No matter how hard John McCain tried to play the "cool" dude with energy to spare; and no matter how many times John McCain said he was "ready to lead," and no matter his insistence he had the experience to start from "day one," the impression he often gave was of a somewhat confused, older man, out of touch with the reality of the world in which he lived.
In the February 2 issue of Time magazine, managing editor Rick Stengel takes note of the massive technological changes that have occurred in the past 47 years:
"In 1961, when TIME showed on the cover a photograph of John F. Kennedy taking the oath of office as the nation's 35th President, it was the first time we had put a presidential Inauguration on the magazine's cover. At the time, it was also the fastest cover close in the magazine's history.
"The photo was shot and processed in Washington in about three hours, then the art director took the transparencies on a plane to Chicago, where they were taken to TIME's central printing plant, where a color engraving was produced. Then those images were taken by air to printing plants in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington and Albany, NY. All in all, about 36 hours.
"Now it's almost instantaneous and done completely digitally."
When I read that, one difference between John McCain and Barack Obama became starkly obvious. John McCain did not know how to send an e-mail which gave many the impression he was technologically challenged. Barack Obama, as it turned out, is technologically savvy and hired people who were technological geniuses and put together a campaign that was fueled and driven in large part by the Internet.
John McCain always gave the impression he would be much more comfortable and "at home" if it was 1963 again.
And it may well be that is one more reason John McCain lost the election.
Jim DeMint, in case you've never heard of him, is an ultra-conservative senator from South Carolina.
At the moment, Senator DeMint is pissed off. He has publicly chastised his fellow senator, John McCain, for blowing the election by blowing off and "betraying conservative principles." The Republican Party should, according to de candy man, DeMint, "represent freedom, religious-based values and limited government."
"Religious values?" Does this clown have a clue? Whose religious values? How about Muslim religious values? Or Hindu religious values? Or Wiccan religious values? Or the values of the Cult of Death?
Anyway, de candy man held up a laundry list of McCain's failings at a speech in Myrtle Beach. And these, he said, were what brought down the party of god, religious values and freedom:
"McCain, who is a proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations ... His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn't fit the label, but he was our package."
Poor John. Day after day he's gonna look out over the Senate floor and there he'll see the candy man, all glum and crochety, glaring at the "loser."
DeMint, who sometimes doesn't know the difference between Ted Kennedy and Ted Stevens, could not be more wrong. McCain didn't lose because he betrayed conservative principles, but because he didn't have any principles.
Peter Beinart has an article in the latest issue of Time, titled "The New Liberal Order." A couple of paragraphs in that article summed things up rather well, even though his assumptions regarding the "liberal cultural agenda of the 1960s" may be a bit out of whack.
"Starting in the 1990s, average Americans began deciding that the conservative agenda was a bit like the liberal cultural agenda of the 1960s: less liberating than frightening. When the Gingrich Republicans tried to slash Medicare, the public turned on them en masse. A decade later, when George W. Bush tried to partially privatize Social Security, Americans rebelled once again. In 2005 a Pew Research Center survey identified a new group of voters that it called 'pro-government conservatives.' They were culturally conservative and hawkish on foreign policy, and they overwhelmingly supported Bush in 2004. But by large majorities, they endorsed government regulation and government spending. They didn't want to unleash the free market; they wanted to rein it in.
But here's where I think Beinart is really on target:
"Those voters were a time bomb in the Republican coalition, which detonated on Nov. 4. John McCain's promises to cut taxes, cut spending and get government out of the way left them cold. Among the almost half of voters who said they were 'very worried' that the economic crisis would hurt their family, Obama beat McCain by 26 points.
"The public mood on economics today is a lot like the public mood on culture 40 years ago: Americans want government to impose law and order--to keep their 401(k)s from going down, to keep their health-care premiums from going up, to keep their jobs from going overseas--and they don't much care whose heads Washington has to bash to do it."
The candy man is blowing in the wind. I mentioned McCain didn't have any principles -- that was hyperbole. He and his sidekick, Palin, ran precisely on the Republican "principles" that DeMint claims they abandoned: "freedom, religious-based values, and limited government."
DeMint doesn't get it, either, just like the other religious neanderthals in the Repugnican Party. I also said he was pissed off, but it very well may be that the reason he's angry with McCain is not that McCain abandoned conservative principles for he did not. It may be that de candy man is mad because McCain didn't choose him to be the vice presidential candidate. I mean his name did float above the Republican coffin for a brief period. And I'm sure DeMint thinks he would have done a much better job than that lying hockey mom from Alaska.
It's kinda fun to see the Repugs implode, though!
Watch de candy man in action in 2007 with McCain at his side. He praises McCain as a champion of reform and he derides earmarks such as the "Bridge to Nowhere." It's hilarious!
No matter how hard John McCain tried to play the "cool" dude with energy to spare; and no matter how many times John McCain said he was "ready to lead," and no matter his insistence he had the experience to start from "day one," the impression he often gave was of a somewhat confused, older man, out of touch with the reality of the world in which he lived.
