I have an uneasy feeling today, and I don’t know why. If something bad happens, I will claim I predicted it. If nothing bad happens, I will forget all about it. Actually, something bad already happened but not to me; it could be that I simply feel remorse because of that bad thing, and yet the uneasy feeling doesn’t alter in any way when I contemplate it, so I will have to assume it is unrelated. Not that I don’t feel bad about the bad thing that has happened, but the uneasiness is another delightful layer on my emotional cake.
Speaking of uneasiness, I think I know what Barack is doing. At first I thought he was floundering because he didn’t have Hillary to focus on anymore, but now I think he has picked a few wedge issues on which to publicly triangulate against his liberal base. While rather shopworn, this tactic could be effective if it solidifies his reputation among the uncritical undecideds as an aisle-crossing centrist: the issues are mostly in areas that famously appeal to emotions rather than intellect, and more notably, the individual situations are ones in which his stated opinion is meaningless in terms of current outcome.
On the other hand, it’s rarely effective for Democrats to run rightward after securing their nomination, mostly because the Republicans are experts at exploiting such behavior as a weakness, but also because the left wing of the party’s elected officials are already to the right of center on the traditional political continuum. Only in a coo-coo land where our current president is seen as a moderate Republican (some conservatives are even painting him as a liberal to explain his infinite failures) instead of the fascist, lawbreaking dictator that he actually is would Barack be considered a liberal at all, by anyone. Therefore, his attempts to appear more conservative will surely backfire.
But at the same time, who else are we going to vote for?
I think Barack is trying to reach those ignorant masses who still think that McCain is some sort of righteous maverick instead of the doddering Bushian sycophant he actually is. I just hope he doesn’t overplay his hand and alienate those of us who have some dollop of faith in his sensibility. This current strategy is something I had predicted from Hillary, who is famous for it. Maybe my mother-in-law is right . . . Hillary was imperfect—and I might add even more imperfect than imperfect—but at least you knew what you were going to get. Whereas any indication that our new messiah’s shit actually stinks like everyone else’s is bound to cause unexpected consternation.
By the way, I am only discussing this to prove that my areas of expertise extend slightly beyond Seann William Scott’s crow’s feet, even if I still don’t know how to turn on a Windows PC.
