I am spending the afternoon doing what I planned to try yesterday (when I really wanted that review of The Lives of Others to get out... but not enough time): I am blogging from the place I work, which is, of course, what bloggers do all over, anyway. So it's not remarkable that way. Still, it's fun and kind of reassuring that this place has become a second home to me - I am watching my coworkers and occasionally chatting with them and with the regular customers. There's a Starbucks thing (it's not some official secret or anything) that they'd like to be "the third place" you go to (like home or work) where you feel comfortable. I have to say, this really kind of works.
And speaking of traveling and blogging, the blogflagration this week appears to be centered at CPAC, the right wing convention that certainly sounds more out there than mainstream, but that's me. Although the big story is all the GOP candidates making their way to properly genuflect to the far right Gods, the real story it seems to me is that conservatives are catching on to their marginalization and they're not happy about it. Up until last week, CPAC was looking - and sounding - like a far snoozier fest then it had been the past 5 years or so (when THEY RULED, as a frat boy might say), then conservatives started rumbling about being dissed and suddenly candidates crawled from the woodwork and made room in their frantically busy schedules to show up.
As I've said, I'm trying (hard) not to pay attention to the Presidential follies. I still think much of this is inconsequential for the moment. But there's an interesting dynamic on the right, where on the one hand conservatives are "up for grabs" in the traditional sense" and in another sense, they seem to be the crowd everyone chats about while actually doing nothing to attract them. There's no consensus, at not much emerging thus far, about what's going to animate this race from the right and energize the base.
One could make the argument that what will make the difference is the War on Terror/Iraq/All Humanity or "World War IV/V" as they like to call it (depending on where you put the War With The Space Aliens). But you can sense that conservatives are realizing that the ship on this has sailed. People don't like the War in Iraq, there's a diffidence to buying into the conservative urgency on "War On Terror" and it's not looking like a winning issue. Sure, a new attack could change that, but it would probably also raise unpleasant discussions of what the Bush Administration has not been doing, or how what they've done is not succeeding. That's not a winning discussion either.
Personally, I think it comes down to sarcasm and bitterness. There was a point in the eighties, after 1984 when the Reagan Revolution was in its apotheosis, that cynicism really ruled among Democrats; we were a bitter, angry bunch, and it showed in our humor and our cultural icons. Ultimately, I've learned, you have to let that go; it's about what you believe in, not how the other guys are evil, that will win you votes and change minds. And we're right about Iraq, even if we don't have all the answers, and we're even more right, I think, to look askance at the "this War is our Alpha and Omega and you have to be running around screaming, dress up over your head, or you just don't understand how serious all of this is" rhetoric from the right. The risk of another terrorist attack is serious and we should address it seriously. It does not mean, though, that we need to be endlessly hostile and vigilant, guns cocked and ready, shooting first and never asking questions. Conservatives really can't win by making America the enemy. It's why, I think, CPAC is not some "third place," even for conservatives. And in order to find that place - one that actually offers more than rabid True Believers a way into voting Republican - they're going to have to do things differently. Until then, winning is going to be elusive.
Nice reference to the term "third place," but if Starbucks really wants to achieve that, they need to stop making visitors pay for internet use.
Posted by: Leigh | March 04, 2007 at 10:29 AM