Obama Can't Win, But McCain Just Might Lose

For most of his adult life, the fbomber has been in an emotional state that could best be described as “bitter, caustic, life-sapping, despairing cynicism” in regards to matters of politics.

Generally, this stance of expecting the absolute worst foreseeable disaster --- immediately followed by an even more terrible and unforeseeable catastrophe --- has paid off.

Because of this pessimistic mindset, despite all the twists and turns this great nation has made as it determinedly burrows ever deeper into the shit, the fbomber has often been surprised --- but rarely disappointed.

After all, the fbomber believes that no matter how gross and systemic the American people’s flaws may be, they will at least be consistent. No matter what, they will always let him down.

But lately, the fbomber has felt the tiny flutterings of a long-lost and presumed-dead emotion inside the empty, dusty ribcage that once housed his live and beating heart. That emotion? Hope.

This emotion was most recently felt while listening to Barack Obama speaking on National Public Radio. Though congenitally immune from Obamamania*, the fbomber noted that at the very least Obama does not sound like an intolerable prick when he speaks. To the contrary, in fact. He actually sounds smart, thoughtful and even --- dare I say it? --- cool.** It shows how expectations have fallen when someone becomes giddily excited at the prospect of a President who is, at minimum, not a total tool. But there it is.

This fluttering grew into a veritable flapping when the fbomber considered that Obama might actually have a chance to get elected this year. Though the fbomber firmly believes that the Democrats can never win an election, he knows that from time to time the Republicans can lose one. And that this year might be one of those times.


Political Party is Not a Choice
The fbomber believes that political party affiliation is not a product of intellectual choice, or a product of environment, or indoctrination or any other exogenous factor. It is an internally generated expression of the way that people view the world. And that the way people view the world is a result of hard-wired psychological tendencies.

Think about it. Could any of you reading conceivably vote for the other party? According to my theory, about 75% of people reading this could not. That's because you just ARE Liberal/Democratic or Conservative/Republican because of the way your brain works from birth.

The fbomber did not come up with this theory on his own. He read something like it in a book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff. Then he perverted and twisted it to fit his own misanthropic mindset, aided in large part by his complete lack of training in psychology, sociology, statistics or anything else, for that matter.

To the fbomber, the division between Republicans and Democrats is a function of where they fall on one specific, particular line of attitude. This line measures how they view their relations between themselves and other people.

At one end, someone sees himself as part of a community, with a strong and complex web of responsibilities to everyone in that community. At the other end of the line, someone sees himself as essentially autonomous, in competition with every other person and with no responsibilities towards them --- unless that person explicitly chooses to take on those responsibilities.

These two mindsets have been described in various ways:
Left vs. Right
Hippy vs. Nazi
Magnanimous vs. Selfish
Community vs. Individual
We vs. Me
Pussy vs. Dick
Share vs. Hoard
Nurturing Family vs. Strict Family
Mommy vs. Daddy

For the purposes of this essay, the fbomber will call this line the Nice vs. Mean line.

Assuming a bell-curve distribution, very few people will fall at the extreme ends of this line. Most will be in the center, with half nicer than average, and half meaner. Because of its let’s-share-the-wealth, lets-help-one-another, let’s-get-along, your-hair-looks-very-nice values, the Democratic party is the natural home of the nicer half.

Conversely, due to its leave-me-alone, this-money-is-mine, fuck-the-world, do-what-I-tell-you, look-how-big-my-gun-is values, the Republican party is the natural home of the meaner half.

At the same time, there is another line measuring intelligence, also split into the smarter-than-average and dumber-than-average halves.

So we can draw up a graph to represent the total electorate.



Republicans naturally make up the Smart & Mean, and Dumb & Mean quarters. And they are locked in there tighter than Mark Foley's eyeballs onto an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

The Smart & Mean quadrant ARE the Republican party, the rich, white shareholder and CEO class. The Dumb & Mean quadrant --- the Rednecks, the Evangelicals, the NASCAR fans, the Chickenhawks supporting a war they won't fight --- are equally locked in. They are the Smart & Mean people’s loyal foot-soldiers, held in thrall to the prospect of becoming like the Smart & Mean guys some lucky day if they do enough dirty work to earn that promotion.

Democrats naturally get the Smart & Nice quadrant. The well-educated, the artists, the creatives, the wordy, egghead types. The bourgeouis bohemians. The latte liberals. The Jews. The Volvo drivers. The women. The students. Hollywood.

The Nice & Stupid quadrant? They should be Democrats. But they are not.

Those are the Swing Voters.

How else could you describe the kind of person that looks at Gore vs. Bush, Kerry vs. Bush or Obama vs. McCain and says “I don’t know… I can’t make up my mind… they both seem a lot alike to me”?

These are the people too stupid to realize the difference between a failed cokehead oil executive and a Nobel Prize winner. Or too nice to come out and admit that one of the candidates is a huge asshole and the other is --- at worst --- a medium-sized asshole.

Why Republicans Win, Unless They Lose
In a normal election, the Republicans handily win because they have their half of the electorate and can trick enough Nice & Stupid voters come in at over 50.1% And in normal circumstances, it is easy. For starters, the Smart & Mean people have the most money, plus the rabid shock troops of the Dumb & Mean (aka the Fox News audience) to do it with.

