CRANKed

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Barack and Howard
 
Well, with less than a week to go before that great accountability moment otherwise know as the election, it appears Howard Dean and Barack Obama have done it. What's it, you ask? And how did they do it?

It is forcing the Republicans to reveal their true selves. To force Republicans to say all the crazy, racist, sexists, xenophobic, and otherwise bigoted and prejudiced things that they say in private or say to themselves late a night. Just as Bill Clinton's run in 1992 forced the Republicans to reveal themselves in all their ugliness at the 1992 Republican National Convention, so did Dean and Obama's strategies force Republicans in 2008 to reveal their true selves. Together Dean and Obama gave truth to the lie of "compassionate conservativism."

Howard Dean's 50-State Strategy started the ball rolling. Dean's strategy of building grassroots organizations in every state, of raising money, and funding candidates in every state was key to what looks like a win for Barack Obama. The first sign that Dean's strategy was working was George Allen's Macca moment. Allen was so pressured by Webb and by the the Dean strategy that Allen felt compelled to pander to the racist base of the Republican Party.

In the past two months we've seen an increasingly desperate and shrill John McCain and Republican Party resort to racist, sexist, xenophobic, and bigoted attacks in a futile attempt to turn back Obama. Obama pushed McCain and his Republican Party not merely by raising a lot of money, but by using that money to open field offices all across the country, especially in places the Republican Party thought was safe. Moreover, Obama spent money in safe areas--those areas he or other Democrats were sure to win--in order to shore up his base and to build morale. By forcing the Republicans to play defense, Obama and Dean forced the Republicans to go to the mattresses, to resort to desperate measures, and to return to their old race-baiting, xenophobic, and hateful rhetoric. It's who and what the modern Republican Party really is and like in 1992, American voters are rejecting the hate, the prejudice, the racism, and the whole lot of it.




This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?