A Second Hand Conjecture

Barack Obama has been president-elect for exactly one day and James Carville is already arguing for an inevitable Democratic majority for the next 40 years. Imagine predicting Jim’s claim to fame, the 1992 election, from the vantage of 1952, and you get a sense of the stupendous absurdity of this assessment in the light of history. But he’s not alone of course, Karl Rove and company were quite fond of these sorts of preposterous predictions just four years ago.

One grows weary of the taste such men have for these imperturbable majorities, lasting for decades which will predictably prove impervious to all future events and leaders. It’s not so much the unreality of it which is tiresome, but the very desire for it. Democracy has its own will, events their own timetable, voters change their minds on a dime, and wanting to grind the gears of history to a halt so that your party can rule forever, is a grotesque and contemptible ambition to begin with.

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It occurs to me that the sequence of cocktails is the best political indicator I know of on election night. In 2004 I was attending a Democratic election party and early on everyone was drinking wine and martinis in stemware, or beer and soda in tall glasses. The ambiance befit the beverages: general levity and young merriment. Sporty coquettish girls with wide white toothy smiles dominated all conversations.

But when it became clear that the exit polls predicting a Kerry victory were wildly mistaken, and field reports were coming in on cell phones of Karl Rove’s successful mobilization effort, it wasn’t long before the assembled Democrats had exchanged their drinks for short glasses filled with dark brown fluids. To match the new taste for scotch and bourbon whiskey, the sporty girls seemed to disappear and old men began to dominate conversations.

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Sarah Palin’s personal email account gets hacked by an anonymous operative and Farhad Manjoo blames Palin for “Rovian tactics.” Indifference to irony isn’t a new thing in Palin reporting, but there’s a certain amusement about the event in liberal circles which is amusing in itself. That is, if you have the imagination to picture the apoplectic indignation at ‘Republican dirty tricks’ that would have ensued had Joe Biden’s email account been compromised.

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(photo: WBEZ Chicago Public Radio | site)

Obama’s newish McSame style attack ad mocking McCain’s “original maverick” slogan is fairly good. As Ken Wheaton notes, all the time McCain had to spend trying to convince the GOP he was a loyal Republican, unfortunately produced a lot of pro-Bush statements on videotape. Also, I like the Rovian touch of attacking McCain’s strength: experience.

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Nancy Pelosi might have finally found a fig leaf for the Left — dying as it is for some form of tangible revenge against the Bush administration for allegedly ruining their lives.  Unwilling (and frankly unable) to impeach Bush and Cheney, or throw half the administration into prison in medieval shackles, she’s dangling the possibility of issuing a toothless contempt citation for Karl Rove. Perhaps it will placate her legions of critics at ThinkProgress, et al. Methinks not though.

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Story here [via: Instapundit]

After reading the story, you will probably need a new one of these:

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