By all means read the cover story in this Sunday's New York Times, which is not short, but paints as thorough of a picture as any the mainstream media has yet composed on the ambitious young woman John McCain has chosen to be his running mate.
As Bob Herbert, in an editorial in the same paper, points out (perhaps for the benefit of silly optimists such as myself), this whole American Idol schtick isn't just over the top, it might just prevail.
And what then?
Dare we speculate?
Now the Far Right, Rush Limbaugh's crowd, has never quite trusted John McCain. For good reason. Since they suspect, and are probably correct in their suspicion, that he finds them and their ilk to be a bunch of ignorant, intolerant assholes.
George W. Bush, temperamentally speaking, was much better suited to sidling up to these folks than John McCain ever was, or ever will be.
But John McCain knows, as George W. did, that you can't as a Republican get elected president without paying tribute to these folks.
Dubya, for instance, in spite of being an Ivy League rich kid who weaseled his way out of a war he supported by joining, with Daddy's help, the National Guard, and then didn't show up, was also, luckily for his future presidential ambitions, a long-standing and repeated fuck-up who drank, who then found Jesus and quit, before deciding he wanted to be president.
A much better profile, altogether, for someone seeking to be the Republican nominee for president, than being a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war, who shot off his mouth about Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell not being very tolerant folks.
So McCain had to do something, since remarks like that, irrespective his being respected and praised on occasion by Democrats, are going to dig into that pretty well certain 30% of the vote you're going to get if you either talk like a hayseed and have a personal relationship with Jesus, or if you're really cute and sassy, it turns out, and have a personal relationship with Jesus—assuming, of course, you're Against Abortion and Against Gay People Getting Married (and also, Heaven forbid, having gay people, married or otherwise, adopting children whose Mom decided not to have an abortion, but didn't want to get married at seventeen either).
Now, as a very quick aside, don't misunderstand me: I'm all for people who drink too much, or drug too much, who've messed their lives up royally, and probably a lot of other lives, too, finding Jesus—someone, something, anything, that'll help them quit being that way, and keep them off the highways, where they might otherwise kill people I care about. I would just argue that the logical next step, after finding Jesus and swearing off the booze, shouldn't necessarily be stepping onto Air Force One.
And I know—I know—Sarah Palin wasn't a drunk, she was a beauty queen. She didn't join the National Guard, or have baseball team bought for her so she'd stay out of trouble; she didn't get into much trouble in the first place, won a pageant, got into television, had a family: she has the courage of her convictions ... she doesn't so much appeal to these folks as she is these folks.
Which makes her even more qualified for be a Heartbeat Away from the Presidency, yes?
Where, in this case, our president would be pretty old, anyway, and already looks pretty tired and worn out, not to mention pale ...
One of these folks that even the Bush Administration, according to one book by a former staffer, ridiculed, made fun of ... only this one has looks and focus, and surrounds herself with folks like her—though not quite as good-looking, or clever. Who, turns out, aren't very New Testament-like in the way they play with others.
Meaning, you'd better be careful if you go ridiculing this one, or you'll end up ... smote.
Anyway, she's John McCain's running mate. And if he wins in November, he's going to be mighty beholden to her and folks like her—folks whom the party needs, increasingly, but as yet hasn't had to remodel the store for.
But if you're the vice-president, and think the store needs remodeling, big-time, even though you really don't understand much about the store, much less how it runs, or how it was modeled in the first place, and the someone who actually runs the store dies and leaves you with it ...
You might be like a scary, megalomaniac-type 16-year-old given a Big Store to Run.
Unless you just can't wait that long. Because a whole lot of people, and maybe even God, have got you convinced that you ought to get the store however which way you can. Before it's too late and we all get hauled off by the Rapture.
Or is that too fantastic?
Read the Times article, tell me if I'm way off.
And what if John McCain gets elected and decides, like presidents before him, that he's only going to do so much to placate these folks whose ideas are pretty Out There, and Intolerant, who he's never really liked much anyway but who, nonetheless, got all excited when one of their kind joined the ticket and not only helped his inconstant, tired self get elected, but actually—they'd argue, vociferously—Got R Done?
What then?
How would the Original Mavericks play together in that circumstance?
Being, as they are, kind of different in their approach to mavericking. Each, by and large, getting his or her reputation for pissing off people like the other.
So, what happens when these two mavericks inevitably collide?
And can it please happen before November 4th?
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