Pointlesser and pointlesser

I'm having trouble paying any attention to this year's DNC. This is a disturbing development in my life as I will tell you here that I was practically raised on political spectacle. In the same way that sports fans geek out over their fantasy teams or the NFL draft, I have sat through most of the "gavel to gavel coverage" of major political conventions since 1984. I grew up in Louisiana so I've also derived a great deal of pleasure handicapping horse races and lapping up the unintentional humor of countless elections both major and minor for as long as I've been old enough to understand what was happening. Why have I bothered? Some of it is obviously in the upbringing, I suppose. My Dad had an unhealthy obsession with these events that inevitably rubbed off a bit. And yes, I suppose I have a preference for dark humor. But I think I've been able to keep paying attention because I've almost always been able to discern through all the bullshit that something of substance was at stake. And I think that's what has been missing from the Democratic Primary this year; a reason to wade through all the shit.

It wasn't too long ago that the stupid phony bitchfests of Democratic primary elections were... in at least some small way... about something other than the candidates' egos. The candidates' ego clashes have always been front and center and usually the dominant theme of the campaign coverage but they were only watchable because they were the inevitable stupid drama that masked a more substantial competition for power among differently interested constituencies within the party. You voted for Jackson over Dukakis or Harkin over Clinton or ANYBODY but Gore or even Dean over Kerry because these choices represented ideological cleavages embedded in the spectacle-driven clown show. The debate may have been about personality, odor or fashion sense but that stupid debate was only worth having because choosing one scent over the other meant choosing between whether or not the nominee would be slightly friendlier to (in a simplistic way) the labor or the corporate wing of the party.

But that time is long past. There is no "competition for the soul of the Democratic Party" to speak of anymore. The sad line of choices I delineate above really represent the spastic death of that idea. The party has been swallowed whole by an establishment corporate consensus. And yet as the question of whose interests in which the party's nominee will act has dissipated entirely, the competition between the candidates has grown angrier and harsher. The bitterness is somehow magnified in proportion to the pointlessness. So this week, as the nation's gossip girls gather around to squeal over which pre-teen is less sincere about apologizing for totally dissing the other I find myself wondering for the first time why are we even watching?

Update: Today Greg Saunders says:

....it’s sad to think that (Hillary) even had to include her “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?” line. It’s remarkable that the people who ostensibly share Hillary Clinton’s ideals need to be reminded again and again and again that she’s a Democrat who supports Barack Obama. Even more bizarre was hearing a teary-eyes Clinton supporter on CNN tonight grudgingly concede that she “did what she needed to do” (or something along those lines) as if to imply that Hillary was insincere in her ringing endorsement of Obama. The PUMA brand of zealotry, which mixes equal parts self-righteous promotion of and bewildering disrespect for a candidate, is one I’ll never understand.

And I guess that's what I'm getting at here. "Self-righteous promotion of and bewildering disrespect for a candidate" seems to have been all this primary was ever about.