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No we McCain't

By Nicholas Wilbur - posted Monday, 3 November 2008


I knew in my gut I was being lied to, conned, even manipulated into believing the campaign e-mail that offered free tickets to an event deceptively described as a political "rally".

Anyone who's followed any part of the 2008 US presidential campaign knows there is one candidate in particular - an old, crotchety "maverick" whose sense of the political winds is about as heightened as a blood-sucking bat's sense of sight - who somehow finds comfort, eight years later, in the stable albeit deceitful style of eye-gouging expert Karl Rove, who ruined John Kerry's bid for the presidency in 2004 and John McCain's attempt in 2000.

This season's candidate, ironically, is John McCain, and under Rove's counsel he has launched character assassinations, hypocritical "socialist" claims, "terrorist" insinuations and pretty much anything that could help him in the polls as Election Day nears.

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Being the skilled fact-checking journalist I sometimes try to be, I returned home after McCain's event last Saturday and immediately double-checked to see if it did indeed qualify as a "rally".

According to the dictionary - a paper-bound one that even self-described computer illiterate John McCain could understand - rallies are indeed meant to "rally" people, preferably a "large group" of people, usually in relation to a political cause, and hopefully with the end result of "inspiring and generating enthusiasm among those present".

Unfortunately, the definition included neither pictures nor average numbers of what constitutes an official "rally". So I talked to a few former secretaries of state, a handful of reputable political analysts, and two of Albuquerque's most renowned fortune tellers, and concluded that it's very possible another word exists that better describes the type of event McCain hosted here in the centre of the great swing state of New Mexico. I've narrowed the list to three: picnic, family reunion and 72-year-old's birthday party.

My girlfriend and I hoped for some enthusiasm at this alleged "rally," but the most exciting moment came an hour before McCain ever got up from his makeup chair and stumbled to the lectern.

Standing in line, we overheard a McCain-aged cowboy, who was clad in leather boots, a Stetson hat and enough cologne to suffocate an elephant, commenting the length of the line: "'F'all these people vote, betcherass McCain'll win."

Anita and I turned to each other in horror, then nearly fell over laughing.

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The man did an about-face and stared me down like a drill sergeant about to use a wire brush to wipe the grin off an insubordinate grunt's face.

"What'th hell you laughin' 'bout, Junior?"

Composing myself, I replied, "I just … I think maybe your crowd estimation is a bit more liberal than realistic".

He seemed puzzled, and I realised later, when Anita noted my use of the word liberal, that his reaction likely stemmed from the mental struggle to put into context a word that in the past year has only been used in its political - extremist, socialistic, Democrat-loathing - sense.

"You think that if everyone here voted, McCain would win?"

"Well, there's a lotta people here," he said.

"No offense, sir, but probably a third of this line, including my girlfriend and I - who came just to confirm that the troll didn't look like a corpse only because of TV - we're not supporters. Excluding the children ya'll brought to this poor excuse for a campaign rally, the turnout here would give McCain about 800 votes."

"Just stop it," his wife interjected. "Don't engage those kinds of people," she said, avoiding eye contact.

"Yeah." I couldn't stop myself. "Don't engage with the people whose futures you're deciding in this election."

The couple stepped out of line and were never seen again, which was rather surprising considering the puny size of the crowd. That, folks, was the highlight of the McCain "rally". And even the official news reports will back me up on it.

So there we were, waiting patiently, in a line that lasted a trifling 13 minutes, and as we approached the gates, Anita and I began discussing our expectations for the event. I could bore even myself with a "McCain is scared shitlist" of things he's said in desperation to change the recent political winds, but I'll note here only what was not expected: that the Arizona senator would say something original, comprehensive or even partially true. Perhaps it was of the useless kind of hope, but we had it anyway, and before we knew it we were inside.

We noticed immediately that despite their frugality, McCain staffers failed to accurately estimate the support their candidate could garner. They scheduled the event inside part of the fairgrounds, which held a maximum 3,000 people. This proved they were cognisant of their odds of winning New Mexico, but it didn't negate the fact that one could describe this picnic area as "packed" only if each attendee had brought with him or her an over-stuffed suitcase and a life-sized Teddy Bear. It was at least half empty, and although McCain surely would describe it as half full, I still couldn't say in good faith that the McCain camp utilised its resources on this one.

Media reports afterward said the Dustbowl State senator "inspired and generated enthusiasm" in 1,000 to 1,500 people. With that kind of turnout, McCain could have saved a pretty penny by renting out Joe the Plumber's driveway.

If this 450,000-population city turned out just 1,500 people, I wondered what was happening in other battleground states. Then I prayed I wouldn't be spending the next four years as I've spent the last eight - bemoaning the fact that this country put into power a goon who destroyed our image abroad and our faith at home.

Since Obama realised that public financing was a drop in the bucket compared the profits available from T-shirt and badge sales, McCain has been left in the campaign fundraising dust and money has been tight. As we entered the picnic area, a group of unpracticed "musicians" of a nameless cover band were making an embarrassment of themselves with songs like "Doctor Doctor".

