The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.(John F. Kennedy)

Our reluctance to entertain questions about public opinion is both strange and signular. In all previous periods of American history the expression of doubts about The People has been a marked feature of mainstream public debate. In response to the widespread use of propaganda by both the Allies and the Axis powers in World War I, so-called nervous liberals such as Walter Lippmann worried that ordinary people left to their own devices could easily be led astray by demagogues. In place of the “barbarism” of mass democracy Lippmann recommended that experts (he had himself in mind) be given the responsibility for guiding public opinion. John Dewey, though ostensibly and optimist, presciently warned that in a consumer society, which at the time had not yet fully materialized, voters would be hard-pressed to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens given the available distractions. A people who spend their evenings attending movies, listening to the radio, and taking automobile rides would take less interest in politics, making them increasingly vulnerable to manipulation, he predicted. (Rick Shenkman, “Just How Stupid Are We: Facing the Truth About the American Voter”)

…reality is that the once independent-thinking McCain has by now completely remade himself into a prototypical, dumbed-down Republican Party stooge — one who plans to rely on the same GOP strategy that has been winning elections ever since Pat Buchanan and Dick Nixon cooked up a plan for cleaving the South back in 1968. Rather than serving up the “straight talk” he promises, McCain is enthusiastically jumping aboard with every low-rent, fearmongering, cock-sucking presidential aspirant who’s ever traveled the Lee Atwater/William Safire highway.

Even the briefest of surveys of the supporters gracing McCain’s events underscores the kind of red-meat appeal he’s making. Immediately after his speech in New Orleans, a pair of sweet-looking old ladies put down their McCain signs long enough to fill me in on why they’re here. “I tell you,” says one, “if Michelle Obama really doesn’t like it here in America, I’d be very pleased to raise the money to send her back to Africa.”[Matt Taibbi, “Full Metal McCain”, Rolling Stone Magazine, June 26, 2008]

These three quotes (the JFK quote is taken from chapter one of Shenkman’s book) pretty well sum up the battle that lay before us as we head into the 2008 general election. One party is going to attempt to inspire us, help us rise above common prejudice and mythology, while the other is going to appeal to our base instincts. It’s a titanic struggle with serious consequences.

Most American elections are not that important – they are carnival shows with made-up issues, all furiously debated while the business of corporate Washington goes on unimpeded. It really doesn’t matter if the Democrats or Republicans control the congress, as we have seen, and Bill Clinton was only an ever-so-light and pale version of George H.W. Bush. But at stake now are future wars on undeserving countries (most likely Muslim), basic rights like habeas corpus, and the right of a woman to have a legal abortion if she so chooses. That’s a brief litany – there are other issues – media monopolies in every U.S. city and town, citizen control of the internet, and access to the commons by vulture corporations out to grab what is left.

Normally I would say that the Democrat is only pretending to be a man of the people, that our wars are bipartisan corporate affairs. Normally that is the case – we seldom get real choices. But I’m taking a leap of faith now, and staking a claim – Barack Obama means what he says, and offers an antidote to the raging fascism that has so infected us since 9/11. The stakes are high – never so high.

Are we up to it? Taibbi and Shenkman say no. Lippmann says that Obama and McCain need to play out the scene while holding our better interests above it all. For myself, strained by cynicism brought on by eight years of Clinton and twelve years of the Bush, and by a voting public that can barely find its way to the polls much less weigh in on serious issues – I’m hoping for a two-out bottom of the ninth three run dinger to pull us out of this one. I hope that Barack Obama is for real, and that the American public will rise to its potential rather than swim in the chum that McCain and the Republicans are going to be tossing our way.

So OK, self-important bloggers and curious passers-by, today I am a Democrat, and I am advancing Democrat[ic] ideals – a man can show us the way, and we have the good sense to follow. I support Barack Obama for president, I’m relieved its not Bill Clinton in drag, and I fear for our future if John McCain succeeds in his vile bamboozlement.

I was slightly upbraided in the post below for being “graceless”, and as I thought about it I realized that the word itself is a key into the attitude about journalists towards the people they cover. I’m just a blogger, and have no pretenses about this being a journalistic endeavor. Far from it – blogs represent a break in tradition away from business as usual. Because of the internet, the old order is breaking down. We are Philistines of a sort, bringing fried chicken and beer to a cocktail party. But the cocktail party has been going on too long, the participants so inured to one another that if a journalist were to do his job, he might be seen as a hooligan. Good journalists are a royal pain to politicians and other leaders. That is a sign they are doing their jobs.

