Sarah Palin » Undiplomatic

24 November 2008 Charles J. Brown
06:08 pm

Department of Unintentional Parodies

I wish this was a parody, but it’s not. . .

I’ll give the “Our Country Deserves Better PAC” credit for one thing — there are more people of color in their ad than there were at the entire Republican National Convention.

h/t: Ambinder

Perfect Ending

A sense of humor and a sense of history. Very nice.

Nightly Politics Open Thread

I can’t decide if I’m a whack job or a diva.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Going to Camp

When Sarah “Whackjob” Palin was asked about reported divisions between John McCain and her, here’s what she had to say:

John McCain and I, and our camps, are working together to get John McCain elected.

And our camps? Aren’t you all in the same camp? I don’t think that even Joe “the Gaffer” Biden would be dumb enough to suggest that he and Obama were in different camps.

I used to work in a camp. It was fun. Maybe they can hire the Sarahnator to teach BB guns to 6th graders after her sad pathetic excuse of a campaign is over.

Morning Buzz: The Vet Who Didn’t Vet

Another fun independently-produced video:

It’s a cross between Schoolhouse Rock and JibJab.

Department of Unintentional Irony

From Newsweek, via Chuck Todd:

Palin said she was getting a bum rap. “If people knew how frugal we are,” she said. She told Fox News that her “favorite” store is an Anchorage consignment shop called Out of the Closet.

So apparently it’s okay to shop in a store that uses gay humor (and which, given the name, may have a gay owner), as long as the gays go back in the closet once you leave.

What a clueless hypocrite.

Help make sure that Sarah Palin doesn’t get her way. Support efforts to defeat Proposition 8 in California. You can donate here. If you live in California, please volunteer to help get out the vote on election day — Equality California, which is coordinating the No on 8 campaign, estimates it needs 10,000 people on the ground to win.

Morning Buzz: They’ll Need a Crane

In honor of the reported infighting between McCainiacs and Palinistas, one of my favorite They Might Be Giants songs:

They’ll need a crane, they’ll need a crane
To take the house he built for her apart
To make it break it’s gonna take a metal ball hung from a chain
They’ll need a crane, they’ll need a crane
To pick the broken ruins up again
To mend her heart, to help him start to see a world apart from pain

We Are Voting Dance

If you haven’t checked it out yet, Chris Connelly and the crew at We Are Voting Yes always have interesting things to say about politics, music, technology and other stuff. We first discovered each other when we both posted on Sarah Palin’s inability to remember Exxon v. Baker when Katie Couric asked her about Supreme Court cases other than Roe v. Wade.

Chris is a fellow DCendant, and we’ve struck up an email friendship. Today, he turned me on to his band, Soft Complex. I really like them — lots of early 80s influences, from The Smiths to Depeche Mode, with a dash of trip hop thrown in. You can check out their mySpace page here and buy their new EP there or on iTunes.

Partying Like It’s 2012

Last week I wrote both on Undip and HuffPo that I think Sarah Palin is likely the front-runner for the Republicans in 2012. Now, a number of other bloggers have joined the discussion, and most agree.

I know it’s way to early to assume this election is over, but if it is, there are four major contenders for the Republican nomination in four years: a business leader/neocon wannabe (Mitt Romney), a libertarian with social conservative sympathies (Ron Paul), and two social conservative/economic populist mavericks (Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee).

Of those four, two — Romney and Paul — are largely Dukakasian figures, not really rising to the level of serious contenders for the presidency even if they manage to win the nomination. Palin and Huckabee, however are far more formidable, and both could pose a serious challenge to Obama in four years.

The problem they face is that they have the same base: social conservatives. So the question is, who is more likely to move outside their base to cobble together the semblance of the coalition necessary to win the nomination?

My gut is that it’s Palin. As much as social conservatives like Huckabee, they think Palin walks on water. Economic conservatives are likely to find her less threatening than Huckabee, given his largely populist views on economic matters. Libertarians, especially those of the Ron Paul mode, like her pro-gun, anti-government rhetoric. She’s smart enough to highlight the small business owner/anti-tax facade of her image, helping to mollify the other factions. And, as Jane Mayer notes in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, she already is building a constituency within the neocon cognoscenti.

