by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n This is becoming a very strange campaign.<\/p>\n On CNN recently both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the \u201cold\u201d noble McCain is gone \u2014 and a \u201cnew\u201d nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, and a few unhinged people shouting at his campaign stops.<\/p>\n Recently Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama, likewise lamenting the loss of the old noble McCain.\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>columnist David Brooks dubbed Palin a \u201ccancer,\u201d and he suggested that Obama\u2019s instant recall of Niehbuhr sent a tingle up his leg as Obama once did to Chris Matthews as well.<\/p>\n A couple of thoughts: the George Bush, Sr.\/Willie Horton campaign was far tougher; so were the Bush 2000\/2004 efforts. If anything, McCain\u2019s campaign is subdued in comparison to what we\u2019ve seen on both sides in past years. Indeed, McCain as a vicious campaigner is a complete fabrication, but, again, a brilliant subterfuge on the part of Team Obama that, in fact, has run, via appendages, the far more vicious race.<\/p>\n Obama and his surrogates have repeatedly engaged in racial politics (as Bill Clinton lamented when in fury he denounced the \u201crace card\u201d). When there was never evidence that McCain was using race as a wedge issue, it was clear Obama most surely was \u2014 preemptively, on at least two occasions, warning Americans he would soon be the victim of opposition racial stereotyping.<\/p>\n His surrogates like Biden and those in the Senate continue to link legitimate worries about Obama\u2019s past with racism. Second, for about 3 months all we\u2019ve heard are references to McCain\u2019s age, with adjectives and phrases like confused, can\u2019t remember any more, disturbed, lost his bearings, etc.<\/p>\n Moreover, so far, McCain supporters have not broken into Biden\u2019s email, or accused Biden of being a Nazi, or accused anyone of not bearing one of their own children, or photo-shopped grotesque pictures of Obama on the Internet (as in the\u00a0Atlantic\u00a0<\/em>magazine case). I don\u2019t think deranged McCain supporters in Hollywood or television almost daily are quoted as damning Obama in unusually crude terms. Nor are white racist ministers calling McCain a \u2018messiah\u2019 or McCain operatives fraudulently swarming voter registration centers. And on and on.<\/p>\n Instead I think what we are seeing again is an interesting phenomenon of the old nice\/now mean McCain. A great many moderates and conservatives are worn out and tired of Bush and Bush hatred, the European furor, serial charges of racism and illiberalism, and finally, in their weariness, think that Obama will, in a variety of ways, just make all the ickiness go away \u2014 as if he will make all of us be liked abroad and end racial and red\/blue fighting at home. They should ask themselves whether Jimmy Carter restored American popularity with his human rights campaigns, praise of left-wing dictators, dialogue during the hostage crisis (cf. \u201cThe Great Satan\u201d), boasts of no more inordinate fear of communism, etc., or whether Obama, in his Trinity\/Acorn\/Pfleger years, brought racial healing and understanding to Chicago.<\/p>\n Second, with Obama now with an 6-8 point lead, some in the DC\/NY corridor these last three weeks figure it\u2019s time now to jump or at least sort of jump, since the train they think is leaving the station and there might still be some space at the dinner table on the caboose. They also believe as intellectuals that the similarly astute Obamians may on occasion inspire, or admire them as the like-minded who cultivate the life of the mind \u2014 in contrast to the \u201ccancer\u201d Sarah Palin, who, with her husband Todd, could hardly discuss Proust with them or could offer little if any sophisticated table-talk other than the proper chokes on shotguns or optimum RPMs on snow-machines.<\/p>\n And third, a lot of moderates who would not vote for McCain liked him when he was a sophisticated, ironic maverick\u00a0loser\u00a0<\/em>scoring points against the simplistic Bush and other cardboard-cut-out conservatives. Now he has the onus of winning a campaign and can\u2019t be a noble, tragic\u00a0loser<\/em>; so it is easy to say he is no good since he is less than perfect. The sure iconoclastic\u00a0loser<\/em>\u00a0has an attraction that the mainstream conservative possible winner does not.<\/p>\n Obama, as I have said\u00a0ad nauseam,<\/em>\u00a0has brilliantly prepped the battlefield to such a degree that a Farrakhan endorsement or surrogates calling Palin a quasi-Nazi or a bimbo, or smearing McCain as near senile is irrelevant; yet one screamer in a crowd of tens of thousands is proof of McCain\u2019s and Palin\u2019s racism and hatred.