Perhaps it was uncouth to criticize Tim Russert on the event of his death. Problem is, since he was regarded as a “dean” (a very high level sycophant), he could not be criticized while alive either. Timing matters, but only a little.

Journalists and politicians should not be comfortable in the same room. A journalist, if attending a party where politicians are gathered, should immediately develop sweaty armpits. After all, the journalist has been researching and interviewing, talking to underlings and monitoring the activities of the politicians. The journalist can rightly assume that, liquor flowing freely, a confrontation is inevitable.

A politician, upon seeing a journalist enter a room, ought to get angry. After all, the journalist has been a pain in the ass. The politician has not been able to favor his friends in dealings. The journalist has been poking his head in unseemly places, interviewing employees and former business associates. The politician might fly off the handle and let the journalist have a what-for, and then even that will become news.

In Washington, journalists and politicians are quite at ease with one another, usually attending the same parties. Politicians routinely talk up the press corp and salute its integrity, a sure sign that the system has failed. A proud profession has been co-opted, the knives and daggers have been shelved. There’s been a treaty.

Tim Russert’s obituary included countless homilies on how respected he was by the political faction. It’s a sure sign that he was a failure. But he did have access to the powerful. He got it on their conditions. They made the rules, he followed. A deal was struck.

Shortly before leaving office, President Bill Clinton lost his cool on Democracy Now!, the independent news program whose host is Amy Goodman. DN! is no respecter of propriety, and Goodman is not at all graceful. After enough confrontational questions, Clinton went on a diatribe. He said “every question you’ve asked has been hostile and combative”. It was not the kind of treatment he was used to. He was habituated, accustomed to cordiality and respect. He took it for granted that Goodman would approach him on bended knee, and when she didn’t, he got angry.

I found the exchange interesting because I was not aware that Clinton even knew of the nightly news program, much less deigning to find it annoying. But he knew about it. He called in unsolicited to promote the Gore candidacy. Interesting.

When Goodman questioned him on the Iraqi sanctions, which had killed over half a million kids, Clinton said that it was Saddam Hussein’s doing, completely exonerating himself. That was not enough for Goodman, who reminded Clinton that two former UN heads of the program overseeing the sanctions had quit in protest. It was a graceless question. One of many. I was never so proud of the profession of journalism as I was of her that day.

Clinton and Goodman would not be comfortable at a cocktail party together, not that Goodman would ever be invited. She openly confronted him with tough questions. Clinton was angry that she had dared to be “hostile and combative”. They might come to blows. Indeed, the journalists belong at the smoke-filled bars of days gone by, recounting their experiences, sharing the battle wounds. They should not even be invited to the same party, much less attend.

Compare the feisty Goodman/Clinton encounter to the standard presidential interview by a “dean of journalism” like Tom Brokaw or Walter Cronkite or yes, Tim Russert. Remove the submissiveness, set respect aside, ask tough questions, piss the guy off, and one is removed from the world of sycophant journalism to that of Democracy Now!, a news program looked down upon by the haughty practitioners of journalism in its current form.

It’s a shame. Journalism could be fun. They are not of much use in their current manifestations.

It’s sad when someone dies young and suddenly. There’s a strong temptation when that happens to lionize that person. So it is that with Tim Russert people are now saying that he was some kind of special journalist. Not so. He was a toady.

Broadcast journalism is a tough world – those people have to fill air time within narrow constraints. They cannot confront the powerful, and so have to idle away the hours talking about minutia and attacking the smaller people in public life. But if they are pretty and add an air of serious discourse to the job, they often take on an air of professionalism and intellectual rigor. Tom Brokaw is a toady – he has spent his entire career reporting to us with deference on the activities of the powerful without upsetting them. He’s typical, and revered. He was allowed to ascend the alter, to perform the pièce de résistance of the profession – the presidential interview. That’s because he was dependable. So too was Russert.

Dan Rather was the same way – he earned a reputation during Watergate for challenging the powerful when that was the thing to do, and then settled into a comfortable career in the Brokaw mode, using respect and deference and humor to repeat to us those things that those in power wanted to know. But he crossed the line a few years back and did a hard-hitting, confrontational piece about George W. Bush, and paid the price. That’s a lesson they all take to heart – if you really do journalism in that world – if you investigate and confront, you’re out.

