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I'm amused that certain stories regarding the McCaine campaign gain traction and quickly become received wisdom; generally, these stories spiral from casual commentary made by news personalities, eager to structure a political narrative along some sensational or unexpected trajectory. What they all have in common is that although they're made completely of smoke, they're breathed over and over again by people who know fully well that they're putting falsehoods into currency.
One such wisp, for example, has been that the remarkable charisma and salt-of-the-earthiness of Sarah Palin will energize undecided voters who might otherwise be alienated by the Obama celebrity, or by what might have been perceived as "elitism" or "intellectual effetism". This story was first puffed into circulation following Palin's speech at the RNC, when commentators desperate to find a new dramatic storyline seized their opportunity and proclaimed her empty-headed oratory a rousing success. I heard very few voices, either on tv or in print, who dared to call it what it was: an insubstantial and unmitigated sneer-fest that, in actuality, presaged the end of the McCain campaign. (Sure enough, since that time, Palin has been revealed for the fraud that she is, and McCain has been criticized for having sabotaged his party's hopes by putting such a know-nothing next-in-line).
The news this past weekend was that the McCain campaign is "taking their gloves off", which to me is the baldest euphemism for "they're going to start scratching, eye-gauging and pulling hair". Basically, their going to start fighting dirty. This tactic seems almost to have become a step worthy of admiration, as pundits have propogated the turn by noting, without equivocation, that "going dirty works".
What a bunch of nonsense. Going dirty may have worked in the past, when the voices of the Republican party (Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and other rogues) were able to weave the myth of a conservatism beseiged by the liberal, intellecually-biased mainstream media and were therefore able to justify dirty politicking as a sort of levelling of the balance. Unfortunately for McCain, that approach is way, way out of style. For one thing, the past eight years can be seen as the Right's pyrrhic victory by "dirty means". Many Republicans, those who can see beyond their party's own elaborate narrative edifices, recognize that now is perhaps time to properly articulate a new conservative agenda, that the time is ripe for a new intellectual voice. And McCain/ Palin ain't the messengers.
The ease with which McCain has transformed himself from a "man of honor"-- also a trope that had been largely inflated by the media) into a cowardly and increasingly hysterical mud-slinger- is telling. Instead of knocking Obama down a few pegs, the new tactic only imperils the illusion of McCaine the Maverick.
Mark W
