Rest for the wicked

The election ended, the first hundred days have passed, and we're in the midst of a Mexican pandemic. The world may come to an end, and I'm sure it will be televised.

Unfortunately, I no longer have a television, and (at best) intermittent Internet access. As a result, the commentary and analysis all two of my readers have come to love and expect has come to a standstill. The time has come for a shift in focus, not so much away from the popular, but in the way it trickles down to little old me.

Recently, I shifted my world a little further south. Television Hunter is now broadcast from Brussels, the Capital of Europe. The elections have passed, and there's a renewed interest in the Right. Still, having mostly extricated myself from the Information Superhighway of global communications, it's become clear that there can be a far simpler form of living, one full of people, places, and things. So for the time being, all I have to blather about is the life at my feet.

This is a wonderful town. Gone are the neat, orderly, medieval streets of the Netherlands. The chaos and grime of French influence bring with them a particular charm of crumbling art deco facades and dynamic traffic patterns punctuated with incessant horn blowing. There is at once a surprising lack of a cultural focus here, European Institutions feeding a crumbling economy and stagnating bureaucracy while the city itself plays host to more than 160 different nationalities. The institutional efforts to promote the idea of a cultural melting pot bring about festival after festival. The Europeans bring the international while the Wallonians and Flemish seem in a deathlock to see who can have the best festivals and parties.

Many told me Brussels was a boring place. Dirty and full of nothing to do. Quite the opposite is true. Aside from the widely-organized and -publicized public events, there are countless bars and smaller venues that cater to the highly subsidzed group of artists, musicians, and jobless youngsters who live here. It's always a little place you have to just know about. Getting around and discovering these things has involved a lot of nightly wandering and guesswork. A tip here and a poorly understood rumor there have led me into a variety of nooks and crannies in the evening life.

Now its time to learn me some French. After that, I can benefit everybody by posting some tips and tricks for nocturnal sojourns. A la prochaine.
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Conquest: McCain Concedes

FOX News just reported at around 04.50 CET that "McCain folks have conceded there is no path to win."

UPDATE:

All FOX News channels picking up the phrase "no clear path" to win.

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Behold: Bigfoot

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Election Night home setup

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Dear History,

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Elizabeth Dole: The Zealot inside

Den. Elizabeth Dole  (R) has accused Sen. Kay Hagan (D) of accepting money at a fundraiser organized by the Godless Americans Political Action Committee (GAMPAC). Sen. Hagan doesn't deny this. So... what's the problem?

From the GAMPAC website:

[The Godless Americans Political Action Committee] does not claim to represent every Atheist, Freethinker, Secular Humanist or other nonbeliever in the United States. It does, however, provide those who wish to participate a voice, a strategy, a vehicle in promoting the policies we embrace. It allows us to endorse political candidates who support our vision of a secular America, one where our right to freedom of and freedom From religion is valued and protected.

Here is the advertisement Sen. Dole ran:

And the rebuttal:

Sen. Dole's reiteration:

What the hell is going on? America was founded by DEISTS, not religious people. The Constitution was signed by merchants and lawyers who sought to keep a sturdy wall between religion and politics. This being said, wouldn't it be inappropriate to talk about God on the money and in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Let me remind everybody that the Pledge of Allegiance was a secular bit of nationalist pride. As you can read in this short history, it was written by a Baptist minister to reflect the ideas of his socialist brother. The man, Francis Bellamy, had to compromise his version by excluding the idea of "equality" considering his church's opposition to the notion that blacks and women would be equal to men. Bellamy was later made to leave his church because of his socialist ideas.

It wasn't until 1954 when the Knights of Columbus had the phrase "under God" added to the Pledge. This was the direct involvement of a religious group to inject religion into the rituals of a secular state.

Sure, the K of C have been accused of racism in the early half of the 20th century, but by and large they are an immensely charitable organization guilty of innumerable commendable acts of service. Nonetheless, they remain a religious group of considerable political sway. Sen. Dole is probably not in their pocket, but her rhetoric (alongside that of folks like Bill O'Reilly) against the purging of religion from political life goes directly against that of the Founding Fathers.

