Politics & Funk

“How many ways to get what you want
I use the best
I use the rest
I use the N.M.E
I use Anarchy”

-The Sex Pistols, “Anarchy in the U.K”

Clad in a feathery tunic resembling a jail smock, Johnny Rotten joined The Sex Pistols on the stage of The Tonight Show last Tuesday and dutifully screamed his lungs out during “Anarchy in the U.K.” Afterwards, he exchanged a genial handshake with Leno, and his guest, Presidential candidate Ron Paul. The idea that Paul, who spent the early stages of the campaign fending off vehement attacks from Republicans and the conservative media for his anti-war views, has recently taken on the role of cult hero and potential spoiler is wild on its own. But, the fact that the 72-year-old physician and free-market champion ended a prime time interview by smacking palms with the self-proclaimed king of vitriol anarchy is enough to make any seasoned political junkie quiver. Ron Paul and The Sex Pistols? Why not, stranger things have happened and will, in a political primary season that becomes more bizarre by the moment.

In Tuesday’s Presidential debate at Drexel College in Philadelphia, the Democratic brethren seemed willing to try anything up to lawless anarchy in the hopes of taming the virtually unstoppable ascent of frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Who could blame them? Mrs. Clinton’s campaign appears to grow more awe-inspiring by the moment, and has shown itself to be invincible to attack. The weak spots in the Clinton armor have been clear-cut from the beginning, but how to exploit them is a mystery to the host of Presidential hopefuls trailing the former First Lady in the polls.

The ineptness has been led by Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Despite his foresight in condemning the Iraq War, his reputation as an honest and non-partisan leader, and his glorified public persona as a hip, charismatic intellectual—who purportedly spends his nights listening to Miles Davis on a scratchy record player while reading a dog-eared copy of Emerson’s “Self Reliance”—Obama has been unable to gain ground. In recent national polls, he still trails Hillary by between 25 and 30 points. Even more damning, he is losing the African-American voting block to Hillary by 10%, a demographic that is absolutely crucial to his success.

Ironically, it is his image as a reform candidate that has crippled him the most. Obama’s “Politics of Hope” have handcuffed him in his efforts to draw a real distinction between himself and Clinton. In fact, any attempt by Obama at harshly criticizing Clinton draws an immediate and predictable tongue lashing from her handlers, who love nothing more than accusing Mr. Obama of engaging in ‘attack politics.’ For this reason, Obama has been forced to resort to gently stressing his policy differences with Hillary instead of deriding her character, which is where she is the most vulnerable.

But one can only be gun-shy in politics for so long before ending up on the wrong end of the bullet, and on Tuesday it appeared that the other Democratic hopefuls had endured just about enough of Mrs. Clinton cakewalking her way towards the nomination. In addition, debate co-moderator and Meet the Press host Tim Russert was publicly known to have an unquenchable lust for tripping up the Hillary Clinton machine. In the last debate, he had viciously sandbagged her with one of the last questions of the night.

Quoting the sentiments of an “unnamed high level public official,” Russert asked the candidates if they agreed that torture should be authorized in a doomsday scenario in which a captive had knowledge of an imminent terror threat, such as a dirty bomb. Across the board, the Democrats said no. Then, after Hillary—whom Russert had arranged to answer last—toed the party line, Russert revealed the mystery speaker to be none other than former president Bill Clinton. His eyes lit up with excitement, but Hillary clamped down and didn’t miss a beat. “He’s not the one on the stage right now,” she retorted coolly, likely fantasizing about having Russert forcefully castrated within minutes of her inauguration.

In Philadelphia on Tuesday, Russert didn’t get quite as fresh, but he didn’t have to, as John Edwards and Obama jumped on Hillary from the onset. “The Presidency requires us to be honest about the challenges that we face. It does not mean, changing positions whenever it’s politically convenient,” Obama stated in an early sound bite aimed at Clinton’s waffling.

Edwards was quick to follow up, accusing Hillary of engaging in “doubletalk,” and defending corruption. “Will she be the person who brings about the change in this country? You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he stated in his rural twang, accusing Mrs. Clinton of being too intertwined with special interests.

More attacks followed from the field regarding Clinton’s moderate stance on Iraq, her status as a Washington Insider, and a recent vote for a resolution designating the Royal Iranian Guard a terrorist organization—a piece of legislation Edwards said “looked as if it was literally written by the neo-cons.” However, despite the fact that it was Edwards and Obama who took most of the big shots, it was Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd who championed the most resounding anti-Clinton moment of the debate.

