If Barack Obama somehow loses this election, either in the primary or the general, it will be down to his failure at playing The Inside Game. (The discussion is continued here.)
The Inside Game is the disgusting side of politics. It’s what we most hate about the process. Yet because it fascinates the press, and informs (deforms) their narratives, it’s a game you have to win in order to create real change.
On the other hand, if you play it you are changed by it, and real change thus becomes impossible. This Catch-22 is the sick heart of the Nixon Thesis of Conflict, the line that connects us all to Spiro Agnew, and drags all of us — no matter our party, our beliefs, or our position within the system — down. It’s the Lizard Brain which destroys the Better Angels of our Nature.
Win the game and it poisons you, or lose the game and lose everything. Refuse to play and you lose. Refuse the premise, back down in any way, and you lose.
This is why we hate politics in America, because this crap is still allowed to go on, enabled by a media elite determined that, whoever claims power in theory, they hold that power by the balls in fact.
The rule of The Inside Game is this. Get away with it. Get away with
a lie, or make the other person back down from what you decide is a
lie, and you win. Winning is all that counts. Not truth, not right or
wrong, not policy. Winning.
The Clintons have become masters of this game. (Picture from The Midnight Sun.) Look at the crap they pulled just this week:
- The 3 AM ad,
run despite the fact the woman running it has no experience dealing
with such a crisis. Yet despite the lie inherent in it, it’s called brilliant, and it’s claimed to work. - The Obama "NAFTAgate," which was actually a Clinton "NAFTAgate," only no one found out until Ohio had already voted.
- Obama held personally responsible for criminal charges against a donor, whose money was returned. Clinton had the same problem but it’s old news.
- An ad which darkens Obama’s skin and widens his nose, yet no one in the Clinton camp is called to account for it.
- Clinton aides comparing their opponent to Ken Starr stay on. An Obama aide who calls Clinton "a monster" is fired.
This is precisely the kind of crap Republicans got away with
regarding John Kerry, regarding Al Gore, and (most of all) regarding
Bill Clinton. Yet the Clintons now engage in this practice and it’s
just "sharp elbows," it’s OK because "it works."
And we’re not supposed to call them monsters?
They are monsters. Both of them. They were made monsters by events,
made monsters by Whitewater and the VRWC, by the Lewinsky mess, by
Harry & Louise. This made them monsters, both of them. Monsters.
Political pros, hacks, Mr. & Mrs. Richard Milhous Nixon.
Yet, according to the media, there is no way to fight this. If you
respond you give it credibility. If you back down you’re a loser. If
you ignore it it must be true. Heads I win, tails you lose. This is Chris Matthews’ world, we just live in it.
Heads the Washington media wins, tails the American people lose.
Older voters respond to this garbage because they have no other
reference point. Take out voters over my age, 53, and Obama is stomping
her flat — it’s not close. I was 13 when Richard Nixon was elected, 13
when this style of politics became acceptable, and those my age or
older now feel that this is the way politics must be, that this is the
only way politics can be, that this is what always works and always
will work.
Well, the only people elected through this crap are Rush Limbaugh,
Tim Russert, Glenn Beck and Wolf Blitzer. These kinds of tactics, and
this kind of attitude — anything to win — are the sludge we must
extirpate from our political tactics if the American people are ever to
get relief from their so-called leaders.
It’s bad enough when Republicans do this. They’re so unpopular that at this point it doesn’t matter what they do.
But if Democrats do this and get away with it, there’s no hope for any of us.
How to fight back? I think it starts by reminding ourselves that
we’re better than this, that these tactics are inherently Republican,
and by Barack Obama stating this clearly, offering to continue this
campaign on behalf of the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party."
Sure, it’s stealing from Dean. Sure, Dean lost. But it’s in the
Democratic Wing where you’ll find your majority, and only in the
Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party where you’ll find hope for real
reform, not just in policy but in how our politics is conducted.
Hillary Clinton proved that this week. It’s the DNA of her comeback (well the DLC of it). She has been deformed by the process, the way Charlize Therion was deformed to win her Oscar, only now the makeup won’t come off. Ever.
