Is Barack Obama the next Jimmy Carter?  A question that has popped in my mind, and I’m not alone.

In the case presented here, it’s a highly partisan question… Democrats talking amongst themselves.  Unlike at times the question “Is Barack Obama the next John F Kennedy”, which is one with two meanings, the darker one seeping more into a particular vein in the public conciousness and requiring extra secret service protection, the more pleasant one something to do with Inspirational young leaders — which does have some partisan angle to it I suppose.

To ask “Next Carter?” is to also ask “or The Next Roosevelt?”, in the blatantly partisan “on the verge of a new Democratic Majority” — which is that the Democrats hope for the latter and fear the former.  They’re hoping for a “realignment”, buoyed from out of 2006 and running into 2008.  Which, I suppose everyone thought was the case in 1974-1976, but alas that was an interlude between the aborted realignment of 1968 and the cemented one of 1980.

The wikipedia article, if you also include the “talk” section for Political Realignments, is fairly useful a staple in showing the limitations and usefulness of the concept.  Case in point: 1968?1980?  Or, the one that happened in 1896, wherein a 28 out of 36 year Republican presidential dominance was replaced with… a 28 out of 36 year Republican presidential dominance.  One that included the “Progressive” and Expansionist Theodore Roosevelt and the Conservative and “Isolationist” Calvin Coolidge.  And if you think of it as an epoch changing election that switched political subjects — 1876 is the official date for the more roaming “End of Reconstruction”, whereby the “Solid South” snapped into place by the boots of the “Redeemers” — aka Klansmen.  And that brings about the “Realignment” which occured in some manner between that date and … 1994, which makes the whole term useless.

Regarding that period between 1932 and 1968 — useful enough.  Sustainable enough that a Democratic Congress existed between 1930 (more or less, albeit very, very, very weakly) and 1994 — sort of buttressed off of the election cycles of 1930 – 1936 and 1958 -1964.  And that’s sort of key:  those are the elections whose shadow brought to fruition the enactment of the New Deal legislation, your good friend the “Great Society”, and Civil Rights.  And once those things were passed or enacted, political alliances largely splintered — the Dixiecrats and the blacks would have to go their separate way, right?

So, I suppose you go from a Congressional victory in 2006 for the Democrats, to a ridiculous Congressional map in 2008, and the balloon is inflated enough to sustain the slight Democratic Congressional buffer zone for when the Republicans get back to winning.  Or, maybe the Republicans find another Reagan — or for that matter Nixon — and Obama is the next Carter — who is probably best viewed as a president who experienced previous presidents’ whirlwind.

Of course, the comments section includes someone suggesting that 2004 was a magical realignment year, which was something picked up by none other than Karl Rove.  And suggests that party hacks talk like party hacks, and Obama is going to settle in as the next Obama… failed president or successful president or muddled president.

An interesting endorsement for Barack Obama.  His state of West Virginia voted for Hillary Clinton by 41, that’s 41, points.  I don’t know — when we get into constituency support of that margin I think I would just as well go along with it.  (Indeed, Hillary Clinton rambled on in her “Victory” speech praising Byrd to the hilt, seemingly grasping for his support which — he’s a figure of some weight, right?)

But the real irony comes in that the man was a Klansman in his youth — as he describes it his puzzling entry into the political sphere.  I do suspect that as much as his stated reason for support regarding Obama’s stronger and more certain stance against the Iraq War the need to ameriolate his past political sins, fully aware of how his KKK past plays in the public mind.  I guess he is on the right side of history this time, as opposed to the obvious Obama predecessor for 1960.  (quick snippet from wikipedia, just because I know it’ll give this general information in a concise manner):

In the 1960 Presidential election primaries, Byrd, a close Senate ally of Lyndon B. Johnson, tried and failed to derail the Democratic frontrunner and ultimately successful candidate John F. Kennedy in the crucial West Virginia primary by endorsing and vigorously campaigning for Hubert Humphrey.^{[citation needed]} Kennedy nonetheless won the state’s primary and, eventually, the general election.

