I know lots of very intelligent and rational hrc and OB supporters who will vote for mccain if their guy/gal is not the dem nominee…if the dems rule both houses (VERY likely) a mccrazy admin will be hamstrung and hard right SCOTUS nominees will be shot down.

Thanks for the link to the Spiegel article. It says that the “average” American voter (usually uninvolved in politics, neither left nor right) has contradictory responses: he likes social program but is unwilling to vote for them. When a program that benefits him is announced, his first response is: “How much will this cost me?”

(And while I use “he” in this comment, it represents either “he” or “she”.)

I would add that the average voter has had years of TV watching and shitty schooling to enable him to “Sleepwalk through History” (to use Haynes Johnson’s phrase about Reagan’s presidency). It takes a lot of “discipline”, to use Chomsky’s phrase, to prevent him from thinking critically about the sound-bite messages he gets. It takes some reinforcement to make him NOT think of issues, but only of personalities. (Whom would he rather have a beer with?)

We live in a hyper-fucked-up political culture. The Beltway elite (and that elite does not really include Obama, just as it did not really embrace the Clintons until Bill left office) dominates and limits public discussion America in a way that the German elite under the Weimar Republic could only fantasize about.

The right-wingers, like David Brooks, consider the questioning in last night’s debate to be flashes of genius. So we are truly fucked.

Now my dad thought JFK was a crook and a faux Dem. A wee bit radical was my dad, but that unfortunately didn’t eliminate his sexist tendencies.

I’ve tried to honor my folks by following their teaching and using the education I received to make informed decisions for myself. They wouldn’t have expected anything else.

Funny how the biggest issue, getting the wingnuts out of office seems to be buried in the Clinton/Obama rivalry.

Spiegel, the German magazine, had an interesting article: “Why Americans never vote for what they really want”. Link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,544870,00.html