[[From: pdq
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 11:41 AM

"Lipstick on a Pig" Obama

"Potatoe Dan" Quayle

"Broccoli George" Bush

"Peanuthead" Carter

George "Macaca" Allen

Blah! Blah! Blah"

Our enemies are laughing at us. ]]

Not just our enemies -- our friends too.   To the extent that our media focus on red herrings, trivialities, and, in some cases, totally bum raps.   Yes, too many of our "low-information voters" buy into this stuff, but that's often because they don't have time to do a lot of real fact-finding (newspapers, magazines, blogs, internet searches) and the only "information" they have access to is 1) TV "news" channels, 2) talk radio, with 90% to 100% being right-wing ideologues in most locations, and 3) campaign advertising, which is mostly drivel, empty images, or even lies.

But let's look at the examples you gave, pdq.


a. "Potatoe Dan" Quayle: Most analysts seem to pin Bush 41's defeat mostly on his broken "read my lips: no new taxes" promise -- with a little help from Ross Perot siphoning off more votes from him than from Clinton. I seriously doubt Dan Quayle had much to do with it. (We had already written Quayle off as an airhead pretty boy, especially after Lloyd Bentsen's "You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy" quip in the debates, but G H B Bush won in 1988 anyway.)

b. "Broccoli George" Bush: see "a."

c. "Peanuthead" Carter: Jimmy Carter was way ahead in the polls in 1980 in the early fall, despite the gas lines, his
too-colorful kin, and the "charisma" of his challenger. What really killed Carter's re-election chances was the behind the scenes machinations of Republican operatives to get Khomeini (sp?) to hold the American hostages until after the election (actually releasing them as Reagan was being sworn in), in exchange for weapons. Carter's reelection chances were killed by the "hostage crisis."

d. "Lipstick on a Pig" Obama: It is not too late to dispel the myth that Obama was referring, even obliquely, to Palin (or McCain) as a "pig." Clearly, he was referring to the same old Republican neocon policies of the past 8 years masquerading as "change" and "reform" under the banner of McCain (and/or McCain/Palin).   And if Obama loses, I seriously doubt this will be the reason. Not only are there much more serious lies being told about him and his voting record, but there are well-orchestrated election fraud strategies being implemented by the Republicans in swing states as we speak (many involving systematic disenfranchisement of voters in largely Democratic-leaning areas).

By the way, those election-rigging schemes were largely responsible for the narrow "defeats" of both Al Gore and John Kerry, both of whom had been targets of these petty and/or deceitful image-damaging media blitzes (Kerry shown wind surfing or duck hunting in camouflage gear; Al Gore being falsely accused of saying he invented the internet; the media replaying Gore sighing and rolling his eyes, even when he had pretty clearly "won" the actual debate or at least held his own; etc.). Gore officially won the popular vote and, as published in the NY Times in 2001, when all the votes in Florida were eventually counted, he actually got more votes in that state than Bush -- despite losing a couple thousand to "Buchanan" because of the "butterfly ballot" -- no matter which standard for counting was used. And it's still not clear that Kerry really lost in Ohio (despite the lack of voting machines in several key precincts and cities), since most of the provisional ballots there have never been counted and many ballots have (illegally) been destroyed, preventing any true recount.   The 2000 and 2004 elections were not the clear, solid defeats for the Dems that the 1988 and 1984 elections were.

e. George "Macaca" Allen: Allen wasn't brought down by a single word, much less one taken out of context. I actually thought the more telling part of his comments about and to the young man he called "macaca" was his "Welcome to America, macaca" remark. He revealed an obvious bias and ignorance by assuming that since the young man was dark skinned, he must be a new immigrant (maybe even on a temporary visa?). The young man was a US citizen, who, IIRC, spoke flawless English and may have even been born here.    This was a lot more than just using a non PC word.
I agree that this was Allen's undoing, but his attitudes and views were not unfairly characterized by the media attention to his totally un-called-for "macaca" comments to a young man in the audience.