Ouuuuuch. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Mccain's staff pulls out attack dog Bill Cunningham, lets him do what he does best, then apologizes for his words.
Then, at a time when McCain's conservative credentials are being called into question, you've got ole Bill basically calling McCain a big pussy in front of the whole frat house. Now, Ann Colter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Cunningham, and Sean Hannity are all stumping against McCain and some (Colter and Bill) are even making a point of formally endorsing Hillary.
Whoa. And how did we get here? What does this Ohioan (me) think this means?
Well, to start with, Cincinnati is the most conservative city in America. Although in actuality, that's hard to gauge, what makes Cinci so important is the fact that it's the one major city that breaks the overall pattern repeated across the US: large metropolitan areas are blue, less populated (but more numerous) areas tend to be red. In all the 2004 swing states especially, this tension is what made them fall where they fell.
In all the states I pored over in 2004, it was "city vs. country" and tipped blue, but only barely, in States democrats won. What made me know Kerry lost Ohio before all the votes were in was the fact that it was still squarely half-and-half when most of the major cities were counted. Hours before the tallies were finished, before any major network was calling it, I knew that Bush had remained POTUS. Because Cinci's vote were still not counted, and Cincinnati's the only major city I know of in the United States that's bright, fresh hemoglobin, race car red.
As someone who lives in the heart of the "tri-state area," you know this. And within Ohio, I lived in Dayton, which is part of the triangle of cities all situated about 45 minutes apart: Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati. The raising of the speed limit from 55 to 65 literally brought us about 10 minutes closer together, along with the suburban sprawl that makes the edges of the cities closer to one another.
Now, one think anyone in that area knows is that you can't buy a Playboy within the city limits, there are no strip clubs, there's a huge bloc of conservative, old-school, former German immigrants who are proud, Protestant, and very socially conservative. There's also huge racial tension in Cincinnati because of the extreme disparity between black and white in this town, where a lot of whites are very obviously comfortable and well off, whereas a lot of blacks are very obvious not.
This is markedly different from Dayton, where the level of integration is much much higher, and even the public school systems enjoy pretty minimal tension between the races. You see blacks and whites (it's a mostly black-and-white town, and the number of blacks stands at around 40%, if memory serves) together in social places, mixed in groups far more than other parts of the country. You can even see this in the campaign speech in Dayton, where it's a mix of young and old, black and white, and where, like Wisconsin, Obama is making big inroads even as Clinton is tanking, even within her own most solid base - older, white women.
Dayton is a real typical Ohio city, where it's bright blue and people are relatively moderate, and fairly nice people who haven't been through race riots like in LA, nor do they see the extreme extremes in poverty in an obvious way as in Chicago, nor do you have constant influxes of immigration from around the world, as in NYC. Where I'm from, it's pretty black-and-white, with smidges and dollops of Latino, Jewish, or Asian people thrown in there. We got some college towns with more diversity (say, Columbus) or larger segments of the Asian population (say, Cleveland), but for the most part, it's a group of black-and-white folks who've pretty much gotten used to each other. And where, importantly somehow, even poorer black folks live in small houses and have their own yards.
I still remember commenting to a grad colleague that California seemed much more segregated than my hometown in Ohio, to which he guffawed, since most people on the coasts think everything in the middle is something akin to a scene from Deliverance, in which hicks play banjos on their porches and talk about the "perty mouths" of outsiders. Kinda strange for a Californian to hear an Ohioan remark that Dayton, Ohio seemed more integrated than the Bay Area, but I think it's true. There are more types of people, but there isn't very much actual social mixing between racial groups, other than between Asian Americans and whites, of course.
Anyway, Cinci's not like that, from what I've seen. It's conservative, uptight, and hardcore red meat. Like raw and bloody. It's no surprise that Cincinnati has been ground zero for more pitched conservative battles than its size would seem to lend itself:
Larry Flynt and Hustler? Cincy.
Mapplethorpe and the cultural freakout over a few pictures? Cincy.
Literally deciding the fate of the President of the United States in 2004? Cincy.
Had Cincinnati followed the pattern of every other major metropolitan area in the United States, Kerry would now be running for re-election.