So where does that leave Huckabee? If he runs in four years and loses, it’s the end of his political career. If he’s smart, he’ll stay on the sidelines. He’ll be 61 in 2016, certainly young enough still to mount a vigorous campaign. In addition, voters in this country are more likely to change parties after eight years than they are after four. It also would enable him to avoid the likely civil war within the Republicans among the social conservatives, economic conservatives, and libertarians.

To be completely honest here, I think Palin is a crypto-fascist, Romney is a corporate tool, and Paul is a raving lunatic. In contrast, Huckabee is, despite his limited knowledge of foreign policy and troglodyte views on social issues, a smart, thoughtful, and largely decent man whose economic views are more in line with convential Democratic thinking than anyone else in his party. Were he to be the nominee in 2012, he could pose a real challenge to Obama. So it’s in my (and other Democrats’) interest to see him stay on the sidelines while his party self-destructs.

Quote of the Day

Marc Ambinder:

If Palin’s wardrobe were a family of four, they’d get a kick-butt tax cut from the Obama campaign….

Ambinder also points out that $150,000 is the equivalent of one week of television time in Colorado.

Nightly Election (Expensive) Thread(s)

I guess this is what happens when you go shopping with Cindy:

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August. According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September. The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.

Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing. “The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how financial resources available to the campaign are spent,” she said.

So I guess she can see Saks from her house. And it’s good to know that Neiman’s is part of “real America.”

Ohhh boy. Anytime your spokesperson defends Ferragamo pumps as a “strategic decision,” you know a campaign is in trouble.

This kind of shoots to hell the whole moose-hunting small-town girl image, doesn’t it? She just went from Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber to Thurston and Lovey Howell. And it makes her look about as out of touch as the Howells were on that island.

So when the campaign is over does the Sarahnator get to keep this stuff? And if not, doesn’t she have to report it as gifts? Come to think of it, doesn’t she have to report it as gifts now? Or does Alaska not have the ethics laws that everyone else has?

I bought a wedding present at Neiman Marcus once. It cost three million dollars. Okay, maybe three hundred. For a serving dish. In 1990.

Talk amongst yourselves.

The Courage of Obama’s Grandparents

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a beautiful post on the courage — the heroism — of Barack Obama’s grandparents and all others who welcome and celebrate their biracial children and grandchildren. A highlight:

I was looking at this picture of Obama’s grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I’d bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn’t give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man. There is a reason why we have a long history of publicly biracial black people, but not so much of publicly biracial white people.

This reminded me of the conclusion to a controversial 1963 essay by Norman Podhoretz of all people, back in the day when he called himself a liberal:

Not so long ago, it used to be asked of white liberals, “Would you like your sister to marry one?” When I was a boy and my sister was still unmarried, I certainly would have said no to that question. But now I am a man, my sister is already married, and I have daughters. If I were to be asked today whether I would like a daughter of mine “to marry one,” I would have to answer: “No, I wouldn’t like it at all. I would rail and rave and rant and tear my hair. And then I hope I would have the courage to curse myself for raving and ranting, and to give her my blessing. How dare I withhold it at the behest of the child I once was and against the man I now have a duty to be?”

Back in 1971, my sister “married one” — not an African-American man, but a Hispanic man. I didn’t know that such relationships were frowned upon in polite society. I just thought my new brother-in-law was a pretty cool guy who often would hang out and play sports with me. But my sister got absolute hell from my grandfather, and hushed disappointment from my parents. I thought those times were behind us, but now I’m not so sure.

Let’s be honest for a moment: when the Palinistas start calling Obama a Muslim, terrorist, baby-killer, or any other epithet, what they’re really saying is that they hate Obama not because he’s black, but because he’s mixed-race. As any student of American history knows, what used to be called “miscegenation” (God, what an awful word) was the trump card used by racists and segregationists when arguing against integration and equal rights. The argument was, if we give “them” equal rights, “they” will start marrying our women. It was a toxic mix of sex and fear that could have derailed the civil rights movement.

That it didn’t is a testimony to those, like Obama’s grandparents, who had the courage to embrace their children’s decision to marry someone from another race and to love the children produced by those unions (and to my parents’ credit, they did the same). That there are those, like the Palinistas, who continue to hate the product of such unions is a testimony to the continued toxic power of fear.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that human rights begin “in small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. . .the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.” That’s a pretty apt description of what Barack Obama’s grandparents did so many years ago.

We owe them, and all those like them, a debt we can never repay.

Quotes of the Day

Given all the anger and hatred of the crowds at the McCain-Palin campaign events, some thoughts from two great Americans that have particular relevance to what’s going on right now.

