Meh...

Love BuzzFeed's Ben Smith's tweet after Obama's acceptance speech last night: Oba-meh. Pretty clever.

That's the sense I got listening to the speech while making supper. Obama has nothing new to say. It was just a re-hash of stuff we've been hearing over and over again.

I'd go so far as to say "meh" sums up the entire Democratic party right now. The "face" of the party is either old (Clinton, Biden, Carter, Reid), sleazy (Emmanuel), old and sleazy (Pelosi, Frank), strident (Strickland), and dishonest (Wasserman Schultz).

It portrays itself as the party of women, but their women come across as either victims (Sandra Fluke) or extremists (Nancy Keenan).

It portrays the Republican party as racist, but in attempting to divide the country along racial lines, it becomes the more racist of the two parties. When 90% of African Americans cast their votes in 2008 for Obama, that's racist. And when people of color are considered more likely to vote Democrat than Republican, this has less to do with the Republicans being (supposedly) racist than it does with the Democratic party pandering to minorities by promising cradle-to-grave protection a la The Life of Julia or telling lies about how the evil Republicans want to protect millionaires and billionaires, abandon the middle class, yank the safety net out from under the poor, and end Medicare as we know it (well, that part may be true since even Democrats acknowledge that Medicare as we know it is not sustainable).

Contrary to the tired cliche that the GOP is the party of old white men, I actually see a GOP on the rise, featuring fresh, young, and yes, diverse faces. Mia Love, Susanna Martinez, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, Condi Rice, Scott Walker, to name a few.

Even Mitt Romney, though not young compared to (say) Paul Ryan, comes across as fresh, if for no other reason than he brings a new skill to a previously unmet resume item for presidential candidates: business acumen. Obama had very little on his resume in this regard to commend himself back in 2008. In fact, he had very little to commend himself at all, other than the ability to tap into the zeitgeist and offer a nebulous "hope" and a symbolic victory over racial prejudice. And though he now claims to have more foreign policy experience than Romney, back in '08, Obama had no experience in this regard either. And critics of the president point out that Obama has quietly adopted many of George Bush's foreign policy decisions despite having trashed them in the lead-up to his election back in '08.

So what's new and fresh about Obama? Nothing. All he can say this time around is that "change" doesn't come easy, that it's going to be a long, hard slog, so he needs four more years to finish the job. In other words? "Hey, folks, cut me some slack. I never promised you a rose garden." But in fact, yes he did. That's exactly what he promised. In soaring rhetoric surrounded by phony Greek columns, he assured us that he was the change we were waiting for, that the oceans would stop their rising, etc.

Last night, there were no Greek columns and no pandering promises. Just a plea. Let me keep my job.

Meh.

Why Do I Vote the Way I Do?

I'm currently reading a book by David Brooks (columnist for The New York Times) called The Social Animal. He uses a technique of novelistic writing patterned after Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, where the main characters typify stages of life from birth through death. He bases these stages on current research in various fields of study and provides end notes for people (like me) who like to know where he's getting his information from. I found one chapter particularly interesting in that it addresses why people tend to gravitate towards one political party or another, and how or why we choose candidates to vote for. Brooks at one point writes that people don't choose to be a Democrat because (for example) they value equal opportunity; rather, they become Democrats first, and then place increasing value on equal opportunity. Or people don't become Republicans because they value limited government; rather, they become Republicans first, then place increasing value on limited government. "Party affiliation often shapes values, not the other way around," he writes.

It becomes clearer to me the older I get that political and maybe even religious affiliations are not taught or learned but are (perhaps) innate. I'm a Republican not because I understand or agree with everything the party stands for but because something about the Republican worldview resonates with me. I assume that's true for others in terms of their party affiliation. David Brooks cites a study by a Princeton political scientist who concluded that partisan loyalties "have a pervasive influence on how people see the world," and that it's not possible (through education or argument, for example) to eradicate these loyalties. So people from different parties might quarrel with each other about whether one candidate is better than another, but we probably won't succeed in convincing the other to change their minds about a candidate.

