Below is a comment I intended to publish beneath this Mark Moseley Lens column but, once again, the Lens spam filter has eaten my submission. Or at least I'm assuming that's what keeps happening. Ordinarily this wouldn't bother me but if they're going to publish a column that specifically calls me out for having my judgement clouded by "reflexive cynicism" it seems like they should allow me to respond in that forum. Luckily, since this is not the first time this has happened, I had the presence of mind to copy and paste the response here just in case.
UPDATE: The Lens spam monster has been made to regurgitate the lost missive. Read this anyway. It has marginally more stuff.
Because this is a comment addressed to a specific author and I don't feel like cleaning it up much, it won't make much sense unless you read Moseley's piece first. But not everybody will do that so, just to sum it up, it's a look at the GOP Presidential field as it presently stands with an emphasis on the supposedly "unpredictable fluid dynamics" that have characterized it so far and an implicit refutation of my repeated assertion that such "dynamics" are a basically meaningless sideshow. In the process of developing this point, Moseley represents some of my commentary on the 2008 elections in a.. well.. incomplete way that happens to be convenient to his argument. I try to clear some of that up below. Moseley criticizes me for making imprecise electoral forecasts where the point of such exercises is much more to describe the political climate rather than predict it. He also presents us with the remarkable assertion that Mitt Romney "benefits from being a smart, poised candidate who is not prone to gaffes" which is funny because,
and also
And so forth and the like.
Anyway here's what the Lens ate this time.
First, let's clear this up. "Discounted Obama's chances to win" is one way to put it, although you'll recall the bulk of my criticism of Obama and his supporters (I called them "cultists" They were greatly insulted by this) was that they were presenting us with a Pepsi commercial instead of a meaningful opposition campaign and so were setting themselves up to be greatly disappointed by what I was already calling the "Clinton II Administration" My core assertion where it regarded Obama wasn't so much concerned with whether of not he could win as much as that it wouldn't matter if he did. As much as I adore saying "I told you so" I'm not even sure I have to do that now. The Health Care "reform" brought to you by PHarma and the non-recovery brought to you by the Geithner-Summers Rubinite Administration basically speak for themselves.
Also there's this Daily Kos election map thingy I filled in just before the election where I called the final electoral college results right down to the exact number just to remind you that I do in fact pay attention to "dynamics" and whatnot.
Anyway onto this season.
I'll give you this much. During the early stages of Campaign 2008, I did indeed expect Rudy! to be the candidate around which the inevitable "Law and Order" resentment vote would crystallize. I was wrong about that, sure. But only for reasons similar to those that made many observers wrong about Perry this time around (For the record, I wasn't on the Perry train this time.) If I have one fault it's one I share with a lot of observers in that I look too closely at previous years' elections for an appropriate analog to the present one. In 2008, I was looking for Nixon and saw Rudy. This year, I think a lot of people were looking for W and saw Perry. Maybe I'm looking at the way the GOP eventually just gave up and settled on McCain last time around when I talk about Mitt but that's not all I'm doing.
I disagree with your characterization of my analysis as reflexive cynicism. What I'm mostly trying to express is exasperation with the false drama created during each election cycle as the info-tainment industry attempts to write a brand new a-historical soap opera out of whole cloth where the present candidates and the policies or interest groups they might represent are de-contextualized from even their very recent past.
The "process" then becomes a meaningless pretend time where we are forced by our scribes and heralds to consider questions to which we've long known the answers as though they're completely new things under the sun. "What about this flat-tax, proposal? Has anyone ever considered such a thing?" they ask breathlessly. "Wow! Newt thinks children should be made to work as janitors! Why has no one tried this before?" It's a stupid stupid TV show that any 12 year old should feel insulted to have been presented with.
Sure we can think of the meaningless plot developments within this silly soap opera as dynamic "unscripted moments" but only in the same way we expect such from so-called reality TV. A character does something outrageous or momentarily embarrassing. Very entertaining, but does it change anything? Probably not. On Jersey Shore they're just holding your attention long enough to sell you an energy drink or a spray-on tan or something. In American Kabuki Politics, they're just selling you more of the crap status quo money trust oligarchy you're living under. (Or if John Boehner is involved, also spray-on tans)
And the 2012 GOP Primary show is selling you Mitt Romney. Mitt is the guy the money trust most wants, he's the product they're trying to launch here. Everything else is just pretty crap to look at.
I can't accept Newt as the nominee for this reason. He can't beat Obama in a one-on-one race. Now, a three of four way race with your Bloombergs and Roemers and such floating around there might be a different story. What I'm kind of hoping for, in fact, is a race where Buddy Roemer runs on the "Citizens Elect" ticket and puts Newt in but all the asshole mainstream Democrats blame Nader anyway.
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