Here's my new pre-election VDARE.com column. An excerpt:
Mostly, he just talked about what a hero he is.
Okay, he was for offshore oil drilling. And then there’s … uh … nuclear power plants! And, well, some other stuff, no doubt.
The problem is that the things McCain really cares about, like Invading the World and Inviting the World, are death on the campaign trail in 2008.
The Republicans’ winning issue this year could have been mass immigration, both illegal and legal. But they somehow wound up with the author of the 2006 McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill as their candidate!
Imagine if Obama’s illegal alien aunt had surfaced after the GOP candidate had spent the fall defining the immigration issue in the American mind. It would have been the coup de grace. As it was, McCain operative Mark Salter threw the issue away, saying "It’s a family matter"—as if the laws of the United States are an Obama "family matter". (Maybe they will be, but not just yet).
And what was McCain against?
Well, he was against socialism, redistribution of wealth, and unrepentant terrorist William Ayers!
Yes, but what does Ayers have to do with Obama? Well, they worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
But wasn’t Walter Annenberg the biggest Republican donor of his day?
Okay, now, you know and I know that Old Man Annenberg got taken to the cleaners by some slick leftists who didn’t do a darn thing for the test scores of Chicago public school students, but who built their brand names in the tax-and-grant consuming sectors of Chicago’s leftist fringe by handing out Annenberg’s millions to all their friends and allies. But do the voters?
Maybe there is more of a connection between Obama and Ayers than opportunism. But if McCain was going to use Ayers as his trump card, he should have hired private detectives in Chicago five months ago to document the Obama-Ayers relationship and then leak the findings to the National Enquirer. Heck, anthropologist Stanley Kurtz has singlehandedly done a better job of tracking down the Obama-Ayers links than the entire McCain campaign.
(Don’t you have the feeling that nobody in the McCain brain trust ever got around to buying Rev. Wright’s DVDs?)
In contrast to Obama’s murky dealings with Ayers, the Democratic candidate has long boasted of Wright’s mentorship, devoting most of pp. 274-295 of his first book, Dreams From My Father, to Wright, and borrowing the title of his second, The Audacity of Hope, from Wright’s sermon about how "white folks’ greed runs a world in need".
Let’s be clear: the reason McCain has gone on and on about Bill Ayers but hasn’t mentioned in six months Jeremiah Wright is because Ayers is white and Wright is black. McCain is terrified that if he mentions Wright, Republicans will be smeared as racists.
Well, guess what? Republicans are being smeared as racists anyway. Heck, Obama smeared Bill Clinton as racist. Of course, the Obama forces were going to do it to the GOP.
The question for Republicans was never whether or not they are going to get smeared as racists. The question was always whether they were going to wind up a smeared loser—or a smeared winner.
McCain chose to be a smeared loser.
If you don’t allow yourself to bring up race, you simply cannot run against the real Barack Obama. You wind up running against the fantasy made up by his strategist David Axelrod, credulously summed up last week by the New York Times’ Brian Stelter as Obama’s "refusal to be defined by his race and his aspirations to bridge the partisan divide".
Why can’t you run against the real Obama without talking about race? Because the real Barack is all about race.
Look, Obama wrote a 460-page memoir about his successful struggle to define himself as a black man, which he helpfully subtitled A Story of Race and Inheritance.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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38 comments:
Steve, that was a nice pre-mortem of the soon to be stinking, puss filled, corpse of the McCain campaign.
Kudos.
There were actually public opinion polls in California in 1982 that suggested that the voting population was more hostile to an Armenian candidate (Deukmejian) than to a black one.
Of course, the whole point about a "Bradley effect" is that it's not reflected in the public opinion polls, but I've always felt that Bradley benefited as much from prejudice as he suffered from it. The black turnout was probably higher than usual.
Besides, what really did Bradley in was the death penalty. Deukmejian was unequivocally for it. Bradley lamely said that he would enforce the law, whatever it was.
The death penalty was very popular in California in the 1980's and the fact that it wasn't being enforced is what did in a sitting California supreme court justice and several cohorts.
