Tuesday, 15 August 2000
.....
Last week, I thought it was simply impossible to make a stranger vice-presidential pick than Bush letting Dick Cheney select ... Dick Cheney. But Gore picking Lieberman simply boggles me. I've read speculation that Lieberman was chosen in part to counter the "Monica Lewinsky" card Bush wants to play. But surely history shows that the Lewinsky card is a deuce. After all, the Republican Congress parleyed it into an impeachment trial and a public relations disaster. Bob Dole ran on an "Anti-Clinton character" platform and failed miserably. What on earth makes Gore think that Bush will do any better? (I would add "What makes Bush think he'll do better?" but the answer "brute stupidity" leaps too quickly to mind.)
It seems that Lieberman is to be to Gore what Gore was to be to Clinton: the righter-wing "family values" cleanser, with a dash of "defense defender" thrown in. Is it any wonder that progressives are unhappy with this ticket?
In a campaign where progressives really do have an alternative to vote for, one might have thought that Gore would do a little bit to attract them, or placate them, or, at least, not actively drive them away. Now, perhaps Gore is thinking that Nader isn't really sapping Gore's core support, but, instead, is mostly drawing progressives who wouldn't have voted for Gore anyway (typically by not voting at all). But even in that case, those are definitely people who are going to despise Bush, and thus are, to a degree, ripe for the plucking. Plus they're cheaper to fight for, as Nader doesn't have tons of money.
There's a simple, cheap thing Gore could do to soften his anti-progressive image: He could support the protesters, especially those still in jail in Philly. This doesn't even require taking them seriously. It's easy enough to disclaim them as misguided (positionwise or tactically) while defending their trampled rights. To bend from the standard script this much would be a strong (if unjustified) blow to his corpo-sycophant image.
Alas, that image isn't merely skin deep. It's a core feature of both major parties and their candidates. No deviance, however cynically calculating, from the corporate line is permitted. If this behavior feels like that of marketing flacks who will say anything to promote their company and products even if it denies manifest reality, it should be no surprise.
The same money pays both.
This is What Gore won't give <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/626>