But how do we have news? Well, we don’t have much of it. We have 24 hour news channels now, but they fill their hours with the non-confrontational and trivial – missing white women and OJ and natural disasters. Politicians come and go, and depending on their stature, they might be challenged. Dennis Kucinich, if he ever got air time, was taken for a rocky ride. He’s low-stature. John McCain will have an easy time. If indeed anyone is asked a hard question, there will be head scratching and wonderment, and the credentials of the person asking the question will be called to task.

This is the world that Tim Russert thrived in. He was perfect for the job – low key, respectful, yet erudite and polished. He was an odd looking man for a TV centerpiece – usually they are movie-star pretty folks, and Russert wasn’t that. But he had all of the other qualifications. He brought gravitas to a trivial job. He made it look like journalism.

Here’s Glen Greenwald on Russert, pre-death, when you could say things about him that were true:

Or they’ll point to “liberal” Tim Russert — Tim Russert — about whom Cheney press aide Cathy Martin said: “I suggested we put the vice president on ‘Meet the Press,’ which was a tactic we often used. It’s our best format, as it allows us to control the message.” That’s the same “liberal” Tim Russert who confessed that he operates by the defining law of the Government propagandist: “When I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it’s my own policy — our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission.”

We don’t have much journalism in this country. With the passing of Tim Russert, well, you never know, depending on who takes his place, we might have a little more. But don’t bet on it.

Rolling Stone Magazine has a nice article in its current edition by Tom Dickinson called “The Senate Caves“. It’s an inquiry into the inability of the majority of the United States Senate to legislate their will. Dickinson focuses on Charles Shumer (D-NY), and has quite a few unkind words for him. Schumer recently patrolled fences for the hedge fund industry. Hedge fund managers are people who make their money from capital gains (the increase in the value of stock held more than one year), as opposed to salaries and wages. Under Bush, capital gains have been set aside for special tax treatment, paying a maximum tax of 15% (as opposed to as much as 39% for a middle class working person).

Hedge fund managers get virtually all of their income from capital gains. That’s what they do – buy and sell securities and commodities. Therefore, they pay that 15% federal tax, and no more. Simple fairness and equity would dictate that they pay the same rate as everyone else – they are no more special or important than Joe the plumber. But congress refused to block that special treatment, and Schumer led the charge.

Schumer’s love of his made-up friends in the middle class didn’t stop him from championing one of the biggest tax breaks for billionaires in the history of the republic. Last year, Democrats in the House fought to close a loophole that levies a tax rate of only 15 percent — barely half what real-life versions of [Schumer’s fictional middle class couple] the Baileys pay — on hedge-fund managers who make as much as $3.7 billion a year. But when the debate reached the Senate, Schumer broke with his fellow Democrats and sided with Wall Street — inspiring the hedge-fund industry to hail him as its “guardian.”

It’s an interesting article and does a fairly decent job of surface-skimming a phenomenon that has been with us for so long as the wealthy have been subjected to democratic rule, which I call the rule of “faux liberals” and “crypto-conservatives”. These are the “faux-cryptos”.

As the hedge-fund fiasco demonstrates, Democrats have turned the Senate into the chamber where good legislation goes to die. Since regaining the majority in 2006, the Democrats have granted the Bush administration and big telephone companies immunity for illegal wiretapping, declared a branch of the Iranian military a terrorist organization and stuffed the recent Foreclosure Prevention Act with far more goodies for big lenders than for struggling homeowners. They also confirmed Attorney General Michael Mukasey despite his refusal to disavow torture — a move engineered by Schumer. “You really want to like the Democrats,” says Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Then they go and do shit like this.”

There’s a widespread perception now that the Democrats would do more, would be a more progressive party if only there were more of them, and especially if one of them occupied the White House. (That millions of Democrats think that Hillary Clinton satisfied the quest for a liberal president is another part of the problem – dumb-assedness – which is a significant part of the faux-crypto phenomenon.) But it begs the question – if faux-cryptos are the problem, how on earth is having more of them aboard going to solve anything? Will Schumer suddenly be emboldened if there are 58 Democratic senators instead of 51? Will Harry Reid grow a set?