So even if the "death penalty" issue had racial appendages, it was hardly applicable to ONLY black candidates. Bradley probably would have won if he had come out in favor of it.
When he ran again in 1986 against Deukmejian, Bradley became a death penalty advocate. But California was not yet a one-party state, and Deukmejian had just provided four years of good government.
Whatever percentage the Hispanic vote represents, it's presumably four-square for Obama right now.
But enough has been written in this blog and elsewhere about the schism that has arisen between blacks and Latinos in other contexts.
Just how much of a racial healer will Obama prove to be? Everyone is focused right now on the "healing process" that his candidacy is supposed to have between blacks and whites.
To ask the question of whether that will hold after he is elected is all too obvious, but it's also worth asking if he can possibly do enough to satisfy his newfound Latino friends.
For that matter, can he possibly prevent disillusionment among his most ardent black supporters?
A video is making rounds among the www of an enthusiastic black female supporter crowing about she will no longer have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage.
What happens when real life sets in? What happens when Obama is inaugurated and the land of milk and honey doesn't magically arise?
The McCain campaign's singular obsession with William Ayers to the obvious exclusion of Rev. Wright showcased their unwillingness to do what it truly would have taken to win the election. They should have either done a completely issues-oriented campaign that the American people might have seen as refreshing, or they should have run a completely scorched-earth, Lee Atwater-style campaign. The mushy middle they ended up pursuing was doomed to fail.
A good article, but impractical.
The popular issues McCain could've won on are virtually prohibited by the doner class elites that fund the GOP (and DEM) party. I don't believe there was a single major party candidate who was truly opposed to (a) illegal immigration, (b) state enforced reverse racism and (c) promoting anti-white racism (e.g. supressing the Rev. Wright story).
With the overwhelming pro-Obama media bias, it's hard to judge how good they were. They didn't really didn't accomplish anything impressive with all their money except keep the teleprompter running, avoid interviews of substance and stay on message. Then again, with the MSM acting as their own marketing arm, all they had to do was run out the clock.
Even with an over-the-top hostile MSM against them, some weakness of McCain's campaign are apparent. The man himself appeared to just be going thru the motions. It must've sucked for Palin who appeared to really have wanted to compete.
The whole election cycle seems a preordained charade.
Steve,
I know that you hate this charge and that you've dismissed it before, but in light of this recent article, I'd like'd to know what you think about it. Thanks.
http://www.cashill.com/intellect_fraud/yavelow.htm
Until he suspended his campaign, McCain still had enough grassroots momentum from the Palin choice to reach the White House if he just said No! to the bailout. Regardless of whether that's the right thing to do or not (I think so, but I could be wrong), it would have resonated with the base and carried him through.
Here's the thing, though: we all know McCain's not that guy. Though I admire his courage and find his mercurial, loose-lipped approach to the press refreshing, he's ultimately just a pol. In the event, he ended up looking impetuous, ineffectual and possibly senile.
And aside from the slew of lefty judges we're going to get stuck with, I don't mind seeing him go down. You weren't looking forward to that immigration reform bill he was going to try to push through again, were you?
No predictions on how changes in housing prices will influence vote share?
Nice site!
"But it just turned out that the Bush Administration was even less competent than those Mexican governments at keeping the balls in the air until McCain was home free."
True. Or perhaps the Bush administration just isn't that enthusiastic about helping out John McCain. Apres Bush, le deluge.
I wonder whether McCain/Palin's frequent appearances on Saturday Night Live also helped queer their chances. Although occasionally funny, their schtick just made them seem desperate for attention and unpresidential.
Robert61 -- you know Chuck Schumer is predicting that he and Obama will offer Amnesty AND Open Borders, in the first 100 days, don't you?
As a matter of fact, he listed the agenda: Amnesty, more Affirmative Action, Reparations, more "Green" Carbon Cap/Trade, withdraw from Iraq, cut the military, release the terrorists at Gitmo, and Gun bans.
With Obama minting 45 million new Spanish speaking voters, you better learn Spanish.
McCain seems to still be 'shocked' that his buddies in the media didn't help him. He doesn't seem to really understand that they only supported him when he was the most liberal republican. But at this point he could be to the left Obama and they would still be against him.
