I do not particularly care for films that re-tell real political history based on the reports of journalists who cover the campaigns. They too often deal with the second level of politics and avoid the more important third hidden level that deals with the oligarchic influence on the system itself.
But I will make an exception and likely see Game Change, the new HBO film about the McCain campaign in the 2008 election that is described here by the Los Angeles Times.
This is because I think that John McCain’s impulsive choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate represented a real watershed in the Republican party and has been instrumental in sending that party into a cage match of competing factions that has resulted in the curtain being drawn at least slightly back and the oligarchy’s role being made more visible. Furthermore, Ed Harris as McCain, Julianne Moore as Palin, and Woody Harrelson as McCain’s campaign manger are all excellent actors.
Here’s the trailer.
I believe that McCain had no choice but to select a religious fundamentalist, political outsider neo-con. The religious right, exemplified by people like James Dobson, Tony Perkins and Charles Coulson, was lukewarm at best towards McCain. The Religious right wouldn’t have voted for Obama in 2008 but they wouldn’t have voted for a McCain and Colin Powell ticket, it would have been too moderate. Powell, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and eBay founder Meg Whitman were all short-listed for McCain’s VP spot, but for folks like Dobson and Pat Robertson they weren’t conservative and Christian enough.
McCain had to pick an evangelical fiscal conservative as his running mate. Palin was conservative and Christian enough to satisfy the religious right, a Washington outsider, and a woman. She was probably the best pick for McCain. A lot of the rest of the country thought she was too light-weight to be the understudy for a 72 year old president.
The turning point may have come with Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy” -- but, given the political circumstances of 1968, Nixon arguably had no other viable option but to seek the racist & retrograde vote.
Or the fatal die may have been cast when George H.W. Bush hired an already-notorious Karl Rove as his in-house gutter fighter, before handing him down to the younger George to serve as the latter’s brain.
Of course, Rove was and is just another version of Lee Atwater, who may have been the one who killed off whatever hypothetical remnants of conscience and concern for the national good survived in the GOP after Nixon.
Should the Democrats rejoice that their equivalent, James Carville, is such a half-assed feckless schmuck?
I agree with you about McCain’s needs but as I wrote at that time, plucking an unknown and thrusting him or her onto the national stage for the first time almost always ends badly. I thought that Tim Pawlenty would have been a better choice for McCain.