The Morning After

It was a giddy five days, wasn't it? I remember it well. There were blogs, and jokes on the Internet, and bets were made about how long it would last, how soon there would be a resignation. I made one of those bets myself. I said, within the month. Gone within the month. But five days passed and the vice-president was still there.

I'm referring, of course, not to our short happy fling with Sarah Palin, which ended last night with her completely terrifying speech in Minnesota, but to the week that Dick Cheney shot a friend in the face, didn't even go to the hospital to see him, and somehow, after a week, was still standing, as powerful as ever. These Republicans don't go away, and they never admit a mistake, and sometimes, when I remember this, I wonder how I ever forgot it, much less how I ever bet against it.

I forget what I know about conventions too, until I'm reminded every four years. The Democrats are always messy, multi-colored, a civics lesson in democracy, at times a nightmare of what can happen when people find their voices and won't stop talking. This year they had an abbreviated roll call, and the states all went through their introductory paragraphs ... the great state of Whatever ... the home of the God-Knows-Where Water Gap ...the place where daffodils bloom all year long ... and it made me misty thinking of the first night I ever heard a roll call. It was 1956 and I was camping on the rim of the Grand Canyon, listening to the radio and writing down the numbers on a piece of cardboard as the states decided whether Estes Kefauver or John Kennedy would be the vice-president on a ticket headed by Adlai Stevenson, whom I loved with all my heart. It was a thrilling night, and alone in the dark with my portable radio, I felt as if I were part of absolutely everything that was great in the universe.

Then of course, there are the Republicans, and I always forget them too. I forget how white they are, and mean-spirited, and thin-lipped. I watch them and I think, is anyone buying this? Does anyone think we're better off today? That we're "winning" the war? That teaching creationism is simply a matter of exposing students to both sides of the question? That it's sexist to wonder whether a mother who just months ago committed to a Down syndrome child ought to be running for vice-president? Does anyone think that executive experience trumps wisdom and intellect? And who are these people who rise to their feet and cheer loudest when they hear the words "Off-shore drilling"?

But the Republicans do it better. They present a united front. They wait for the applause, they don't roll over it in the interests of keeping the speeches short and on time. They ride the news cycle, they twist the truth, they stick to their talking points, they blah into the wind, blah blah blah blah blah, and in the end, they're still standing.

Now what?

Comments

[UrbanAddictiondotcom]

Nora, I am feeling so discouraged right at this moment. I just looked at the Gallup poll and listened to a brief couple of minutes of conservative radio on my way too work. It is really sickening and a lot of people are more than willing to actually vote Republican again. It is stunning to me after the past seven years then again I couldn't believe Bush got a second term either. Nora, what are we going to do if our guys don't win. I'm so worn out from caring. I know I'm not the only one but sometimes it feels like all we can do is hang here on the Huffington Post reading the words of other like minded people.

Sign Me,

Hoping Against Hope 08'

[Bush 08]

you can only achieve that kind of unity through a special blend of fear and ignorance...
for better or worse, democrats are statistically more educated- which, ironically, is a huge road block for winning elections. esp. when the other side fights with Orwellian tactics...

[RangeofLight]

Orwellian Tactics ? By the Republicans ? Ummmm...Pal, it was the Left using the tactics in Orwell's book(s). Your Gov't schooling is showing. More educated ? Ummmmmm. Not.
How come such a Winner of a Woman has you slicks so panic stricken ? Intersting phenom. Srong, independent, reformer, authentically American Dream stuff...And, PRO-Gressive panic
in their Gucci Community Organizing shoes. Yep, you folks would..ummmm...keep us safe.

[maddocbrown]

Oozing heaps of sarcasm. Good work! "Orwellian tactics" does not signify party affiliation. It signifies a Big Brother totalitarian regime, which is what unitary power doubled with NSA spying has become under this Republican administration. You should know better, Rangeoflight - you are obviously a bi-curious voter - security rates low on the Dem totem pole. What is important is the right to affordable healthcare, the right to comfortable employment, and, yes, the right to organize shoes, and, maybe, if you are lucky and a Dem is elected, the right to take a hassle-free, fly-at-your-own-risk airport experience, where you get to buy tickets half-hour before the flight with cash and have your nail clippers too. While you repubs talk about a nanny state, have a chat about your demoralizing, crippling security fetish.

[debragw]

Well she is correct and based on what I have seen the last 10 days we live in a country with the most stupid people in the world, it is amazing, such stupidity that they will fall for that bunch of bull that is being thrown at them. They will vote against their economic interests in November and put a dunce, and an old man in the White House. The Rethugs are good, I have to give them that and they can unite around a candidate. This is not about doing good things and not about the issues, it is about the soundbite and getting the lower classes to respond.
We have the most stupid people in the world. They fell for it hook line and sinker.
Scary eh?