If you stand in the way of electing a black man you are standing in the way of the revolution. Hillary perhaps found that out too late - she was willing to bring up race far more than mccain did.
I wonder if the white liberals encourging this crap really understand they implications..or are they like the liberal nobles who participated in the french revolution, who thought the guilliatine could NEVER happen to them.
McCain seems to still be 'shocked' that his buddies in the media didn't help him. He doesn't seem to really understand that they only supported him when he was the most liberal republican. But at this point he could be to the left Obama and they would still be against him.
If you stand in the way of electing a black man you are standing in the way of the revolution. Hillary perhaps found that out too late - she was willing to bring up race far more than mccain did.
I wonder if the white liberals encourging this crap really understand they implications..or are they like the liberal nobles who participated in the french revolution, who thought the guilliatine could NEVER happen to them.
"Don’t procrastinate until the last moment on the Veep choice."
Stop dancing around the issue and get to the heart of the matter, the real prescription is "Don’t procrastinate until the last moment AND THEN pick someone with mediocre IQ as VP." Palin wasn't done in by the task of defending the contradictory and incoherent nature of McCainism, as you imply, she was undermined by her inability to acquire (or even appear to acquire) the bare bones knowledge you would take for granted that someone running VP would have. The real difficulty was not "coming in cold" or the more popular euphemism, "inexperience." A bright guy like Jindal, despite serving as governor only as long as Palin, would have never have gotten the flack Palin has because he has the brains to handle the task. You can't merely be tagged as a quick study for this sort of VP stunt to work, you actually have to be a quick study. That no one mulled this detail over in the McCain campaign is yet another sign of how entrenched IQ denial has become in our society.
You would think that someone who has history of commenting on the intersection of IQ and politics could be a little bit more frank about this.
Black men had the vote long before white women.
And it's not just Palin; Ferraro got the same treatment.
McCain:
Sold out his country and his comrades within 72 hours of being shot down in VietNam.
Sold out his wife, within a few weeks of returning.
Sold out to Keating.
Sold out his mentor Goldwater.
Sold out all the POW/MIA while running the senate select committee on same.
Sold out on Immigration.
Sold out to Falwell.
He was the perfect political candidate --- a sell out all his life. Never stood for anything, never believed in anything, never did anything. By all rights he will be the next Minority Leader in the Senate.
"A bright guy like Jindal, despite serving as governor only as long as Palin, would have never have gotten the flack Palin has because he has the brains to handle the task"
the skin color would have provided an extra layer of flack protection too.
I will not be recognizing Obama as president if elected, anymore than I would acknowledge a thief who stole my car as the owner.
Seriously is Obama even a legitmate US citizen - he is at the very least a dual citizen which makes him unfit for president.
Strangely enough, if Pres. Obama were to come out in opposition to reparations and amnesty, his approval ratings would probably go over 80% and he'd coast to reelection in '12. But that's Bill Clinton-style triangulation, and I don't think Obama's enough of an opportunist to go there.
OTOH, the next 4 years are going to be interesting, what with the rumors already circulating about the mistress that Obama has, not to mention the possibility that the press might catch Mrs. Obama in an unguarded moment saying what she really thinks about whites.
McCain is Bob Dole,minus the charisma. How did this idiot wind up the Republivcan nominee?? I wonder if Obomo,who had such tender words of support for the Jena 6,and who it seems never met a black thug he didnt like,will show similar concern for the killer(s) in the jennifer Hudson case??
There were actually public opinion polls in California in 1982 that suggested that the voting population was more hostile to an Armenian candidate (Deukmejian) than to a black one.
One site recently had a link to the top 250 Most Wanted in Los Angeles. Most of the perps, of course, were black and Hispanic, and no small portion of the (small number of) whites on the list were Armenian. Reading through some of the crimes they committed you had to smile. In no case was anyone physically hurt, and the cons they pulled were incredibly creative and large scale - hundreds of thousands of dollars, not knocking over a convenience store for $50 then shooting the clerk. Armenians: you gotta love 'em, even when they're crooks.
Whatever percentage the Hispanic vote represents, it's presumably four-square for Obama right now.
