Inside Rove's Diary: The "Magic" of Presidential Street-Fighting

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Bernard Weiner (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

For OpEdNews: Bernard Weiner - Writer

By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

Dear Diary:

Yeah, there have been other great moments in my political career -- maneuvering Dim Son into the White House in 2000 and then repeating in 2004, for example -- but this one feels really good.

McCain was on a fast track to oblivion a few weeks ago. Obama had the momentum, had the issues, had the youthful energy, had the money, whereas our Republicans were divided and depressed. John looked old and tired, running against Obama mainly because he was the last GOP candidate standing in a very weak field, and the hardright conservatives and fundamentalists didn't trust him and wouldn't go all-out for him.

(I don't blame them for being suspicious. He's not a consistently loyal Republican. Would you trust a guy who, over the decades, has been such a political and moral chameleon?: a strong conservative who became an anti-Bush "maverick" who then changed all his major positions so he could make one final run for the presidency and wound up voting 90% of the time for Bush's policies and making nice with the staunch-conservative base. Kinda makes you wonder.)

This time out, John was coming to believe that it was a losing proposition, so much so that he thought he needed to do something really different to shake up the race: He wanted to choose Lieberman for his running mate. Jeebus! That would have been the seal of doom. Two turncoats. (John gave it up to the North Vietnamese when they broke him and then he abandoned Bush before he embraced him again. Lieberman deserted from his Democrat Party and came over to join us "on the Dark Side," hee, hee, hee!)

The Boy Genius was riding again! I nixed the Jew and, especially after Obama dissed Hillary by not picking her for V.P., I went for a small-town, religious-conservative woman. Our fundamentalist base was ecstatic, rural America was energized, John behaved younger, and Sarah's mouth spewed out just the kind of red-meat nastiness the liberals don't know how to handle, especially when it comes from such an attractive package.

THE TRICKY ART OF DISTRACTION

It's all simple Magic 101. You keep your audience concentrating on one thing while you're setting up the trick. Illusion, prestidigitation, three-card political monte.

We keep 'em focused on Palin's loving-mom persona, her simple no-nonsense way of talking (and thinking), her affinity for guns and hunting and hockey, her decolletage, her upswept hair, her brash, assertive style, her lipstick, her cute little retarded baby. Meanwhile, with the other hand, we're deflecting the atttention away from McCain while trying to keep her negatives hidden: the several dozen scandals and ethical lapses that have already surfaced, her total lack of national and international knowledge and experience, her tendency to, how shall we say, expand the truth parameters.

So far, the selection of Palin is working like I hoped it would. In top secret, we unveiled the new, sleek, attractive model at the convention, and now a whole lot of drivers want to ride in our hot little red sports-car. I was hoping to pick up a lot of ex-Hillary supporters, and we are getting a few, but mostly we're getting more traditional white women -- and men! and old Jews! and traditional Catholics! -- who see sassy Sarah as their way of stickin' it to the man, the elitists and pundits who tell them their time is gone and just move over for the black guy.

Politics to me is like conducting a 305-million-member orchestra, knowing which chords to play with which group and when. There's the underswell of racism in America always ripe for the plucking -- that's the bass chord, and it's so simple to play: All you need are a few code words ("uppity," "sambo," middle name of "Hussein" so no doubt a "secret Muslim," etc.) Now we've got a soprano who can smile and lower the boom all at the same time. (Well, yeah, her high-pitched nasality is grating, but we're used to it and it drives the liberal pinkos crazy!)

McCAIN: "I GOT NUTHIN'"

A few months ago, our cause was in the toilet. McCain asked to meet me, the "consultant," and more or less said: "Karl, I don't know what to do. The public is in love with Obama, they agree with him on the issues, on the need to turn the country around, on the need for major change. I got nuthin'. We're stuck in place, going nowhere. Unless something changes, we're going to go down in flames here. Can you help? I'll do whatever you say if you can get me into the White House."

So I told him, in effect: "Look, John, you're right. Obama has the Big Mo. We've got to do something to change the race, something dramatic. And we've got to start hitting Obama quick, with everything we've got. Something to throw him off his stride and his game plan. Make him respond to our agenda and attacks, don't give him a chance to go on the offense.

1 | 2 | 3

www.crisispapers.org

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.