Aquarian Weekly 10/8/08
REALITY CHECK

POWER TO THE PEOPLE Bailout Crumbles Beneath Populace Outcry & Candidates Scramble To Keep Up

Following the most dramatic display of democracy in modern times, the electoral map has revealed a seismic shift. The American people have spoken loudly and the presidential candidates had better be listening. Congress sure listened. You don't think so? When was the last time you witnessed a final and very public failure to pass a bill of such dire magnitude as that of the Bail Out? I can tell you, if you like? How about never. Bills that significant with that much pre-hype and unfettered grandstanding never fail that miserably when all indications were to the contrary. Illustration of this unprecedented congressional anomaly was a stock market in record freefall.

Normally congress, unless it is headed by puppet demagogues like Newt Gingrich, even at its most inept, is shrewder than this. It is regularly a body careful not to rock boats and appear as rudderless and foolhardy as it did last week. Normally votes are meticulously considered, vociferously argued and either pushed through with beating chests or abandoned outright, not changed on the fly and abjectly booted with millions of voters looking on aghast. Normally laws, as Benjamin Disraeli once mused, are like sausages; best not seen being made.

There could only be one reason for such an upchuck in spineless etiquette; the citizenry went ballistic, or as one congressional aid put it to me; "By Monday afternoon these people had the fear of God in them."

Who put it there?

Angry constituents pummeling the Capital Hill switchboard in record numbers.

Not since the pending impeachment of Richard M. Nixon had the legislative branch of this government been harassed so vehemently. It was an unprecedented free-market protest that some deemed arbitrary and naïve and others as responsibly heroic. Either way, it's ultimately what this democracy jag is all about.

Consequently, the fallout has rendered this most historic of presidential races upsidedown.

For the first time, this space is willing to concede that there is a serious chance Barack Obama could be the next president of the United States.

The Democrats are the ones handed the Golden Parachute. Let's face it; if a Southern Caucasian were running instead of an African American Liberal, it would be a faits accomplis. McCain and this bespectacled hood ornament he calls a running mate could take their ball and head home, because it would be over and done. But, sadly, this is not the case, and even one of the most ineffectual and laughably goofy campaigns in recent memories still has a fighting chance.

For two solid weeks John McCain has acted as if he'd awoken from a frenzied round of shock therapy. His every move has sabotaged his candidacy. The "suspending of my campaign" and nearly pulling out of the debate for a Here Comes The Calvary two-step backfired when house Republicans flat-out ignored he and his lame-duck president, forcing McCain to scuttle to Mississippi where he spent two agonizing hours acting like a condescending jack-ass in front of millions of debate viewers.

Ironically, it was the Arizona Senator who emerged the victor, but you'd never know it. His humorless crank show bogged down by wooden platitudes turned an extremely weak performance from his opponent into looking oddly presidential. In a weird twist of fate, this is works out better for McCain, since Obama's ability to actually formulate coherant thoughts has always been a glaring drawback to obtaining the presidency.

Speaking of which, the Palin choice for VP, a queerly devised cocktail of ballsy desperatation just a few short weeks ago, has quickly gone from intriguing freak show to complete implosion. Two fairly timid network interviews revealed the woman as a stammering dimwit. Aside from authoring some of the funniest evening news soundbites in recent memory, it caused over a dozen prominent conservative scribes to demand her immediate dismissal from the ticket.

Palin's entry into national punchline coupled with almost daily disasterous economic news, and McCain's inability to have anything close to a singular position on any of it, began to heavily tip heretofore swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin, and stunningly Virginia to Obama's side. Top McCain aides, against their candidate's wishes, received their week-long pleas to pull funds from Michigan completely, and within days even Ohio, for the first time since this battle was forged, had severely lessoned its Republican support.

But to the surprise of more than a few, the vice presidential debates did not bury the McCain ticket after all. Palin was not as dismally vertiginous as advertised, and at times even used her folsky populism to score points with the usual rube-voter block. Meanwhile, Joe Biden spent endless sentences displaying his wonky dance of the bland, regurgitating a mind-numbing rollout of facts and figures. Of course, Biden won the bloodless contest, as did McCain the week before, because he is better versed in the deeper details of governance. Obama, as Palin after him, has a broader appeal, both choosing to give speeches instead of answers. Throughout her overly rehearsed robotic performance, Palin completely ignored direct queries to meander aimlessly into melodrama.

(Fill blank in with question here)

Biden: Blah, blah 7,400, blah blah, forty-percent since 1984, blah blah, $600 million."

Palin: Blah blah, gosh darn it, blah blah maverick, blah blah (add wink here).

Whether any of this makes a headline beyond the weekend is dubious. Soon the reformed Senate version of this massive federal government economic band-aid with its porked up millions for Puerto Rican rum and tax benefits for auto racetrack owners will head back into the House where it will surely pass this time.

And the temperature of the people will again be taken, and where that leads will inevitably decide how the last month of this election season goes.

At some point John McCain needs less more bold moves and bizarre forms of performance art or pulling distracting side-shows from his hat, and more finding of a way, any possible way, to not look like the poster boy of a stale government sitting on bad wars and a shitty economy.

And Barack Obama had better not think for one solitary minute he is still not the underdog.

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