Most of all, the people they are targeting, are --- after all --- Nice & Stupid. Stupid enough to believe that giving the top .001% of the economic elite tax breaks will pump up their Wal-Mart cashier paychecks. Stupid enough to believe that John Kerry is backed by Al Queda. Nice enough to want to stop sweet innocent blastocysts and coma victims from being murdered by those evil, evil doctors.

Here’s the kicker. The Republicans don’t even have to convince the Nice & Stupid crowd to vote Republican. That’s a bonus, but all they really have to do to win is to confuse them enough to keep them from voting at all. That’s what the Swift-Boating and other dirty, last-minute personal attacks are good for. To get the Nice & Stupid crew to throw their hands up and say “Gosh almighty! They’re BOTH awful! Is ‘Idol on?’”

On the other hand, the Democrats can never win an election outright, because the Democrat’s natural, guaranteed constituency is only 25% of the electorate and they have to split their other 25% with the Republicans.


Why This Year is Different
To win, the Democrats have to get all the Nice & Smart voters, hold onto the Nice & Dumb voters and hope that something prevents the Smart & Mean and Dumb & Mean people from voting Republican in maximum numbers.

Well, that could be happening this year.

Assuming the Smart & Nice crowd maxes out support for Obama and the Democrats, three fatigue factors should keep the other three quadrants from turning out in support of McCain and the Republicans.

1. Failure Fatigue.
As pointed out elsewhere, the Republican’s policies have been such an abject failure that even the stupidest person cannot sign up for more of them. This should minimize Republican poaching of the Stupid & Nice quadrant.

2. Gluttony Fatigue
After eight years of unrestrained bingeing, the Smart & Mean quadrant should be well and truly glutted with undeserved riches at this point. Glutted, apparently, to the point of immobility this election.

The tax cuts have given the richest Americans an extra couple hundreds of billions into their already-bulging pockets over the last seven years. An orgy of spending increases and misguided policy choices by the Republican-controlled government has handed the well-connected Smart & Mean crowd --- think defense contractors and energy companies --- yet more trillions of U.S. citizens’ cash.

After all this engorgement, these folks just don’t have the hunger for power that they did back in 1999 and 2000. They are ready to take a bit of a nap to digest their meal, like a boa constrictor just back from a good grazing session at the local pre-school. Consequently, they look to be sitting out this political fight and holing up in Palm Beach, La Jolla and Jackson Hole with their trophy wives and ungrateful children for a couple of years.

And why shouldn’t they kick back? After all, they’ve already done the fun part. They ran into a clean, well-stocked store in 2001 and proceeded to ransack and loot it for the last seven years. Now the shelves are all bare and there are broken dreams all over the floor. It’s time for them to go home and let the suckers who work for minimum wage come in and sweep up, repair the damage, and restock the shelves in preparation for 2012 or 2016’s smash-and-grab raid.

Proof of the Smart & Meanie’s absence this year can be seen in the inept and bumbling McCain campaign. Where are Rove and the other evil ninjas? Where are W’s “Rangers” ponying up $250k apiece for the campaign? Not in McCain’s bus, that’s for sure. The true, stone-cold pimps have made themselves scarce this go-round, putting the B-team in charge, with obvious results.

3. Hatred Fatigue.
Just since 2000, the Dumb & Mean quadrant has engaged in a ferocious and endless campaign of slavering, foaming, raging hatred at a dizzying variety of targets, including, but not limited to:

Bill Clinton
Blow Jobs
Hilary Clinton
International Law
Al Gore
Reality
Gays
Liberals
The French
Habeas Corpus
Islam
Immigrants
Brown-skinned people, generally
Education
Hilary Clinton
The U.N.
Charles Darwin
Federal Judges
Dan Rather
The Geneva Convention
Science
Doctors
Separation of Church and State
John Kerry
The Truth
Hilary Clinton
The U.S. Constitution
American Cities
Hilary Clinton

Though the Dumb & Mean’s capacity for hatred is endless, apparently it is not tireless.

Like a vicious, retarded, pit bull who has been throwing itself frenziedly against the bars of its cage in a prolonged tantrum of pure, senseless rage for weeks, these idiot fuckers appear to be spent at last. They now lay on the floor, panting and covered with their own stinking slobber, stupefied by exhaustion. So they’re neutralized for a while at least.

So to sum it up --- if anything could be called summing it up after 1,700 words --- yeah, despite my pessimistic, humanity-hating, leanings I believe that Obama does actually have a shot. Not a lock, like some people are saying. But a shot.

After all, the fbomber only knows two sure things about politics.

1. Democrats can only win the Presidency after the Republicans royally shit the bed.
2. Republicans always, always, always shit the bed.

---

*I have tried. Really.

** Even the most vitriolic Obama Hater-ade slinger has to acknowledge that the man is fucking unflappable under pressure. He’s calmly, cold-bloodedly, and precisely sprinted a high-wire from Illinois State Rep to Democratic Presidential candidate --- under intense fire from all sides --- without a stumble, misstep or loss of composure. Cucumber doesn’t even touch it. Other side of pillow isn’t even close. Ice is feverish by comparison. Dude is cooler than the lakes of liquid ammonia on Saturn’s moon, Titan. That’s 300 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, sucka.