[Maezeppa]

The Democrats has the better and far more compelling convention.

[luckyinnc]

Now what? I'd suggest that the Dems bring a better candidate next time. ChicagObama will be politically irrelivant after he loses this one.

[lizinatl]

hmmmm - do we realize that the government (thru Fannie & Freddie) now owns our homes?

[acv]

The Republicans at the convention are hardcore, far rightwing, Christian conservatives. They do it better then most Democrats because fanatics have more energy then the rest of us and, lets face it, any reasonable Republicans left in the party didn"t show.

[rock2casbah]

That's the numbers they dont tout in the news or on these polls. What about all the repubs that ran like heck away from the repubs in 2006? Look at the voter registration numbers in states where you have to declare a party when registering. In Florida alone it was 400,000 for Democrats and 1,000 for Republicans. Well what about the repubs that give the President they elected a 25 approval rating. Well will they step right back in the booth and pull the lever for McBush? Is their dissapointment in the Repubs that fickle? Well I would think after the euphoria of the convention and the oil prices, economy, empty rhetoric by McCain and Palin etc hits them in the face, will they go in and do the same thing? That would be the definition of insanity. Slow but not insane.

[RTIII]

"then" does not equal "than."
.

[disenfranchised]

I couldn´t agree more. I got the same feeling after watching Palin give her RNC speech as I got after Bush announced Cheney as his running mate in 2000....yikes. The similarity is scary. Both Bush and now McCain have run a campaign based on "uniting" "crossing party lines", and both have chosen radical right wingers for their VP candidates, both are divisive and unapologetically self-righteous.

And now the McCain campaign won't let Palin communicate to the public in any forum other than a propaganda based format. Aren't the stakes too high right now to be playing these games, and everyone isn't already wise to them?

[Nomccain]

When you stop to think, without all the insanity, could you have imagined a housewife Governor, and former beauty queen being included on a Vice Presidential Ticket with ANYONE just 10 years ago, let alone 15 or 20 years ago. Where would we have been with this woman during World War II? During the Vietnam war? Or even after 9/11? This nation seems to have lost their freakin mind!!!! There's no way that would have happened! Just goes to show you how gender minded, gossip movitated, and dirty politics have gotten in the country since the election of Bush and his rogue administration of Karl Rove, Rummy, Rice, and Cheney. Republicans will DO ANYTHING and SAY ANYTHING to win an election including false rumors, trash digging, employing fear, personal attacks, arm twisting and just plain out LYING! This country has had enough of the Republican's, their philosophy, t heir behavior, and their pandering. Lets throw every damn one of them out in November and bring about some REAL CHANGE!

[rock2casbah]

I like how the press is rewriting history. Calling Palin some sort of historic marker. What was Gereldine Ferraro? I was a kid then and there wasn't this much media bias and cheerleading a woman on a ticket that I recall. Been there done that. Palin is no more a champion of women than Allen Keyes is a champion of civil rights. Don't insult the intelligence of all Americans with this "identity politics" strategy.

[reshas1]

In an age when politics is choreographed, voters watch out for the moments when the public-relations facade breaks down and venom pours through the cracks. Their judgment is rarely favourable when it does. Barack Obama knows it. All last week, he was warning American liberals to stay away from the Palin family. He understands better than his supporters that it is not a politician's enemies who lose elections, but his friends.

[ricker6791]

It seems to me that Ms. Ephron has a classic case of envy of the very popular Sarah Palin. Nora what happens when she becomes VP then P someday. What happens to your liberal arguments against conservatives then. 8 MORE YEARS McCAIN? PALIN 08 & 12!

Ha Ha Bye Bye B. Hussein Obama

[GenaG]

Good lord, you are pathetic,,, no, make that creepy.

[applehead]

i know exactly what you mean. it's impossible that that many people can be that stupid. i believe the voting machines are rigged for a republican win. (as they were in 2004.) that would not work if the polls said consistently that obama had a 76% lead --- only to have mccain win. so maybe the polls are rigged too. maybe YOU could do a poll --- get your friends to conduct polls. get a feel for what the country really thinks. and let us know. if the republicans steal the election one more time our practically mortally wounded country will die.

[rock2casbah]

There is no polling group that has the technology to really poll a true representative cross section of Americans. Let's not forget Obama was the only one besides Dean who even knew how to tap in successfuly to the power of netroots. So how do you think the polling agencies are going to get it. One true indicator is swing state polling. They are favoring Obama by a landslide last week. A tad bit closer now in the swing states. We have to work the swing states a little better. As the facts come out about the real Palin and they are faced with the facts not spin in all 4 corporate owned media empires. It's A Recession! A broken military! A President universally scorned! An ongoing culture war! A Constitution shredded!