I'm still confused about who I'd prefer to win. One thing I'm not confused about: I want McCain to lose the highest immigration states. That means losing Nevada, not Colorado; Virginia, not Ohio.
If there's anything to come out of this, it will be the ability to point to McCain's losses and emphatically declare that mass immigration and Hispandering do not work. It's not just the lopsided Hispanic vote count, 70-30 or whatever - but the loss of traditionally GOP states that have suffered large-scale immigration. We should be able to tell David Brooks and Bill Kristol to take their brilliant strategy of Invade/Invite/In Hock and stick it where the sun don't shine. The advocates of that strategy are busily trying to blame the coming defeat on evangelicals.
They should have either done a completely issues-oriented campaign...or they should have run a completely scorched-earth, Lee Atwater-style campaign.
Why not both? You have to define yourself AND your opponent. Contra Mr. Sailer, I think that (this year especially) it's dangerous to focus too much on your opponent's negatives. Bush has spent the last 7 years telling Americans we need to be afraid, and voters want answers, not fear. McCain should've supported border enforcement - that would be something positive and something that would reassure the voters and would contrast him with Obama.
How will McCain interpret his defeat? Will he tell himself he should've gone pro-enforcement, and regret not so doing? Or will he blame conservatives for his loss and get back at them by supporting another amnesty bill? McCain's a bitter, spiteful, crusty old coot and I happen to think it'll be the latter. He's one of the type that thinks it's never his fault. I want, hope and pray that he proves me wrong.
The popular issues McCain could've won on are virtually prohibited by the don[o]r class elites that fund the GOP (and DEM) party.
True, but if there's one lesson to learn from this campaign it's that there's money in the middle class. Obama's fundraising proves that, even if you discount a significant portion as coming from fraudulent sources. The internet combined with a reasonably attractive candidate can result in huge sums being raised from idealists, not opportunists.
Palin...was undermined by her inability to acquire (or even appear to acquire) the bare bones knowledge you would take for granted that someone running VP would have.
Palin's mistake was in not realizing the minute she was elected governor that she was an attractive veep pick, especially with Clinton and Obama as probable winners. Then and there she should've set aside a few hours each week to read Foreign Affairs and acquired a mentor from one think tank or another. They would certainly have obliged her. Maybe she did, in which case it doesn't show, and she's a bad pick.
Apres Bush, le deluge.
Words to remember.
Just a thought: after the election, Steve, a predictions thread, with rules keeping each prediction as concise as possible?
I'd really like to see how iStevers think the next 4 will turn out.
A bright guy like Jindal, despite serving as governor only as long as Palin, would have never have gotten the flack Palin has because he has the brains to handle the task
1) Jindal has not served as long as Palin. Louisiana elects its governors the year before presidential elections. At the time of the convention he had been governor less than a year.
the skin color would have provided an extra layer of flack protection too.
2) Skin color is irrelevant. Jindal is still caucasian, and not a member of a "historically oppressed minority," so it would not have mattered.
3) Jindal, being an extremely bright and extremely young Asian, probably would've turned off some blue collars (think PA and OH) but might've more than made up for it by attracting upscale young whites (think CO and northern VA) but mostly in lots of states MCain won't win anyway.
4) Being smart, Jindal was also well aware that 2008 is not the GOP's year. He could convincingly fall back on the claim that "I promised the people of Lousisiana..."
5) In a year when immigration is still lingering in the back of the minds of so many GOP voters, is nominating the son of immigrants a good idea for the GOP?
> A video is making rounds among the www of an enthusiastic black female supporter crowing about she will no longer have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage.
After this election, duck when the reality hits the fan.
"5) In a year when immigration is still lingering in the back of the minds of so many GOP voters, is nominating the son of immigrants a good idea for the GOP?"
if he came out against immigration hell yes!
btw anyone see boss obama's henchmen making sure elections are fair? I guess this is an adjucnt of his 'truth squad':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCeD1RcJjAg
McCain campaigned as he flew: worse than expected.
When black people use the word "Race" they mean it as shorthand for the objective fact of white racism, but never as implying in the slightest any feelings of ethnocentrism on their part. Thats how Obama's use of it in the title of his book is taken.