When Clinton stated that New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s plan to allow illegal aliens to have driver’s licenses “makes a lot of sense,” Dodd was the only candidate to refute her, arguing that a diver’s license is a “privilege, not a right,” and shouldn’t be bestowed upon undocumented residents. His response caused Clinton to attempt to re-clarify her position, stating that although she believed in the principle and the logic, she did not, and would not, explicitly endorse Spitzer’s plan. The convoluted attempt at further generalizing an already vague position was quickly leapt upon by Dodd, Edwards, and Obama, who were all given time by the moderators to admonish Hillary for flip-flopping.

For once Hillary Clinton seemed vulnerable, and her fellow candidates appear to have drawn blood with a slew of well-coordinated body blows. However, the scant damage inflicted during Tuesday’s debate is nowhere near the amount of carnage that must take place if Mrs. Clinton is to lose the Democratic primary. After the September debate in New Hampshire, CNBC’s Chris Matthews compared Hillary’s campaign to a boxer who simply puts up his dukes, refuses to swing, and challenges his opponent to try to squeeze a jab in between his gloves.

The analogy is dead on.

It is currently the strategy of the Clinton campaign to stay as far away from saying anything substantive with respect to policy as possible, believing that the only way for them to lose this nomination is to slip up, misspeak, or engage in some sort of major political gaffe. Finally, it appears that there may be consequences to running such a fundamentally baseless campaign, as Clinton’s competitors are zeroing in on her waffling as a major area for attack.

But, the fruits of this new offensive will likely be minimal.

Neither Edwards, nor Obama appear to be aggressive enough to take full advantage of Hillary’s ‘double-speak,’ thereby minimizing the consequences of her inability to take and state positions. Instead, the candidates prefer to attack Mrs. Clinton in a pack, like a convoy of zebras taking a stand against a lone lion. This method may prevent Hillary from tearing the hide off their flanks with her fangs, but it won’t provide Obama or Edwards with a substantial boost in the polls. Even if Hillary were to hypothetically lose 5% of her overall support, that 5% would likely be distributed four-fold, making it an aggregate loss of no more than 2 points.

This, in an essence, is why Mrs. Clinton is such a prohibitive favorite to waltz into the nomination. In fact, it has been recently suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s handlers are so confident in their strategy of non-intervention that they have considered having the former First Lady take a monastic vow of silence for the remaining months until the first primary vote.

“This way, she can focus more on her general election plan, her business suits, and her icy cold stare,” a well-known politico was overheard remarking at a Denver tavern.

So, where do we go from here?

In the upcoming months, Clinton’s foes will escalate their attacks on her credibility and her divisiveness, debate moderators will continue to attempt to trip her up with “gotcha” questions, and political pundits will scream at the top of their lungs that she is thumbing her nose at the entire concept of democratic dialogue by refusing to say anything substantive, but the bottom line is that the American voter doesn’t really seem to care.

The most terrible irony of Tuesday’s debate was that Clinton’s most passionate critic, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, was unable to join his colleagues in their communal bashing of Hillary. Gravel, whose ire for Clinton borders on homicidal, was banned from attending the debate by NBC for not meeting a slew of seemingly random benchmarks. According to NBC News political director Chuck Todd, Gravel’s banishment was predicated upon his: (1) not campaigning in New Hampshire and/or Iowa at least 14 times, (2) not polling at 5%, and (3) not raising 1 million dollars.

Gravel, who has attended eleven previous debates, stated that his removal had nothing to do with fundraising but was “proof that our corporate media do not want a genuine debate over our impending war with Iran.” He pointed out that he is polling on par with Joe Biden and Chris Dodd and claimed that NBC’s facts regarding his campaigning in New Hampshire and Iowa are false. In an op-ed in the Huffington Post, he went on to suggest that General Electric, which is the parent company of NBC, was attempting to censor him because of their “two billion dollars in military contracts.”

Maybe, but what’s certain is that the top-tier candidates were more than happy to see Gravel go. The fact that a man with a meager $17,000 in his campaign chest has the balls to take a Greyhound across the country, show up on nationally televised Presidential debates, and menacingly interrupt pre-rehearsed sound-bites with allegations of lying, shaming, war propaganda, and corporate whoring, chills them all to the core.

So instead of berating Hillary face to face, Mike Gravel debated himself in a coffee shop across the street from Drexel University on Tuesday. He had no podium, no live television coverage, and only a modest audience of his supporters. All but pushed over the edge by the mainstream media, he appeared drained and fatigued.

Maybe, he should have booked The Sex Pistols for an opener. I hear Johnny Rotten is quite an eloquent statesman these days.

Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, Johnny Rotten, Mike Gravel, Ron Paul