First, James Baldwin, from The Fire Next TIme:

If we — and. . .I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create the consciousness of the others — do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country and change the history of the world

Second, Martin Luther King, from Letter from a Birmingham Jail:

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one direcly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

Both quotes from the first volume of Reporting Civil Rights, the Library of America’s fine collection. If you have never read Baldwin, do so — he is an American Orwell.

White Riot

Tony Karon doesn’t blog much, but when he does, it’s always interesting. Earlier today, he posted an excerpt from the 1980 film Rude Boy, featuring Joe Strummer and Ray Gange discussing left- and right-wing politics.

When Gange says he wants to be “one of the [rich] people riding around in cars,” Strummer says, “There’s nothing there. You can get all the [wealth] you want, [but] there’s nothing at the end of that road, no humor, life, nothing. . . .It’s all of us or none.” It’s like the punk rock version of What’s the Matter with Kansas?

Once the conversation ends, the movie cuts to The Clash performing “London’s Burning” and “White Riot.” Depending on where you work, the video may be NSFW — it actually has bad words in it.

Watching this made me wish I had seen the Clash in their prime. But it also got me thinking about the similarities between Britain of the late 70s and John McCain and Sarah Palin’s America:

White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own

Strummer meant this ironically — later in the song he says that most Brits are sheep who “go to school where they teach you how to be thick.” But if you’ve seen the videos of Palin rallies, you know that the chorus represents a pretty good description of what’s happening in the United States today.

Increasingly, McCain-Palin supporters — or at least the Palinistas among them — rant incoherently against forces that they are not even trying to understand. The United States they idealize ceased to exist a long time ago, but it is only with this election that they are beginning to come to terms with the fact that they no longer represent a majority view.

As a result, they have denounced Obama as a terrorist, Muslim, “baby-killer” and racist, even as they use racist symbols (Curious George, watermelon, ribs, fried chicken) in their depictions of him. They are hostile towards anyone they perceive as the enemy — including the media. Some have even threatened violence.

It’s the distillation of white anger into its most virulent form.

In other words, it’s a white riot.

I am not an expert on late 20th Century British history, but it strikes me that there are more similarities between England of the late 70s and contemporary America than just the anger and alienation of a fading culture.

Thatcherism was in large part a response to an exhausted ideology — social democracy — that had managed to disillusion those who had supported it for two generations. Most voters thought that the Labour Party was outdated and out of touch with the average voter’s concerns. The economy was in shambles, and most voters blamed the current government for their own problems. Dozens of past Labourites publicly endorsed Thatcher, portrayed Labour as having moved outside the mainstream of British politics. She also skillfully used the economic crisis to highlight the failures of the Callaghan government.

Today, it is conservatism and Republicanism that is the exhausted ideology and party. It’s not yet clear whether Obama will prove to be the kind of realigning force that Thatcher was in England. But certainly the conditions exist for it to happen.

Britain got over its white anxiety, culture wars, and economic doldrums (and, for that matter, Thatcherism) to become the “Cool Britannia” of the early Blair years. It is possible that an Obama Administration may help bring about a similar transition in the United States.

Of course, just as is the case in England today, a few die hards will continue to hate.

300 x 89 = Victory in Ohio

Joe Biden just did a bus tour of southern Ohio, focusing on the fact that Ohio went to Bush by 118,000 votes in 2004.

Obama has 89 offices in Ohio. That means each office has to find an additional 1,326 voters.

Based on my experience during the primary season, each office needs to deploy somewhere in the range of 300 canvassers on election day, plus another 50 making phone calls. Those are probably on the conservative end of what is likely to happen.

If we assume that each bank of phone canvassers can get an additional 100-125 voters to the polls in the 10-12 hours they make calls, and that only 300 canvassers show up at each office, then each canvasser needs to convince four people who didn’t vote for Kerry four years ago to vote for Obama. That includes those not registered to vote four years ago, those who failed to vote, and disillusioned Bush supporters. It does not include absentee or early voters.

Four voters for every volunteer — if the campaign can put 27,000 volunteers on the ground. If it can get 35,600 volunteers, that’s three votes for every volunteer.

Think that’s not plausible? When I was in South Carolina for the primary, I drove five people to the polls who otherwise would not have voted. Five others immediately got in their cars and head to the polls after I reminded them that it was election day. When I was in North Carolina, I got more than a dozen folks to do early voting, and another five to go to the polls on election day.