[annandale]

As I watch this play out, the reversals of long-held "values", the praising of a pregnant teen and an unqualified mother, the belief that imprisonment constitutes qualification as president, the demand for change by the same party that has brought us the last eight years, I can't help but recall the headline from the British newspaper when Bush was re-elected: How Can 55,000,000 People Be So Stupid? I'm afraid that we'll have to admit that a lot of Americans substitute dogma and spin for true morality and common sense. Intelligence and world awareness have not been our long suits in several generations. We will indeed get the government we deserve.

[KarenJW]

It's even more fascinating to watch the ignorant, brainwashed, racist fools! Americans genuinely believe that they are the envy of the free world when in reality, thanks to the republicans, we are regarded as the dumbest idiots on the face of this earth!

[jennylou]

Your paragraph packs a wallop! It's a dose of sad, sad truth.

[Deni]

I have gotten far more information about the US and what's going on here listening to the BBC than any MSM here. Shows how bad a conflict of interest there is in the Corporate owned media model.

[BlackbirdHighway]

I got together with friends and played the RNC drinking game: every time you spot a black person in the crowd, you get to take a drink.

Oh well, it's not that much fun, but it's cheap and you don't have to worry about getting in trouble driving home afterward.

[rock2casbah]

Didn't watch it but heard the camera kept panning to the same couple of black people over and over. It must have been great to be black at the Republican convention. You sure got a lot of camera time.

[enochsmoky]

I give up. As a white Republican I might as well buy a first class ticket to hell. But I will be joined by all the "community organizers" who have demagoged divisive issues to gain power and extort money. Also in line will be the architects of hate speech codes seeking to silence legitimate conservative dissent, union thugs who have threatened, beat and even killed workers who don't join, tort attorneys who have distorted our legal system, environomentalists who have exaggerated one threat after another and all the collectivists since time immemorial whose pure intentions always lead to greater government power over the individual.

[RobinL]

You have GOT to be kidding me! Is this a whine about Democratic corruption? After what you people have put us through for 8 years? You people make me sick.

[nunzia]

"legitimate conservative"??!
That's been a contradiction in terms for a couple of decades.

[TonyOnly]

We may not like you, but we include you. In your world, we don't exist.

[Auwe]

The first-class tickets sold out long ago. Just hop aboard on steerage with the rest of us - we've been barreling along in this train to hell for the last eight years.

We can all party together - quite frankly, it won't matter much who becomes president 'cause the brakes on this train are worn out...

[rock2casbah]

Well lets see Jesus Christ was a community organiser. Pontius Pilate was a Governor. So Pontius Palin? That about fits. Now you have "community organisers" as some kind of societal pariah. You've lost it. Is there somewhere I can send a cash donation for your ticket?

[IllinoisTexan43]

As an AA female, I sat with my family and watched, in part, the RNC. I saw the mean-spirited, tight lipped audience Ms. Ephron refered to. What we also saw, was fear. This contigent of our nation is, for the better, in its death throes. They know it and we know. In about two decades, this bloc of our society will be a minority. This might not be Sen. Obama's time, but there WILL be a person of color ascend to the presidency. Those in attendence at the RNC are stuck in the 50's, where everything was possible-if you were white. They are fierce in their conviction to this notion, even to the detriment of our country. I do have hope that the pendulum is swinging back to the people, though. Have faith.

[TommyMcCarthy]

I do have faith .....and that pedulum seems to be swinging in the right direction again (been a long time hasn't it?)

My folks were very involved in the civil rights movement....and their stories of those days figured large in my fantasy life as a child.

As I sat and watched the "festivities" in St. Paul......I found myself playing a old, OLD game in my head........

When the cameras scanned that crowd,.......so ovewhelmingly senior..........so overwhelmingly well-to-do,.............so overwhelmingly WHITE.........
With pleasant looking grandmas...........and equally pleasant grandpas proudly wearing their veteran's garb..................


................I began trying to GUESS which ones would be back in ski masks with axe-handles if we failed to heed the admonition to be "out of town by sundown"...............

tm

[JNo]

Republicans are not in death throes, but fear & paranoia are their base personality traits. They are afraid someone is going to take their money (taxes). They are afraid of people who don't have the same color skin. They get paranoid when they hear people around them speaking Spanish, although they don't mind it too much if those people are maintaining their lawns and doing their laundry. Most of all they fear the future and change, whatever both may bring.