Not likely. The problem is one that speaks to the nature of our political system, which is sponsored by and indebted to the wealthy classes. It’s not enough that so-called liberals and progressives are compromised. If that were the case, they might indeed come around with enough public support and more colleagues-in-arms. It’s much more basic – faux-cryptos are protected by the people who finance our political system. They receive campaign perks and contributions from the same sources, and are slaves to the same media that vets all politicians. If they want money, if they want favorable press, they had better play ball.

It’s no good to have a two party system financed by the same people if one of the parties actually fights for ordinary people. So we are given something different – a perceived two party system. I see the fire in the eyes of conservatives – I know they hate Democrats. I know they think Democrats are really socialists who want to enslave us all via the welfare state. And it’s good that conservatives believe that because it reinforces the false division that we have between Democrats and Republicans, and maintains the perception that there are significant divisions between the parties.

There are a few good Democrats who fight hard for ordinary people. Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd come to mind, as do Dennis Kucinich and George Miller. They are a distinct minority. Far more often we liberals are represented by the likes of Schumer, Diane Feinstein and Max Baucus. These are people who know the boundaries and play safe and, when it comes right down to an important issue where their votes make a difference, vote with the opposition. These are not liberals – they are merely playing liberals. What better way to have a debate than to have all parties to the debate owned by the same moneyed interests?

Election fraud aside, it appears as though Democrats will make significant gains this November. They might even capture the White House, though that is a long shot. I look around and see that most Democrats are bought into the notion that the coming changes will break the dam, and that progressives legislation, long bottled up by Republicans and faux-cryptos, will be set free. It won’t happen. And when it fails to materialize new excuses will pop up. Probably it will be the fraudulent argument that Democrats are stymied by Senate debate rules that require a majority of sixty to make things happen. Says Dickinson,

In reality, the Democrats have everything they need right now to assert their own agenda and put a stop to Bush’s abuse of power — most important, the backing of a wide majority of Americans on issues ranging from the Iraq War to children’s health care. But instead of scratching and fighting to make good on the promises that got them elected — or at the very least, turning up the heat of the obstructionism of the GOP minority — they continue to make excuses.

So here I am again, Mr. Negative. Always trash-talkin’ Democrats. Why can’t I see that the Democrats, while a weak answer, are the only answer available to us? Well, it’s because the Democrats are not a weak answer. They are the wrong answer. They are the ones who make it look like we’re having a real debate, while all the while it’s just a diversionary tactic. They do the real work of the Republicans. They take all of the fervent belief and hard work of everyday people, and make sure it goes nowhere. They are like that famous parade at the end of the movie Animal House. The baton was stolen, the marching band was led down an alley and hit a wall, and they kept right on marching and playing their instruments.

So let’s get on now with American politics. Let’s have our furious debates, complete with political organizing and debates where people sit in bars and cheer just like it was a sporting event. Politics can be fun. “Laugh about it, shout about it when you’ve got to choose. Any way you look at it you lose.”

That’s negative, I know, and this is a year for hope and change. But the only real change that is ever going to happen is still years away, and will only come about when people abandon not Republican politics, but faux-crypto Democrats as well.

1. One in four New Yorkers has genital herpes. The study refers to New York City, and not the wider state. But here’s the kicker – nationwide, 19% of us have the virus. If ever there were a gold mine for some pharmaceutical company, this is it. It’s an incurable condition and the symptoms are usually hidden. It calls for a drug that does nothing that has to be taken on a regular basis and costs lots of money. And big pharma has delivered. It’s called Famvir. It costs about $300 a month. Meanwhile, millions of cases of malaria go untreated. No money in that.

2. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an evil demon, can park his big arse on a bicycle and make it go. That in itself is a story. But it gets worse – the bike he was riding was made in a factory that is a joint venture between the governments of Venezuela and Iran. It gets worse. Chavez – did I say he was an evil demon? – took the opportunity of riding the bike to make fun of George W. Bush. He said “My dear friend, president of the United States, I offer you this bicycle, see the bomb. See it… you think that is a bottle of water, no, that’s the bomb.” We must put an end to this disrespect. We must put Venezuela on the list of countries we wish to bomb. Bombs, unlike bicycles, are something we actually make in this country.

3. Two of 109 historians think that George W. Bush is not the worst president ever. The survey failed to give the name of the two, fearing retribution. Bush likes to point to the fact that he, along with Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were also very unpopular during parts of their terms. Give the man his due – indeed he does have that in common with those great men.