Predictions thread is a good idea for what it's worth I think
1) Obama will approve of an Israeli attack to totally destroy Lebannon's civilian infrastructure (ostenstibly aimed at Hezbollah).
2) The hallowed tradition is to wait untill re-election is secured then start the war so Obama might wait until then to attack, But sooner or later he will attack Iran.
3) A Middle East settlement will be overseen by Dennis Ross.
what the republicans should have done was not run mccain.
steve is right that the primary system does not work too well. the nominee can be decided before half the people even get to vote. plus there is the problem that maybe one republican is the guy who can beat the other republicans in a competition between republicans, but is the weakest candidate against the democrats. in that case the republican party would want the weaker between-republicans politician to win the primary over the stronger between-republicans politician, so they would have a better chance against the democrat.
this is a lot like matchmaking in sports playoffs. team A can beat all the other teams in the competition except team B, so fans of team A hope some random team eliminates team B before team A runs into them. this happens every single year in football, basketball, and ice hockey. it's also standard stuff in wrestling, boxing, and MMA. A can easily beat B C and D, but probably not E, so A hopes that B or C or D meets E first and takes out E so A does not lose to E, who has no chance of winning the tournament and is just a spoiler for the favorite, A.
i believe this scenario was the reason democrats created the superdelegate for the democrat primary.
a nation with 300 million citizens needs more than two parties anyway. this silly system, where every viewpoint on every issue has to be condensed into a binary decision, it's not a good way to run a republic.
For all the talk about the importance of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, every president in recent memory has won his parties' primary in SC. It was crucial this election for Obama after losses in New Hampshire and Nevada. On the Republican side, I can't remember the last party nominee who didn't win the SC primary. This year Thompson and Huckabee split the conservative/evangelical vote, Romney was barely competitive, Guiliani didn't even bother, which left McCain with enough retired military voters to give him an unimpressive victory.
Assuming McCain losing today, Palin, if she runs, will certainly win SC primary in the 2012, unless a candidate can get to the right of her on immigration and make it an issue. That dog will hunt in the South. Forgive me if I'm not terribly dissapointed if McCain were to lose today, but it would immediately make Palin the frontrunner in 2012 and any potential challengers would have to position themselves to her right.
"Sold out his mentor Goldwater."
Goldwater himself later sold out, didn't he?
If I remember correctly, he became bitter and senile, married a youthful liberal woman and turned on conservatives -- at least on socio-cultural issues.
I seem to remember him coming out for Hillary Care, as well, though I wouldn't vouch for my memory on that count.
Certainly, given the invective that was hurled at him by the pointy-heads in 1964 and given the way in which they venerated him later, Goldwater must have been the all-time champion in the battle for the "Strange New Respect" award.
"I will not be recognizing Obama as president if elected, anymore than I would acknowledge a thief who stole my car as the owner, Or the policeman who kicks me in the head with his boot and draws his revolver on me."
a nation with 300 million citizens needs more than two parties anyway. this silly system, where every viewpoint on every issue has to be condensed into a binary decision, it's not a good way to run a republic. --Jody
Hey, how about this idea-- breaking up the "republic" into little republics, where these issues can be better adapted to local conditions?
Oh, wait... we once had that. It's called "federalism".
The problem with our federal government isn't with the "system" set out in the Constitution. It's that the decisions affect too many people, and way too much is decided in the distant "center", rather than close to home, or for that matter, privately.
Jody's system is already in place elsewhere; it's called parliamentarianism. It tends to two-, or two-and-a-half-, party set-ups in the Anglosphere, Germany and France, and a plethora of parties in the rest of the world. (Where it even works.)
You weren't looking forward to that immigration reform bill he was going to try to push through again, were you?"
That's going to be the first place he looks to rebuild his legacy with the media morons. That and global warming.
I expect him to be the worst GOP failed nominee since Wilkie.
That was a nice example of another way to have lost this race.
If the key for the GOP is to move more to the right, and somehow people will "see the light", then just keep it up.
Heck, even the Democrats figured that out back in the 80's.