It's cheap to hire a no-hit-wonder of a band for an official campaign event, but it was even cheaper that in the 40 minutes preceding McCain's teleprompted speech, the band mostly played old recordings. Cheapest of all was that the band exercised poor, McCain-like judgment in choosing songs like Tina Turner's "Simply the Best" and "Highway to the Danger Zone", the latter of which reminded me of the movie Top Gun and made me think of the short, spoiled brat of a Navy pilot who played the main character.

My mind wandered to other songs I might hear. Perhaps Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing", and as we walked about, I began singing the diva's tune:

Take me for what I am, cuz I'll never chaaange, all my coloooors for youuu … I'll never ask for too much - just all that you are, and everything you dooooo … I won't hold it back again, this passion inside, can't run from myself, there's nowhere to hiiiiiiide … Stay in my aaaarms - if you dare … I have nothing, nothing, NOTHING! if I don't … have … youuuuu-ouuuuuuuu.

I was having a ball with the Houston cover when Anita interrupted. "They look so bored," she said. An old vet had fallen asleep on a railing near the band. Behind the stage, two dozen women sitting in the only partially filled "Country First" bleacher section were filing their nails. The rest were either on their cell phones or staring open-mouthed at the clouds.

The crowd - pasty white, mostly retired and about as culturally diverse as a KKK cross-burning ceremony in post-Civil War Tennessee - was more flaccid than an entire monastery of castrated monks.

We watched with much amusement as the man we deemed the official "campaign fluffer" ran wildly throughout the fairgrounds waving a "McCain-Palin" poster and screaming like a madman to chant, clap, sing, dance and hoist their children onto their shoulders.
This did not rouse the old vet asleep at the gate, but we did see a man wearing a "Liberalism Spawns Terrorism" cut-off tee hoist his son onto his shoulders after the fluffer passed by.

When McCain finally came out, wobbling down the fenced-off runway like he was walking on a wooden leg, he shook hands with the group of fans sporting "Plumbers for McCain" T-shirts, made stiff-armed waves at photographers and scrunched his already-wrinkled face into a Nixon-esque smile for the crowd.

The three-foot tall platform elevated the shrimp of a man to near eye level, and because the crowd lining the fence maxed out at two people deep, Anita and I were able to snap a few up-close photos.

Once he found the stage, the flaccid applause had fallen three points to the decibel level of an Egyptian tomb, and the senior citizen we'd all been waiting for finally began his speech with his signature opening (and middle, and end): "My friends …"

He grilled Obama for his socialistic policies to cut taxes for 95 per cent of Americans and return tax rates for the rich to Clinton-era levels. He touted his apparently unsocialistic plan to spend US$3 billion of taxpayer dollars buying up all the "bad" mortgages that stupid Americans couldn't pay off. And when he noted the liberal elite media pundits (and, in reality, the staunchly conservative ones too) who have written off his chances of producing even a respectable defeat come November 4, McCain gave his second favourite line, "We've got 'em right where we want 'em."

As expected, McCain delivered the same speech we'd read every day in the Associated Press reports from every major and minor city, town and village from California to Connecticut since August.

The Dustbowl State senator spewed rhetoric calling for less rhetoric, desperately claimed that "We love bein' the underdog," and issued the ill-fated "Senator Obama is measuring the drapes" line, which George H.W. used before losing to Bill Clinton in 1992 and George W. used before Democrats took majority control of Congress in 2006.

But the best parts I'd already memorised. It's a little trick I picked up, a side-effect of being a political junkie. When McCain pumped his fist and said "Barack Obama's tax policies will …" I cut him off and screamed: "PUT THE MIDDLE CLASS THROUGH THE WRINGER!"

When he took the beaten-dog tone in stating, "You know, we're behind in the polls a bit …" I couldn't help myself in yelling, "BUT WE'VE GOT 'EM RIGHT WHERE WE WANT 'EM!"

And when he said "Senator Obama wants to cut taxes for all but 2 per cent of businesses," I impulsively barked, "THAT'S NOT AMERICA" - even though, if had I been the speech-writer, I would have said "not American", as that would be proper English, even in America.

It was like a kindergarten version of Jeopardy, but the answers were half-truths and you could answer right only by ignoring the media's correction of the facts and memorising the lines word-for-word as McCain has spoken them the day before.

Despite my mockery, the candidate seemed pleased with my participation, probably because I was the only one still awake at this point.

Although I initially intended to exercise my right to some all-American heckling, the low turnout, the cathartic feel of the crowd and the sense of sympathy I had for McCain as he stumbled over the same words he'd rehearsed eight dozen times in the past month - all of these factors somehow took the excitement out of rousing the candidate.

When I got home, I decided to voice my disdain instead by erecting a sign on my front lawn that read "No We McCain't".

And rather than dwell on the lost time, I looked on the bright side and chose to put stock in the possibility that later in the evening Obama would at least draw a New Mexico crowd large enough to constitute a true "rally".

The next president did not disappoint either me, Anita, or the 45,000 others who showed up.

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About the Author

N. L. Wilbur, a journalist turned critic, believes that while the greats already said it best, news of White House blowjobs and pre-eminent war policies give the art of satire immortality.

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