<\/p>\n Again, most conservatives know this paradox, but for some being outraged, as the conservative voice of reason, at McCain\u2019s supposed low road ensures a CNN spot, or some future rehabilitation during the expected Obama regnum of the next eight years. I think should I write a column suddenly taking the \u201chigh road\u201d, praising Obama\u2019s wit, taste in books, and metrosexuality, I would be dubbed principled rather than cynical, \u2018even-handed\u2019 rather than self-serving, and a maverick rather than toadish.<\/p>\n Yet for a self-acclaimed conservative to vote Obama would mean that higher taxes, larger government, more entitlements, more of a U.N.-centered foreign policy, dialogue with an Iran, less coal, oil, and nuclear energy production at home, more \u201coppression\u201d studies and \u201creparations\u201d, leftish Supreme Court judges, open borders (I could go on) were the truly conservative positions, or perhaps suddenly truly the \u2018right\u2019 positions. And as far as ethics go, in fact, a cursory review of the past Obama campaigns would reveal a ruthlessness never seen in any of McCain\u2019s efforts. Obama\u2019s record is far more left than McCain\u2019s is far right. Obama the healer has proven to be the most partisan in the Senate, McCain one of the most bipartisan.<\/p>\n Yet to believe that truth would be \u2014 if we remember that scene in Tolkien\u2019sThe Two Towers \u2014\u00a0<\/em>to trust the grating harsh voice of Gandalf detailing the dangers of Saruman rather than the mellifluous charm of the latter who in soothing tones outlines his own victimhood.<\/p>\n \u00a92008 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media This is becoming a very strange campaign. On CNN recently both David Gergen and Ed Rollins echoed the current mantra that the \u201cold\u201d noble McCain is gone \u2014 and a \u201cnew\u201d nastier one has emerged, largely because of his attacks on Ayers, perhaps his planned future ads on Wright, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[738],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-QH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":726,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/romney-fights-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":3267,"position":0},"title":"Romney Fights Back","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Mitt Romney was recently derided by the Obama campaign for his appearance with Donald Trump. Trump is supposed to be radioactive because of his stubborn insistence that the Obama birth certificate is inauthentic. Romney\u2019s supporters, however, ignored the complaint and pointed instead to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":742,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-face-of-things-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":3267,"position":1},"title":"The Face of Things to Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Campaign Rhetoric The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10602,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/allegations-of-foreign-election-tampering-have-always-rung-hollow\/","url_meta":{"origin":3267,"position":2},"title":"Allegations of Foreign Election Tampering Have Always Rung Hollow","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Blaming foreign influence on an election loss has become a habitual practice for unsuccessful presidential candidates, but such allegations have never rung true. On her current book tour, Hillary Clinton is still blaming the Russians (among others) for her unexpected defeat in last year\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "George W. Bush"","block_context":{"text":"George W. Bush","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/george-w-bush\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2194,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/americas-obama-obsession\/","url_meta":{"origin":3267,"position":3},"title":"America’s Obama Obsession","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Anatomy of a passing hysteria. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online For 30 months the nation has been in the grip of a certain Obama obsession, immune to countervailing facts, unwilling to face reality, and loath to break the spell. But like all trances, the fit is passing, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2009"","block_context":{"text":"October 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/october-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3234,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-day-after\/","url_meta":{"origin":3267,"position":4},"title":"The Day After","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Reconciliation I wish President-elect Obama well, and hope that even his critics can concede that he waged a successful and often brilliant (if not shrewdly stealthy) campaign. 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