4. Vanity Fair has insinuated, and Gina Gershon has vigorously denied that she and former president Bill Clinton had an affair. I don’t know if that is true, but I feel more than I know that Bill Clinton is still at it. As Pat Buchanan said on MSNBC last week, Bill is a dog that does not stay on the front porch. If Hillary Clinton were elected Republicans would have had fun trying to figure out how to impeach the First Gentleman.

5. In an an exchange that typifies the witty repartee that so often takes place on capitol hill, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS) referred to FEMA officials as a “bunch of buttheads”. FEMA was quick to retort that Taylor was a fartfaced liar.

6. Somewhere some conservative blog commenter or poster has made reference to the fact that Ted Kennedy is a liberal and has had brain surgery. I feel this more than I know it.

We were lucky enough while out in San Francsco this spring to catch an exhibit by photographer Annie Liebovitz. I can’t begin to describe it. But here are two of her more powerful images – Willie Shoemaker and Wilt Chamberlain, and Mick Jagger.

I’m no amateur, dammit. I know my politics, and when it comes to elections, I put up many worthy comments and ideas. Here’s just one from a post I put up here last month: “Bob Kelleher is a force to be reconciled. He could sneak up and win if Republicans are not careful.” Can’t find the link right now.

It’s kind of funny now to watch as the blog and newspaper pundits try to make sense of it all. What are the voters telling us? What wisdom can we glean from this?

I thought I would share my experience from running for office in 1996. I ran against Peggy Arnott and got trounced, and stubbornly did everything wrong. The problem was that to do all the right things, I would have had to have been a different person.

Just one example: All of the Democratic candidates in Billings were marching and holding signs at a Republican event on First Avenue South to generate some publicity, and I was handed a script and told to read it for the TV cameras. It talked about the wonders of the fearless leader, Bill Clinton. It talked about how he was putting more cops on the street to fight crime, among other right wing ideals. I couldn’t read it. I just couldn’t. I handed it back to the organizer and said have someone else do it. And someone else did it.

I just can’t be a party boy. It’s not in my makeup. But to win that election I needed to soften up my stances, say things I didn’t believe, and play ball. Peg was a smart politician (and a nice lady of integrity too). I talked to people who voted for her of various stripes after the election. I asked them if, when she came to the door, she left the impression that she agreed with them on the issues of importance. Without fail, liberals and conservatives alike, Peg was there for them. Except on the abortion issue. She stood her ground there.

And that was the key. Let people validate their emotions through you, the candidate. If they are upset about Iraq, you’re concerned too. If they are behind the invasion, so are you. If they are upset about gas prices, you pay them too and want to bring them down. If they want clean air, so do you, and if they want jobs that cost us clean air, you want that too. No matter the issue, you can forge a position to support them. After all, once the election is over, the public loses interest, and you’re free to do as you wish. Peg knew this. I was naive.

But I knocked on doors for months on end, tracking every household, revisiting the ones I thought would vote for me. (People lie! If all those people who said they were going to vote for me did, I would have won.) I talked to thousands of people. In the beginning, I was carrying petitions for raising the minimum wage and Clean Water initiatives, and using them to put a friendly foot in the door. There was natural support for both these issues, people were warm and accepting, and I thought the strategy was a good one. But along about October, television campaigns against these initiatives came out. Neither initiative had much financial backing – only grassroots support.

In the wake of the TV ad campaigns, the doors turned ugly – I stopped talking about clean water and minimum wage. It just made people mad. But I had hitched my wagon. Both initiatives, which enjoyed huge early support, went down to defeat. This is when I learned that no matter your reasonable stance on an issue, no matter your literature or talking points, TV rules. And it’s not a rational medium. It’s a visual one. The Clean Water initiative went down because a mining company shill pretended to drink water from a stream below a mine near Cardwell. It was phony, but a powerful visual image, and that is all it took to defeat months of door knocking and signature gathering.

That’s politics. One vote is not very much, won’t change the outcome, and people are busy. They are not stupid, and are not going to invest any time in studying issues. There’s no reward. They want quick and dirty, and TV fits the bill. Candidates are free to say anything they want on any issue, and to do anything they want once elected. That’s why our campaigns are so shallow and the results so confusing.

(Just don’t make the mistake of giving the television people a bad image, like Mike Lange did. People remember stuff like that.)