Though it is a little puzzling that they still need a citation for the historical fact of Byrd stumping for Humphrey as a stocking horse for Johnson — news media of the time reported as much.

Kennedy won the primary — largely bought and paid for.  Kennedy did carry it in the general election, probably would not have without Johnson, support sapped due to his Catholicism.

Pertaining to Robert Byrd, this is sort of yesterday’s news.  The voice we have for Robert Byrd today is a tearful speech regarding Senator Edward Kennedy’s condition on the Senate floor — available on youtube or on C-SPAN.

I predict that when you take a good look at the voting results, a vast majority of Gay Portlanders will have turned out to have voted for Sam Adams, and a vast majority of Portlanders of Asian ethnicity (whether first, second, or third generation immigrants) will have turned out to have voted for Sho Dozono.

Wow.  The Decembrists really rocked the joint down at Waterfront Park yesterday, didn’t they?

… Didn’t know so many people were into The Decembrists.

Meanwhile, a buzz floated through the long winding crowd of… um… Decembrist fans (?) waiting to get into Waterfront Park when Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton were ridden by in two limos en route to some sparsely attended restaurants in another part of the city.  Clinton rolled down the river and waved at the crowd.  A little surreal, as he winds his way through the other guys’ campaign’s crowd to… no crowd at all.  And he is a former president, gawddarnedit.

But that’s yesterday.  And yesterday’s gone.  Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

Surely echoed around the cable news (when they can bring themselves away from bloviating on political contests) and evening news, but I heard on NPR…

… reporters being scuttled around by the Myanmar juanta to witness citizens of Myanmar thanking the government for their everything as they aid in the recovery.

Uh huh.  Laugh, then sigh.

It is an election weekend — as that is defined, which means that this message gets to be trotted out.

In a nutshell the omnipresent question is “Why are you reading this?”  The answer is, I don’t know… it popped up in my bloglines blogroll.  Somewhere (where some) a whole mass of candidate volunteers are running around, or at a phone-bank, splitting out the differences between similar politicians and amping up one and amping down the other.

On a day where Barack Obama will hold sway with a massive rally at Waterfront Park, in the scorching heat, I find myself pondering Sam Adams.  At some point it was decreed he would be the next mayor of Portland, and that is just how it will turn out to be.  Now, I suppose the same thing happened with Jim Francesconi and that did not turn out so well, and the same thing was said with whoever Bud Clarke defeated and that did not turn out so well.  But, with all due respect to Sho Dozono, the disruption that saw the decreed mayorial result derailed was pretty evident with all signs pointing to “nay” by now in those two previous elections.  So, we prepare for the Totalitarian Regime of Sam Adams, whose only goal seems to punch all the great citizens of Portland into the ground with his Iron Hand.  Odd how that works.

Anyway… Why are you reading this?  Shouldn’t you be hanging up Nick Fish door hangers or something?  (Or, for you Republicans in and around District 5 — figuring out what to make of that Erickson / Mannix mess.  Jeez-uz Keerist!)

There was a letter in the Oregonian complaining that while racism is being discussed lately with regards to the Democratic primary, sexism is not. It is a fair point, except I had a basic problem with the letter as it swerved to not so much a support for Hillary Clinton as a support of Entitlement for Hillary Clinton — which was something that probably served to doom her campaign. Race has become front and central, stripped away of its spot in the land subtext, with Obama’s troubles in Appalachia. The sexism has always been remarkably and predictably casual, and Obama recently engaged in something his own by referring to a news reporter as “sweetie”.

One of these largely sexist comparisons I have heard a few times through this campaign season is one to the Reese Witherspoon character in the movie Election. Somebody at the blog “www.feministing.com” quipped that she wouldn’t like her as a friend, but gosh-darned if she wouldn’t make a good student president — which makes me remember what exactly a student president ever did and what powers s/he had to affect anything in my life in high school. (They planned the pep assemblies I never went to, I think.)

But the Election comparison was more apt to the 2000 election between Bush and Gore. Well, its a movie that plays off certain archtypes.