Pretty soon you'll have a nice, idealogically pure, small, ineffective but very loud party.
The future of your party is in the center. The faster you figure that out, the better it will be for the rest of us.
We need the input of the other party to solve the problems of the republic. And since that is clearly something a "true republican" would never say, perhaps that's the problem of today's Republican party.
I'd like to see some statistics on the breakdown of the voting of "naturalized citizens." Not just the "Latino" vote, but detailed information on all of the foreign born voters.
I'd also like to see Bambi's birth certificate and application for admission to the bar, but that's not going to happen, is it?
Palin, if she runs, will certainly win SC primary in the 2012, unless a candidate can get to the right of her on immigration and make it an issue. That dog will hunt in the South.
Getting to her right on that issue will be easy, if anyone bothers to try. It would be more interesting if the Democrats and a few Repubs (McCain, Graham, Specter, etc.) try to make the point moot by passing amnesty. I'm not sure there's a way they can. Promises of enforcement will still need to be kept, and then there's the issue of legal immigration rates.
But say they do pass amnesty, we get 10-15 million new potential voters, and a GOP candidate dares to come out for enforcement and reduced immigration. Here's my prediction: that candidate will mark the beginning of a GOP deliberately orienting its message to white voters. Maybe in 4, maybe in 8, but definitely within 12. 12 years into socialized medicine and whatever else the Messiah has in store for us will be the maximum time it takes for white (and Asian) voters to relaize they're getting sheered.
"What happens when real life sets in? What happens when Obama is inaugurated and the land of milk and honey doesn't magically arise?"
The same thing that has happened in South Africa. It is the white folks fault. Whenever campaign season rolls around, the ANC, COSATU, the ANC Youth League, and local politicians all over blame white folks. This gets out the black/brown vote and wins the election.
Once the election is over (under Mandela and Mbeki at least) the rhetoric eases off, the white folks who actually keep the country running are calmed down and reassured, and the country continues its slow decline.
It is sort of midway between the ethnic cleansing that Obama's daddy proposed and the Kenyan model of black government ownership/non-black business ownership.
Time is running out, though. There are so few white folks left in SA that the businesses and the major utilities are collapsing.
Any failure of welfare and public utilities is therefore due to white folks greed (as Obama and his minister put it). There must be a white whipping boy, so as the problems expand and continue, the white folks' blame does not go away between SA elections. The rate of white folks genocide is constantly climbing.
But as African-Americans will tell you: "black folks are slaughtering each other in SA at a horrific rate, so why should white folks be treated special and be safe?"
The answer is, of course, that "they are the civilized culture that is keeping the blacks on SA alive and semi-taken-care-of AND they are my people."
Unfortunately, this statement is impossible for white folks to say out loud anywhere in the white world.
So what to expect for America? Expect each new election to bring new charges of Evil White Racists. Banks failing, manufacturing collapsin, etc. It will all be due to "White Folks Greed in a World of Need", as our president-to-be said in his book.
And the numbers of white folks will keep shrinking, as we try to take care of all the black/brown folks filling America and have enough left over to have a single child, possibly two.
Isn't that how it always works for other Market Dominant Minorities?
All they have to do is suppress a white response to free immigration and high taxes on whites until the current majority minority youth wave has grown up and the job will be complete.
And who wants to live like the Jews -- having to always suck up to people you know are dumber than you -- having to neurotically persuade your entire nation that God created your nation to serve others, to "bring light unto the (stupid) nations", when you really know that you should rule.
Our children are going to live in a much, much different mental space in just a handful of years.
I anticipate and American BEE program, like in South Africa, in which every white business must, by law, have a black, brown or Asian co-owner.
"I'd also like to see Bambi's birth certificate and application for admission to the bar, but that's not going to happen, is it?"
No, I'd say it isn't, but give it a shot. Maybe you should request a face-to-face meeting where he can show you these documents.
With Obama minting 45 million new Spanish speaking voters, you better learn Spanish.
Cut the crap Testing. McCain would have taught us Spanish, too. What you're really afraid of is you or your bretheren learning Arabic. Well, Marhaba habib, time to get started.
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