If you live in Michigan, Kentucky, Illinois, or western New York, vote absentee and get to Ohio. (If you live in Indiana, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia, vote absentee and help get those states in the win column).

Unless, of course, you want Sarah Palin to be our next vice president.

Daily Snark: Pining for the Fjords (of Alaska)

John Cleese goes off on Michael Sarah Palin:

Hat tip: Andrew Hearst

Snark of the Day: Palinex

Another Thought of the Day

Anyone else surprised that the Troopergate report was released on a Friday evening?

You have learned well, young Palinwan Padawan. But you still have much to learn.

Now release your anger and destroy me!

Help us Obama-kenobe, you’re our only hope!

Okay, I’ll stop now.

Quote of the Day

I’m not a big fan of Kathleen Parker, but she appears to be drinking less of the Palin-McCain McCain-Palin kool-aid these days:

Neither McCain nor Palin would dare mention Obama’s middle name, Hussein, but they can play up Obama’s past associations and let others connect the dots. Terrorist. Muslim. Dangerous. Other.

It is legitimate to question character and dubious associations — and William Ayers is certifiably dubious. The truth is, Obama should have avoided Ayers, and his denouncement of Wright was tardy. But this is a dangerous game.

The McCain campaign knows that Obama isn’t a Muslim or a terrorist, but they’re willing to help a certain kind of voter think he is. Just the way certain South Carolinians in 2000 were allowed to think that McCain’s adopted daughter from Bangladesh was his illegitimate black child.

But words can have more serious consequences than lost votes and we’ve already had a glimpse of the Palin effect.

If she keeps this up, The Corner is going to kick her out of their magical thinkers’ club.

Reactionary Nostalgia

My earlier post on Iowa got me thinking about the McCain’s strategy and tactics.

According to press reports, the McCain campaign has adopted a defensive stance, more intent on defending Bush-2004 states than winning over Kerry-2004 states. This is problematic because, right now, they are so far behind in a half-dozen Bush-2004 that it’s going to be hard for them to defend them all successfully. Without a significant pick-up — such as Michigan would have been or Pennsylvania still could be — McCain really has no chance of winning.

One thing this approach does explain is the campaign’s turn toward hateful rhetoric. If they think the only way they can win is by rallying the base in Bush-2004 states, then the best way to make it happen is to scare the s**t out of rally the base. The problem with this approach is that fear only works if it’s the biggest fear out there. And right now, fear of an economic meltdown is trumping fear of an African American man with an Arab name. McCain may be able to move a few voters, but I haven’t run across a single sane member of the commentariat — not even on the right — who think that three weeks of venom can win this thing for him.

So given these facts, and given the assumption that McCain still thinks he can win, what are we missing here? Occam’s Razor says that the simplest solution is usually the right one (and yes, philosphy majors, I am oversimplifying it a bit). The answer is, of course, that McCain believes this is his only path to winning.

But winning what? That’s the question no one is asking.

I think the most plausible answer is that he thinks he can win in the electoral college even if he loses the popular vote. This has him winning enough of the Bush-2004 states plus New Hampshire and/or Pennsylvania to eke out a win. This would explain both the defensive posture and the rhetoric. If he can whip up the base enough in these states (plus Pennsylvania and New Hampshire), he might be able to keep Obama from winning over the one, two, or three states he needs to secure a win.

The only other possible explanation is that McCain has decided that if he can’t win, he must do everything he can to deny Obama a mandate, even if it means worsening the divides that have made governance so difficult over the past forty years. Clearly he is absolutely convinced of his righteousness, meaning anything he says or does is merely speaking truth to terrorists power.

As I’ve said earlier, he’s moving onto very thin ice here. Another blogger — I no longer can find the post — said earlier today that McCain is moving into territory which only George Wallace has chosen to go — open appeals to racism. Rick Perlstein has pointed out, correctly, that both Goldwater and Nixon resorted to similar tactics: “This is how conservatives roll.”

I think Perlstein is right, but I think he and others miss something important here. Contrary to expectations, we once again are having a referendum on the 1960s. Except this time it’s not about Vietnam, it’s about civil rights. And it’s not the Democrats who are wallowing in hippie wish-fulfillment but rather Republicans wallowing in what can only be called reactionary nostalgia.