ANYWAY… We are currently stuck on various characters of the ex-girlfriend who lingers around, which propels me to the question of what less troublesome pop cultural comparisons are there that can be thrown out with the current situation in the campaign?

Reportedly the mood of the Republicans in Congress is getting gloomy and haunted indeed, in the wake of the three Democratic pick-ups in deeply Republican districts — the whiffs are of 1974, 1964… 1932.  (Soon to be added by a fourth in a slight Democratic district).  The National Republican Congressional Campaign Chairman, Representative Cole, responsible for coordinating campaign strategies has come down to the stripped down assessment “Everybody for Themselves!”, a message which sort of makes his job duty pointless.  The only saving grace line is to point out that these Republican districts have voted for more conservative Democrats, which is interesting as Obama actively stumped for one of the seats and the other seats saw them try to negatively associate them with Obama.

The good news for the Republican Party’s chances is that within these three elections, there is a not spoken about fourth district of an even safer Republican district which kept a Republican.  So, they go into the elections knowing that there is a limit to the envisioned nightmare… somewhere.  Also, they now know that some campaign strategies are failures.  For example, Dick Cheney was sent in to stump for the Mississippi seat.  The Republican never quite recovered from that set-back.

I have one niggling problem with the … echo chamber… bullet points regarding Bush’s John McCain campaign Knesset foray into historical discussion.  The other bullet points are dead on, and in addition I do have a “what was your problem with the Dixie Chicks in England?” question running through my head.  Everyone keeps pointing out that the Senator Bush is quoting about wishing he could go talk with Hitler, and this is actually by way of Truman, was a Republican.  This point simply has no bearing on this discussion, as fallacious as everything else about the matter might be.

The classic misuse of this historical fallacy is the canard about how the Civil Rights was passed with a greater Republican vote than Democratic vote, as though the donkey and elephant are set in stone.  We may compare the 1864 Democratic Party rallies which consisted of the anti-Republican anthem “N–ger Doodle Dandy” and compare it with what we will see in 2008 and see that… things change.

But there aren’t any true isolationists in the Congress of the pre-Pearl Harbor type.  There are isolation-ish arguments, and isolationist strawmen.  The isolation-ish arguments don’t add up to disengagement from the world tend to come in because in a sound-b yte world, it’s a good short circuit and getting bogged down is never good politically.  More honest than the Chamberlain analogy, which the gut feeling tends to come down to a thought along the lines of where one of Chris Matthews’ few great moments leads us.

…………………………..

Always interesting to note these things:

So…

I went to do some lunch-time shopping at Fred Meyers three straight days at what I believe was the … exact… same… time to the dot.

Day #1, the overhead background music was… Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Hold My Hand”.  I have the most negligibly positive opinion of that band, and I recognize that fact as the secret to their success in putting out the Best Selling Album of All Time with an album where all but a couple of tracks were cross-over radio singles — on virtually every format.  It was innocuous and agreeable, and not anything more.  (I… don’t particularly want to hear them, really, but I don’t hate them.  My dad was a big fan of them, oddly enough.) But this was also the downfall of the group and why their next album went nowhere: the burn rate killed them.  Except, of course, it didn’t:  The band is now huge on the Corporate Gig circuit, which makes perfect sense them being the epitome of “Corporate Rock”.  They’re… successfully making loads of money; you’re just not paying attention to that fact.

The next day I noticed, at the exact same time, the overhead playing… Hootie and the Blowfish’s  “Only Want to Be With You”.  I remember this had a video I found amusing, which everyone else seemed to think was “Goddamned Stupid!”  The inspiration for the video seemed to have come up solely with the line “Dolphins make me cry”.  I can’t say this is a terribly relevant memory, but there are worse memory sensory items.

This seemed a trend.  Which is why on the next day, exiting the Fred Meyers the reason for the niggling feeling I had that I wanted to pay attention to something but didn’t hit me:  I should have turned down my head-phones and seen if this programming was trended.

I will note that in this day and age, most commercial music radio stations are basically going to have the same effect of same artist or same song at the exact same time, and can think of a particularly notable example of flipping past one station every day at a particular time in the afternoon and catching… the exact same song.