Conventional Stupidity

I love the political silly season. Since we now have 24-hour news cycles and 4-year long presidential campaigns, every day is lovable and wondrous. All the conventional wisdom of the punditocracy is wildly amusing. We don’t really know anything and like psychics in the Inquirer are not held to account for our record of off-base predictions.

“Conventional wisdom,” aside from probably being an oxymoron, really only reflects the self-enforcing conversations of the people who build and live in their own echo chambers.

By the standards of conventional wisdom in this presidential campaign cycle Rudy should have disappeared. His liberal social positions on abortion, gay rights and gun control, coupled with his super hawk position on the war(s) should reasonably have driven moderates, conservatives and evangelicals away. He’s like the bumblebee that shouldn’t be able to fly, but somehow does. There is just something Republicans like about him. As Bob Dole remarked about Bill Clinton, “Charisma is unfair. And I could use some affirmative action.” All the pundits have been waiting for the people to figure out who Rudy is. And by God the Rev. Pat Robertson thinks he’s figured him out and just endorsed him! Go know.

Logically Huckabee should have run much stronger earlier. He is a plausibly real conservative with a high likeability factor. So who attacks him? Not the wild-eyed lefties but super conservative Phyllis Schlafely! For true believers, left and right, the perfect is the enemy of the good. And the Rev. Huckabee is not a perfect fiscal conservative. Hmmm. Which is the conservative’s highest priority abortion or taxes?

The most logical candidate for the Republicans according to pundit standards should be Fred Thompson. He’s got that country boy charm, deep-voiced gravitas and the Ronald Reagan religiosity of deeply held convictions without the time-consuming disadvantage of actually going to church. He is comforting, unflappable and reminiscent of an older version of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Perhaps like Mr. Smith he lacks that fundamental drive and need for power. He is a diffident suitor of the American electorate, and we want ardor in our wooing.

There is no way that Mitt Romney should even be a contender. We know nothing about him except his looks. First, what kind of name is Mitt? Was Chip unavailable? As a card-carrying liberal governor of one of our most liberal states, he has held positions well to the left of Giuliani on abortion, gay rights and public financing of medicine. He is breaking the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction by trying to run on his record by distancing himself from it. A neat trick that seems to be working. But with the money he is spending, every vote will be expensive. Unlike with Rudy, we really have no idea what his core values are—other than his true belief and faith that he should be president. He has all the passion that Fred lacks.

We had our fling with McCain 8-years ago and the Straight Talk Express is on blocks with the wheels off. He has not worn well and lost his single most attractive feature—his credibility—when he knelt in the snow before Jerry Falwell. Still, according to the conventional wisdom a year ago, he should have done better, and those same wise ones believed he was dead and buried three months ago. He is broke but not broken.

Conventional wisdom had this as all over for the Democrats 2 weeks ago, with Hillary inevitable, triumphant and all but crowned. Those whom the gods of media would destroy, they first make inevitable. Her debate performance delighted all in the talking/writing class. No, it isn’t personal (either for or against her). It is, as in the God Father, “only business.” A horse race that is over is not worth covering. Hillary’s remarkable stumbles in the last debate breathed life into talking heads and typing fingers.

The last debate, that I call the Parse Farce, revealed Hillary as being unwilling to answer virtually any question in a clear manner. This really hurt her and conjured up the parsing of her husband’s administration and reminded us that no one named Clinton knows what the meaning of is is.

Democrats love the idea of a woman with a real chance to be president. But the reality of Hillary is different. She has high negatives—and that she could survive. What really hurts is the lack of positive passion for her. The idea of her is more attractive than Hillary herself.

The conventional wisdom said that Obama had to attack to get noticed. He promised to step it up. But he couldn’t perform. This raised the real question of if he can’t stand up to Hillary’s dodging, how would he do with Ahmadinejad? The conventional wisdom says that Edwards’ attacks will help Obama, because the nice people in Iowa don’t like people fighting and Edwards is hurting Edwards. This wisdom does not take into consideration that if Hillary is going to be stopped, it must be in Iowa. The only way Edwards stays alive is not necessarily by winning himself, but by playing Obama to block. Then he can come back in South Carolina.

All of this is to show that we really don’t know what we’re talking about. The conventional wisdom can cop a u-turn without signaling. A YouTube “macaca moment” and the universe shifts. A joke too mean, a look too dazed, a phrase inartfully expressed, an old scandal unearthed, and “inevitable” becomes “fatally flawed.”

We have miles to go, trees to fell, paper to make and ink to imprint our conventional wisdom before we sleep.