The fundamental problem with the Republicans fighting the 1960s over again is that most Americans don’t give a rat’s ass anymore, especially given the current economic crisis. And those that do — those that remain unhappy about the triumphs of Parks, King, Abernathy, Lewis, Young, and other heroes of the civil rights movement — decided not to vote for Obama a long time ago.

So where does that leave McCain?

He’s riling up a reactionary base (to call it racist ignores the reality that only some of these folks are racist) in such a way as to guarantee that undecideds and independents are more likely to vote for Obama. To put it another way, the more he appeals to the worst instincts in Americans, the more Americans will want to demonstrate the content of their character. At the same time, he’s leaving a residue of hatred and distrust that’s going to make it much harder for Obama to govern.

McCain only needs to look at the state of this year’s Senate races to see that this election is much more about the economy than it is about Obama or himself. The Republicans are losing ground so rapidly that pollsters are having trouble keeping up with the collapse. Although a sixty-seat majority still appears unlikely, it is more of a possibility than it was even a week ago. Should that trend continue, we be witnessing the biggest collapse of a major party in the United States since 1932.

And that, my friends, is change we can believe in. For others, like those in the video above, it is change they will never accept.

Order Now! Operators Are Standing By!

The always hilarious Andrew Hearst has designed a new poster for the McCain-Palin campaign:

Ahh, socialist realism. Vladimir Putin would be so proud.

Something Funny Happenin’ Here*

Get a load of this video from the McCain website. This is the intro video on the site — or at least it was when I went there today to check something.

Is it me, or is someone missing?

Like, I don’t know, the candidate for President? I think he appears once in the entire thing.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: it’s Sarah Palin’s party now.

**With apologies for paraphrasing Buffalo Springfield.

New Poll

Vote early, vote often, vote like the future of American Idol depends on it.

For those of you who have subscribed via an RSS reader (thank you!), go here.

Floridaze

So you may be wondering why both campaigns have been focusing on Southwest Florida — the area known as the Gulf Coast. Just yesterday On Monday, Sarah Palin appeared at a rally in Ft. Myers (the one where the Lee County Sheriff called Obama by his full name and is now under investigation for violating the Hatch Act). Today, Joe Biden hosted a fundraiser in Naples. The Gulf Coast usually isn’t on the front lines of Presidential politics, but this year it may be the swing region within the biggest swing state out there.

I’m what Floridians call a semi-native — someone who was not born in the state, but spent a good part of their youth there. I went to high school and college there (Cardinal Mooney High School and New College represent!), and I even worked on a political campaign there (for the record, Marlene Woodson-Howard for Governor, and yes (gasp) she was a Republican — call it my misspent youth).

I don’t claim to have an extensive understanding of Florida politics, but having spent some time on the campaign (surrogate) trail, I do know that the state should go Republican. So needless to say, I’m surprised to see this happening:

Florida basically can be divided into five zones: Panhandle (including Jacksonville), the East Coast, Central Florida (including Orlando), Tampa Bay, and the Gulf Coast. There is some overlap among the zones, but basically each has a different identity.

The Panhandle is closer in outlook to the rest of the Old South than it is to the rest of the state. Consider it solidly Republican.
The East Coast is primarily populated by retirees from the northeastern United States, and in the Miami area, Cuban-Americans and other immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. With the exception of the Cubanos, the region gets progressively more Democratic the farther south you go.
Central Florida, despite its reputation as a mecca for tourists, is strongly evangelical. This is Sarah Palin’s home turf, and the area where she’s been getting most of her big crowds. If Orange, Lake, and other counties do not go for McCain in a big way, I’ll be shocked.
The southwest Gulf Coast is populated primarily by retirees from the Midwest. It tends to be fiscally conservative and socially neutral-to-liberal. The instinct for most of the voters has traditionally been to support Republicans.
The Tampa Bay area is the most mixed. To the east, it resembles Central Florida. To the west, in St. Petersburg, it resembles the Southwest. In the middle is Tampa, which includes large minority communities and trends Democratic.

Many commentators have observed that McCain should do well in the Panhandle and Central Florida while Obama should do well along the East Coast, Most have said that the election will come down to the Tampa Bay area. That is quite possible, but I would suggest that the Gulf Coast might play as important a role. Many of its residents are old school Rockefeller Republicans who have voted with their pocketbook. This year, however, many are disillusioned with eight years of Bush mismanagement and wary of further strengthening of the social conservative elements within the Republican Party. McCain should have been a natural candidate for them, but his lurch to the right, epitomized by his pick of Palin, has many questioning whether he is the best candidate. I think that they just might go for Obama in big numbers.