So going to Cincinnati wearing anything other than his Sunday conservative best was a bad idea. And unleashing an attack dog like Bill Cunningham, telling him to "give the crowd some red meat," and then getting all PC and apologizing for it later – bad, bad press.
Bill Cunningham is one of the best shock jocks in the US – hell, even I listened to him all though middle school from 10-12 every weeknight as I fell asleep. The guy's a straight talker, he's runs a funny show, and you never wonder for what he thinks. He's gotten far more conservative over time, it seems, as politics has shifted further to the right since the mid-80's, when I was listening to him, and as conservative shock radio has upped the ante and started warring with specific left-oriented media, such as Keith Olbermann's show, Jon Stewart, or Bill Maher at times. Then you mix in the culture wars and the extremization of the right over the last couple decades, and ole Bill sounds pretty strident to me now.
But what I always liked about Bill Cunningham is that he always did pull off a reputation as a shock jock but never went into the realm of the truly crazy. Rush Limbaugh – I can't even listen to that blowhard talk for more than a minute; Bill Cunningham always seems to be the voice that "makes sense" to the actual staid, conservative crowd that doesn't see itself as radical or ideological, but rather as "the normal people" in the world. That's Ohio, and that's Bill.
I don't agree with him, but he's not nearly as stupid-sounding as that waste-of-human-flesh Rush. And Colter? Don't even get me started. If her intellect shone as brightly as her blonde ambition, she might even be worth calling a pundit, as opposed to a crazy bitch. Sorry, PC-police, I think her level of coo-coo warrants the term.
But McCain's people really screwed the pooch on this one. Why did they take a conservative pit bull, put a bloody steak in its mouth, and tell it to go buck wild? What did they think Cunningham would say? Did they think he'd keep this fight "fair?" Do they even know who Bill Cunningham is?
Now, I'm sure they also felt that ole Bill from WLW was far more acceptable than a Limbaugh or Coulter – who would be crazy choices to be asked to stump for McCain at a political even, as anyone knows – but Bill isn't going to speak in thinly-veiled innuendos, coded language, or subtle politico-speak. He's going to go for the jugular, baby, and he's going to give "straight talk," which is what he's famous for. Isn't that what McCain calls himself?
I don't blame Cunningham at all. He's happy, of course, since now he's making the rounds again in right-wing media and getting his impressively powerful voice (I don't think I've ever just heard him speak in a normal tone, but always seems to be projecting as if he had a built-in megaphone in his throat) on national TV and mainstream venues like CNN and FOX.
McCain's people? I think someone's head is rolling on this one. This is a huuge political mistake, since I think he just pissed all his conservative right street cred out the window, and now that he's made an enemy of the shock jocks with big voices and big audiences – ouch. It's gonna hurt him to hear, day after day, night after night, Limbaugh, Cunningham, Coulter and a myriad others drive home what a big wimp and double-talker McCain is, and how he's "not a real conservative."
And actually, I think they're right, if you can excuse the unintended pun. I don't think McCain's all that conservative, because he can't be anymore, at least publicly, as things have de-radicalized as the culture wars petered out, the real war in Iraq has heated up, and Bush has been busy driving the American economy into the ground. I don't think the shock jocks command as much power as they think they do, and are more on the extreme right than ever, but their war of words against McCain is going to hurt him a lot in another election that's got the 50/50 dynamics of recent years, but which this time, the burden will be on the Republicans to scrape enough votes to win, as opposed to the Dems last time.
In the big picture, I like McCain as a person and he's not a bad conservative candidate if I had to pick one. I don't agree with most of what he stands for, but he's also not an idiot, like Bush II. We just totally disagree on issues, but I don't think him to be immoral or incompetent. But I think his campaign's really jumping the shark now, after the non-scandal of the cute lobbyist that blew over, but the heels upon which this real fuck-up is coming at the most inopportune time.
Of course, I want Obama to win, but I do extend an E.T.-style "ouuuuch" to him, even as my higher brain wants to ask, "What the hell were you thinking?" This was the epitome of a bad political move, poorly thought out and horribly executed.
Ouuuuch.