What is this year-long vacuousness about Obama not "closing the deal" or "closing the sale"? In the Wall Street Journal today, Karl Rove, whose "voice" would be the voice of plain mashed potatoes if plain mashed potatoes could speak, employs poll data and history (Truman, Dukakis, etc.) to argue once again that Obama hasn't "closed the sale." First of all, casting elections as "deals" and "sales" speaks encyclopedias about how Rove and too many others think about the connection between voters and candidates. A deal, a sale. You'd think that given the disgrace in which the culture of finance in this nation at long last finds itself, political analysts would want to look elsewhere for their cliches. Maybe: "Obama hasn't quite parked the car yet." Or "Obama hasn't put the roof on the house." Or "Obama has to pitch the last of the ninth before his team wins."
But second, of course he hasn't "closed the deal." The election is not only the closing but the "deal" itself -- as none other than John McCain keeps reminding us. There is no deal to close right now. Thomas Dewey thought he'd "closed the deal" only to discover the next morning that Harry Truman hadn't shown up at the closing. You don't "close" on a house or other financial transaction until you do. Until all the lawyers are paid all that money, until the deed is in your hand, until that hand and all the other hands are shaken, all the documents signed and witnessed. With just about as much logical plausibility, one could say that the sun hasn't closed the deal on rising tomorrow. And anyway, Rove is courting bad luck with this way of talking about the election. Look what happened to the last person who publicly asked about Obama, "Why can't he close the deal?"
Are we consumers, or citizens? appetites on two legs, or sovereigns?
It's said that the US doesn't have an ideology, that we're all about the money, and that's the glorious engine of freedom, the market, at work machining nature into society. That's progress, it's said.
I'm deeply offended by the encroachment of commerce into politics. I do not go to my local government offices to buy anything. I go to assert my rights as a citizen. Rove's way of thinking is hopelessly overly mechanized. And it's not just any machine, right Rove?
The mythical Free Market, Rove's god, is a perpetual motion holy war cash machine, conceived as god's own device for rewarding and punishing us. And of course, Rove and his minions are the masters of this machine. So to question Rove's way of thinking is conflated with questioning god.
I am a being, aware of my own becoming. I am not a machine. I am not just an appetite on two legs. I am a citizen of this republic, standing to assert my rights. I say we dump "machine politics" on the scrap heap of history (properly sorted for recycling, of course).
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/16/dewey-defeats-truman/
Hail mary's have worked in the past. Desperate and panicked tactics have worked. Teams have come back from down 3-0. Crazier things have happened (Bush 2000). But, let's hope the American people learned a lesson and finally do the right thing this time.
"Art"? As in Trump's "Art of the Deal"? Perfect. The term's being "well-known and well-understood" doesn't preclude it from having important connotations. Quite the opposite, especially given our heavily financial times. Embarrassments often lurk below habits of speech.
That will seal the deal. But more than sealing the deal, THEY MUST KEEP THEIR PROMISE!!
DID YOU HEAR THAT DEMOCRATS? You must be prudent and responsible with our pocketbooks.
We've had it with the Republicans and their greed and corruption. Now, in these desperate times, we need to know that you, our elective officials, will bring a high level of ethics and a true desire to do the work that is required .
Maintaining our trust in our electorate is the most important issue at hand.
Can you, Ms Pelosi, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Obama, do the right thing for the American taxpayers and not repeat the sins of the previous administrations?