If they do, McCain will lose Florida. And if he loses Florida, he loses the election. So on election night, watch five counties in Florida: Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier. If some or all of them swing to Obama, it may forecast the outcome of the election.

I’ve asked my Dad, who still lives in Sarasota — and writes a weekly column for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune — what he’s heard on the ground. I’ll report back what I hear. In the meantime, any other readers from Gatorland are more than welcome to chip in.

In the meantime, can I please ask one favor of my friends down there? Please please please don’t let it be close. We don’t need 2000 redux, especially in the middle of two wars and a massive financial crisis.

Secessionist Sarah

Via Jedreport. I had thought this story was dead and buried, but it looks like there’s more to it than initially.

There’s a difference between secessionists and terrorists. Really. Honest. Just ask those gosh-darn Russians about Checnya! They’re secessionists terrorists secessionists terrorists!

Never mind.

Wait! I know! Duck season! Moose season! Duck season! Moose season! Moose season!

Meh.

She isn’t shattering glass ceilings — she’s shattering a glass house.

The Unthinkable

Lester Maddox

Governor George Wallace of Alabama

John McCain, meet your new friends.

It’s not just that the McCain campaign is using words like “terrorist.” It’s that they’re encouraging their followers to go even further — hence the upsurge in threats coming from the audience, like the guy in Florida who shouted “kill him” and the guy in New Mexico who shouted “traitor.”

In civil rights terms, this is known as incitement, and it differs little from the tactics of unreconstructed American terrorists racists like George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Eugene and Herman Talmadge.

At the moment, I’m in the middle of the Library of America’s two-volume collection of reporting on the civil rights movement, and the following passage from 1946 struck me as particularly relevant to the events of the past twenty-four hours:

When. . .[Eugene] Talmadge was delcared the Democratic nominee, the season on “n*****s” was automatically opened and every pinheaded Georgia cracker and bigoted Ku Kluxer figured he had a hunting license.

That’s what John McCain and Sarah Palin are doing right now: handing out hunting licenses to the most extreme, racist, and loony elements of the right wing. These aren’t pro-lifers, anti-gay marriage activists, or typical NRA members — no matter what you may think of such folks, they ultimately are merely people who have different political perspectives that, whether we like it or not, are still in the mainstream of American politics.

McCain and Palin aren’t in the mainstream anymore. Instead, they have started appealing to a much different class of individuals: full-blown bats**t-crazy, automatic weapon-toting, race-hating survivalists. These are the men and women who make Ted Nugent look like a moderate.

If an average citizen got up and called George Bush a terrorist and another average American got up and shouted “kill him,” they would have the Secret Service on them so fast they wouldn’t know what hit them. But when a candidate for Vice President and one of her acolytes do the same thing to the opposition candidate, all that happens is blanket coverage by the mainstream media.

Don’t McCain and Palin realize what’s at stake here? They’ve crossed the line. They’ve opened the door to the unthinkable, and even worse, see it as little more than their campaign’s latest tactic. In the process, they’re empowering the crazies.

This morning, my wife asked me the question that many of us have dreaded the most: what if this leads to an actual attack against Obama?

God help us if it does.

In the meantime, may God find a special place in hell for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

High School Confidential

Remember the kids back in high school (and college) who would doodle on a pad of paper while the teacher droned on? My favorite example of that was a guy I knew who would draw mushroom clouds during a particularly boring economics class.

Apparently Sarah Palin continued this practice into adulthood:

This is, believe it or not, the back of a page of an old city budget in Wasilla, dating back to when Palin was a member of the City Council. It was found by The New Republic’s Norm Scheiber:

I stumbled across it at the home of Laura Chase, a former colleague of Palin’s on the Wasilla city council who later managed her first race for mayor. (Chase makes a few appearances in my Palin profile this week.)

Toward the end of our interview, Chase brought out a box of odds and ends she’d saved from that campaign and emptied it onto her kitchen table. Buried in the pile of material were various pictures, mailings, correspondences, newspaper clippings–and this page of doodling. Chase didn’t remember a ton about it, but did tell me it had been written on the back of a budget document, which (she seemed to think) had been distributed at a Wasilla city council meeting.

Although it’s hard to read here (the link above is a pdf that’s eas

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