Religion and politics should remain seperate in a secular state. The whole point of secularism is to keep religion out of the political discussion rather than distract itself from its task by focusing on religion.

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Trail to... defeat: Grabbing the short straw

Personally, I'm convinced Obama is going to win on Tuesday. The pundits have been calling the elections for ages, and there have been numerous polls showing commanding wins in store for the Democrats--both in the Presidential race as well as those for the House and Senate. With the percentage of those voting for Obama creeping upwards (a significant number have voted early), a Democratic victory across the board appears to be well within reach.

There is trouble brewing, however. We all remember George W. Bush litigating himself into the White House in 2000. He was a minority President who met with stern resistance from everywhere outside the GOP. Bill Clinton, also a minority President, had to tackle Newt Gingrich and his Republicans before the Kenneth Starr investigations (championed by the family values teams on the American right). This shows us that political capital remains important, and that grabbing the short straw in an election might not mean defeat, but trouble down the road.

McCain still has a path to victory. Pennsylvania is crucial, and staying strong in Florida and Arizona will certainly help push his team to Pennsylvania Ave. Still, all indications are that however McCain gets into the White House, he will do it by the skin of his teeth. He can become a President with no political capital, immense lack of support from the public, and with a Democratic House and Senate.

Considering McCain's age, it's do or die (literally). He spent the last decade trying to get his wrinkly ass into the Oval Office, and this time around he sold his whole soul to the Republicans. Even his choice of running mate was pandering to the American right, and drove away Republicans, independents, and the right-leaning Democrats from his ticket. There was no way he could have won over the American left, but the reasonable expectations that he could gain ground with independent voters disappeared with the support of figures like Gen. Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, and other high-profile GOP guys.

Still, much of the media presents all of this with a slant. During the debate, FOX News watchers responded overwhelmingly that Palin and McCain won their respective debates, whereas CNN and MSNBC watchers overwhelmingly found the opposite. The divisiveness that defectors like Gen. Powell cited as reasons for their choices seems to be very much a factor in how the electorate thinks of the race, and it will certainly have an impact on how the electorate thinks of the winner.

Karl Rove has long supported a strategy of divisiveness and personal attacks. This fires up partisanship on both sides of the aisle. However, it's increasingly being seen that the so-called undecided voters are driven away by this rhetoric, preferring the inclusiveness of the Obama campaign, and this makes a lot of sense. Barack Obama is the personification of America. He is Kansas, Hawaii, Black, White, educated, poor, and someone who brought himself up from disadvantage to the cusp of the Presidency. Whatever change McCain tries to peddle, he remains who he is: a son of the military elite, old, and White.

Thanks to the difficulties of virtually 'going it alone' in Iraq, the complexities of maintaining an international coalition in Afghanistan, awareness that there are people in the world that hate America enough to attack it regardless of the consequences, many independents seem to see the ire-inspiring choice of running mate by McCain as a foreshadowing of rash decisions on all fronts.

So there's currently a minority of support for the McCain ticket (46.6% according to FiveThirtyEight.com), although with the expected tightening of the race closer to election day, paths to victory are still open. McCain may have consolidated his base, but he did so by giving up political capital. Obama has not consolidated anything around a message clearer than "hope" or "change," but thanks to the partisanship of Karl Rove's campaign tactics, he benefits significantly in political capital.

If Rove manages to win the right states for McCain, then we have a president with little clout. If Obama merely continues on his current path, we'll have a majority President who is truly able to incite change, as he will have the political capital giving him room to maneuver. This being said, if McCain were to win the White House, he would make a worse President than Obama based solely on the fact that he won't have the political capital to back anything up.

Never give up, though. It's important that McCain keep campaigning until the very end, and even more so that Obama supporters vote even if they think he'll win anyway. The race is now about clout. Let's hope we don't elect ourselves a President who will be immediately unpopular. Let's hope we actually put "that one" in charge, because divisive politics and rash decisions do not a good policy make.

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