Thursday, October 30, 2008

Memo to the McCain Campaign

Look, I know you aren't asking for my help, and it's not like I'm qualified or anything, but at this point I have to believe that a team of shaven monkeys could run a campaign better than you. Take this mailer which tries to imply that Hillary Clinton somehow endorses John McCain. Pretty transparent ploy for racist HRC voters, right? I mean, what can it hurt? And then you go ahead and put a picture of America's Hockey Mom on the cover? Dude, Sarah Palin is really unpopular among women. She's really unpopular among independents. Actually, she's really unpopular everywhere, aside from in the right-wing cocoon. Women don't see her as an empowering figure so much as a sexist bit of tokenism (which is the correct way of viewing her), and Palin as America's most prominent female politician (ugh!) undermines a lot of the progress that Hillary Clinton made for women during her run.

I understand that you all need to pull out all the stops, but let me speak clearly here: the types of Democrats you're going after aren't Clinton fans, per se. They just didn't like Obama, for obvious reasons. You'll win those votes anyway. So don't bother with this stuff. And play these moves better. For crying out loud, don't pretend like Sarah Palin is some sort of feminist icon. It just makes you all look like idiots (as if the jury is still deliberating on that one).

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.