This particular election featured some neophytes. Jim Hunt thought he could skip the primary, and focused on beating Rehberg in the fall. But he hadn’t built name recognition, and went down. The Republicans took a pass on running against Baucus, and Bob Kelleher snuck in the back door. Now they are saddled with a cantankerous 85 year progressive parliamentarian.

This is bonehead stuff. Manage your base. It’s about images, TV exposure, and name recognition. The parties right now, Republicans especially, appear to be run by amateurs. The old hands are gone, and the new ones don’t know what they are doing.

I delight to see that John Driscoll and Bob Kelleher won. This race lacked glitzy names and ad campaigns, and voters put up a picture that looks like a monkey throwing paint at a canvas. The parties failed to manage the voting public. Heads oughtta roll.

One thing people have noticed about Hillary is that she suffers from a sense of entitlement. She felt she deserved the Democratic nomination simply because she was a Clinton. Never mind that Bill only served for eight years due to the good graces of Ross Perot, that he never got even 50% of the vote, that he more resembled a Republican than a Democrat, that under his rule the Democrats lost control of Congress – never mind any of that. And screw issues. Hillary was supposed to be it, and we were not to expect more.

But it’s not just Hillary. Democrats in general feel that sense of entitlement. They presume to represent progressives without offering truly progressive alternatives. And they go postal if true progressives challenge them.

Well, Hillary’s gone now, and it’s time to take a closer look at this Obama character. For this I turn to Ralph Nader, Mr. Spoiler, and an interview by Tunku Varadarajan published in the Wall Street Journal last weekend, “Don’t Call Him Spoiler“. His insight, per usual, is cutting edge.

Varadarajan: Mr. Obama has opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement, and said that he wants it renegotiated; he’s chastised the Big Three in Detroit for opposing higher CAFE standards; he emphasizes at every opportunity that he takes no money from lobbyists. What [do you] think of that?

Nader: You see, that’s all permissible populist rhetoric that the corporations understand and wink at. Look at who gets the corporate money. Six out of seven industries giving money, through PACs and individual executives, etc., are giving more money to the Democrats than to the Republicans. I mean, John McCain’s having trouble raising money, even now.

Obama’s taking large money from the securities industry, the health insurance industry . . . I’ve gotten used to this ritual where the companies give Democrats this leeway, and say, ‘Well, Obama’s gotta say that stuff, but he’ll come around. There’s no way he’ll touch Nafta or touch the WTO.'”

Varadarajan: So is it all just a charade?

Nader: Yes, a charade. His health-insurance plan lets the health insurance companies continue their redundant, wasteful, often corrupt – in terms of billing fraud – ways, ripping off Medicare.

I think he’s on to something. We do have the semblance of a two-party system. It just never works out that we are offered two substantially differing policies on issues. But people would not put up with a one-party system in a representative democracy, and we do have different temperaments. (Temperamental differences are really the essence of the two-party structure.) So corporations tolerate Democrats, like the Clintons and Obama, so long as they don’t go too far. In the meantime, progressives are ignored, ridiculed, demeaned. Even by Democrats.

So is Obama a corporate shill?

“He’s not an agent,” Mr. Nader grants, “but he moves in an environment that’s conditioned by corporate power. If he wins, you’ll see his appointments in the Defense department, the Treasury and so on, they’ll be pretty much what the lobbies and PACs want.”

All is not lost with Obama, says Nader, and I take slight comfort:

Mr. Nader is clear that he prefers Mr. Obama to Hillary Clinton. “With her, we’ll just get what Bill gave us. I think she’s like Bill Clinton. With Obama, there’s the possibility of some fresh start, just like Kennedy did the Peace Corps. You see, when Obama got out of Harvard Law School, he went to work for a short period with a group I started in New York, the New York Public Interest Research Group. Then he went and did neighborhood work in Chicago, so it’s not like he’s coming off some corporate mountain.

“But he’s made up his mind to be a very conciliatory, concessionary, adaptive politician to the reality of corporate power. And people like him are told, ‘Look, if you don’t adhere to certain parameters and expectations, you’re going to have a hard time winning any nomination or election.’ And Obama’s made his peace with that.”

Perhaps this is why Obama manages to inspire so many people without every really saying much … people are hungry for change, and Obama is smart enough and sly enough to know he’s got to appease the corporations who finance the parties and own the media. He’s learned the system.

He’s not a transforming leader. He was not a transforming senator. He was not a challenging senator, the way [the late Paul] Wellstone was.

