On the Good Ship Titanic: If you can't beat them, join them

As I noted on Monday from the pit of my despair, the reason that McCain is not resonating is because, regardless of some of his more populist announcements, as a Republican, conservative, non-socialist, he simply does not have the message nor the desire to give people what they want. 

What they want is for the government that they have been paying into like a never ending, bottomless piggy bank, to give them back something in return.  Since McCain won't promise that, they are going to vote for Obama.

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

I'll be very honest with you.  The Republicans should set up and take notice.  They need to dig up Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and look up the small print that indicates the fines and punishments for breaking the deal.  Basically, the Republicans promised to cut spending and cut taxes.  Neither actually happened.  Blame it on the Democrats, too, but they are hardly considered the "conservative" party, even with their "fiscal conservative" branch. 

Instead, people see that the government has been taking money and taking money and taking money, then giving it to...well, most people have no idea who is getting this money.  Oh, they have some idea.  Like air lines, oil companies, energy companies, universities, whatever special interest groups can troop up to Capitol Hill and stay there for more than a week will most likely get some money out of the government or some sort of extra "break".  In short, the average citizen pretty much feels like that everybody else is getting something out of this tapped keg so why not them?

Yeah, it is very much a "if you can't beat them, join them" type of mentality.  People would have been a little more receptive to the idea of cutting government spending and leaving the tax breaks in place if they thought for one minute anyone was actually going to live up to that promise.  After a decade and a half of Republican congress and Republican presidency that saw some of the largest increases ever, nobody believes that anymore.

Of course, none of those folks who are tramping up to the government gate to get their due actually looked at their own demands, like expanded Medicare drug coverage, and figured out that they helped create that mess.  Probably because that is all they wanted and the government could have or should have reduced or stagnated other spending.   People are somewhat budget wise in their personal spending and they get that, if you spend more in one place you might have to cut back in another.

Yet, we never got that from the government.  As much as Democrats have controlled congress for the last two years, that doesn't mitigate the last 15.   Now the American people are close to throwing a serious fit, deciding to vote for the big Spender who is promising to give them everything they want. 

Why? Because, if you can't beat them, join them. 

I just have this odd image in my head of the Titanic as it was going down.  You ever wonder how many people trying to escape steerage and middle passage made their way past the buffet tables on the upper decks only to stop and stuff as much food as possible in their pants pockets before they went down with the ship?