties -- and all bets are off. But the more distance there is between 9-11-01 and the primaries, the more likely it is that voters in both parties will forget how it felt on that day. And the more likely it is that voters in both parties will continue to vote on pre-9/11 concerns.
Stay tuned.
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