So what exactly does Nader want? It is at this point that most Democrats fall on the rejoinder that we should settle for incremental progress, and that Nader is just feeding his ego. But Nader offers up a host of policy suggestions that few Democrats would even recognize, much less advocate:

Labor reform, repealing Taft-Hartley. You see, the labor unions line up in favor of the Democrat Party and they get nothing. For heaven’s sake, they went ‘x’ number of years without even adjusting the minimum wage to inflation. I’ve never seen a less demanding organized labor movement, but what have the Democrats given them? … lip service on [ending] Nafta and the WTO, and better protection of individual investors’ rights, rights that corporate capitalism violates repeatedly.

On health care, “we believe in single-payer health, full Medicare for all.”

He is also “opposed unalterably to nuclear power. We think the country should go solar, in all of its different manifestations, including passive solar architecture.”

Mr. Nader wants to slash “the bloated, wasteful military budget. This thing is so out of control that it’s unauditable. But Obama wants to increase the military budget, which is currently distorted away from soldiers and towards these giant weapons systems, and keeping troops in Korea and Japan.”

And as for the tax system, Mr. Nader wishes that the Democrats would adhere to his philosophy, which is that “we should first tax things that we like the least, or dislike the most, as a society, before we tax human labor, and necessities . . . through a sales tax. “So we should tax securities speculation first, before we tax labor. If you go to a store and buy $1,000 worth of products, you pay a sales tax. You buy $1 million worth of derivatives, you pay no sales tax!”

I hear the scurrying of little feet, Democrats running for cover. Don’t even think of asking them to be advocates for such policies.

No matter. The Nader effect is gone, he’ll have no impact on elections ever again. Democrats will sue to keep him off the ballot (the DNC filed 24 lawsuits in 18 states in 12 weeks to prevent choice in 2004). And he’ll get no media coverage, save from FOX, and the Wall Street Journal, who rejoice in his candidacy, feeling it will help Republicans.

Since I announced my run, I can’t get on Charlie Rose. Or Diane Rehm or Terry Gross [of NPR]. I haven’t been on Jim Lehrer yet. I got on Wolf Blitzer twice, on CNN. Fox News calls me more than anybody. They have the same attitude, of course – ‘Here comes the spoiler!’ But how can you spoil something that’s spoiled already?

“I don’t complain much publicly. I’ve been told by a lot of the television bookers around the country, ‘Ralph, they don’t like you.’ So the door is shut.

Which goes to reinforce the notion that the media, which is owned by giant corporations with an interest in almost all policy issues, runs these campaigns, decides who is viable, who is not, and who will be allowed to have access to the public mind. And it is clear that anyone who advocates for progressive causes such as those set forth by Nader above need not bother.

But I say to myself, ‘Should we close down and go to Monterey and watch the whales?’ No. Better to fight when you have a small chance, than to fight later when you have no chance at all.”

Indeed. Fight on, Ralph. Things must get much worse before they get better, but things will get better. Too bad you won’t be around to enjoy it.

I hope I’m not too late! I take this inopportune moment to overrule your judgment with mine. Election races depend on it!

President of the United States of America: I was going to vote for Obama, but then Anna convinced me that Hillary was a woman, and Wulfy made it clear that we are not to oppose Democrats, so I voted for Hillary, who is a Democrat woman. You should too.

Senator from the Great State of Montana Isn’t it amazing that a podunk outpost like this, with less than a million people, has 1/50th of the voting power in the senate? That’s a deal. People take us for simpletons who can be bought with glitzy TV campaigns, and we prove it by sending filberts like Burns there for eighteen years.

Representative to the U.S. Congress from the Great State of Montana: This Rehberg character is a tough nut to crack – you think because he’s a trust baby and has never held a job in the private sector, that he’s kind of a Burnsian character. But he’s not. He’s formidable. It’s nice the Democrats put up people to oppose him now and then.

Supreme Court Justice: What you say? It’s non-partisan? Still, it’s never too soon to make this point: Mike McGrath does not belong on a bench of any kind except a park.

Governor of the Great State of Montana: This one’s easy. Pogreba, for openness in government. Never, ever let your motives be hidden.

My Local Representative: Roger Koopman is not running. I’m not voting in protest. What am I to do for material for this blog?

There you have it. Now, as a good American, follow my lead. Always look up for advice before you look down on your ballot. Your thoughts are good. But mine are better.