This thought occurred to me the other day, listening to my (Democratic) father talk about how pleased he was that the Nixon Library was now including materials in their archives that reflect the truth about Richard Nixon rather than trying to preserve or maintain a positive image and whitewash the history of his corruption. Listening to my dad, I wondered how he would react to recent reports about President Obama's treatment (for example) of Cory Booker, the Newark mayor who had the gall to criticize Obama publicly for comments (Obama) made about Bain Capital. Booker is now officially "dead" to Obama, any hopes of finding a place in his second-term administration all but vanished. Or what about the new Obama policy requiring journalists to use government-issued computers, government-selected software, and government-owned Internet transmission lines only to write stories about the economic data issued by the Department of Labor?  Positively, creepily Nixonian. Upon hearing stories like this, would my dad shudder and cast a vote for Romney instead? Not likely.

Trying to understand why people differ when it comes to politics, and why people can't be reasoned away from their partisan loyalties, is probably impossible. These things are deeply entrenched in our souls, our psyches. One way to bridge the divide that has poisoned our culture would be to not think ill of the other but to acknowledge that politics are a reflection of something deep inside us that we value or trust. We shouldn't despise each other for these differences. Sometimes I feel that's how my dad and other left-leaning relatives look at me, as if my being a Republican is despicable. 

One concern I have regarding my left-leaning relatives is that they don't actually listen to conservative viewpoints. I read somewhere that conservatives tend to listen more often to liberal ideas more than liberals listen to conservative ideas. Perhaps this has something to do with the prevalence and pervasiveness of the liberal point of view on television and in mainstream media outlets whereas one must actually seek out conservative views on talk radio or conservative websites (which is what I do). Another possibility is that left-leaning people find conservative views repugnant, perhaps even evil, which is why they won't listen to or read conservative ideas. Perhaps right-leaning people do this, as well. It takes discipline to actually read and process other viewpoints. Most of us prefer to have our own views corroborated, not challenged.

I've often wanted to ask my left-leaning relatives which which conservative-leaning authors or magazines or websites they read in order to appreciate the other side's way of thinking. It's a rhetorical question because I already know the answer. My dad might cite Jonah Goldberg, but that's only because the Los Angeles Times runs Jonah's column on Tuesday's. My hunch is that my left-leaning family members simply don't "tune in" to conservative conversation or read conservative analysis.

As for me, when I listen to liberal/Democratic perspective on most issues and then compare that perspective to the conservative viewpoint, the conservative ideas just make more sense.

The next book in my queue is by Dennis Prager (Still the Best Hope). One time my dad told me he hated Dennis Prager. I don't understand this hate. I find Mr. Prager to be thoughtful, sensible, very funny, and much more open-minded on many issues (social/moral) than you'd expect. More open-minded than me, and more open-minded than my so-called "liberal" dad. On a personal level, I love Prager's Jewishness and find myself wishing at times that my dad had chosen to instill in us his Jewishness--not just cultural (anyone can learn to make matzoh brie) but spiritual. But that's a different subject.

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I'm writing early this morning because I've actually been awake  all night. Monday sort of bled into Tuesday. I did "go to bed" around midnight but didn't sleep, just watched the clock and then got up at 3:29 a.m. before my alarm went off to say goodbye to my Daniel, who left the house for the airport at 4:00 to catch a 6:30 flight to Columbus, Ohio, to embark on his "adult" life. I'm a little bereft, a little sad, yes. I feel the "tug" a bit more this time than I did when Leah left, for some reason. When she moved straight from college to San Francisco, there were still two fledglings left in the nest. Now, five years later, there are none. Elisa graduates from college next year.

I'll post this now and edit later. I'm hungry.

A Little Quiz

True or false? "It's a Republican-controlled Congress."

You can check your answer here.

Methinks Obama assumes the American electorate is (are?) idiots.

Mehopes he's mistaken. But according to this article, even though "Washington insiders and those who track politics know that the 112th Congress is divided . . . polls taken over the last several years show that many voters are unclear which party runs the House and/or Senate"

Are voters going to be less gullible this time?

A Little Bit Bizarre

I'm starting to be concerned about Nancy Pelosi's mental health. On one hand, you almost want to laugh at her. She is so over the top. But what if something's wrong with her? You would hate to have to go back into your blog posts and delete them if you find out down the road that she's mentally ill. Yet how else to explain the kind of illogical, irrational, nonsensical, even delusional remarks she makes here?