The Mood
It’s hard to know what to say about one’s anecdotal quasi-reporting from talking to people at a convention. But my overwhelming impression of the Twin Cities is that the GOP faithful are in a pretty subdued, unexcited mood. You can see some of this on television. But beyond what you can see, I went last night to a party at James Lileks’ house that was full of conservative types. And plenty of people were there, just enjoying some drinks and snacks on his lawn while the convention was taking place a few miles away — nobody seemed interested in watching the proceedings on TV or particularly excited about any of the speeches upcoming later that night or on subsequent nights.
A colleague and I got to talking to a somewhat tipsy conservative woman who put her glasses on and hair up à la Palin and asked us to guess who she was. My colleague said “the next Vice President of the United States?” She laughed and said he was the first person to put it that way, and that should tell us something. Then everyone chuckled. Now obviously there must be someone around here who expects the GOP to win, but the general sentiment is that it won’t happen and that despite conservative activists’ great love for Sarah Palin there still isn’t really anything to be excited about this election season.
26 Responses to “The Mood”
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September 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
good
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I am not a religious man, but thank God for that!
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Oh, I love James Lileks. I interned for the Star Tribune several years ago but never met him.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
She laughed and said he was the first person to put it that way, and that should tell us something. Then everyone chuckled.
One hopes Matt had the good sense to walk away at this point and not run C.B.-interference on his colleague.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Man I gotta say it’s really really weird to start hearing anecdotal stuff about the city(ies) where I live from bloggers and media bods I’ve been reading for years… I think I have a vague idea where Lileks’ house is.
Matt if you want some tips on watering holes, I know a thing or two or three.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Did you bone her?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Hmm . . . from PowerLine:
When the convention was finished, we headed to James Lileks’ house in south Minneapolis–right around the corner from where we once lived–for the Pajamas TV/lileks.com/Power Line party. It was a lot of fun.
The PJTV party featured music by Jude and John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting.
The Hold Steady led me to believe that South Minneapolis was a lot cooler than that. Please tell me you pushed John Hinderaker in the pool.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
One wonders if those GOP regulars who tire of the base look at this as a golden oppertunity to hand the “base” a big cup of shut-up. See: We put one of your own on the ticket and we went down in flames.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
One hopes Matt had the good sense to walk away at this point and not run C.B.-interference on his colleague.
Actually, I’m thinking this is right out of the Sundance episode of Entourage.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Shrike,
Try this.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Re: Party Location.
Well, you can safely kill yourself now.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
The mood seems light years better than the somewhat manic statements from the people on the floor of the convention. Usually some form of forced “Voters are really responding to her. Liberal media. Down’s syndrome baby. Everyone is thrilled. Thrilled I say. Voters are happy.” then a forced smile as a disbelieving reporter throws it back to the studio.
<a href=”http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/”http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
My feeling from occasional chats with Republicans is not just that they are depressed because they think they are not going to win. It’s that they are confused and disoriented about the very purpose of their party, and why they want to win in the first place. They are demoralized because old illusions and assumptions are falling away, but are still hanging around and weighing them down. They know they need to rebuild the moral and intellectual core of their party, but don’t yet see the new vision.
They keep going through the motions with the usual “man the barricades” defenses against Democratic attacks. But they know something is wrong, and their heart doesn’t appear to be in it. And whatever bonds used to hold together the diverse components of their coalition – mainly the bond of common hatred of the 60’s counterculture – those bonds appear to be dissolving.
Many of them know they have let the intellectually and morally respectable traditionalism and cultural conservatism of their movement slide into the worst kind of populist anti-intellectualism, backwardness and blind resentment. They know that their aggressive, forward global posture and principled hawkishness has degenerated into empty jingoist blather about a mythological global war few of them really believe in any more. They know that our economic fundamentals under Bush are dreadful, and that the party’s economic policies now resemble something like a pyramid scheme. They know we are getting poorer and people in other countries are getting richer.
And frankly, I think a lot of them just don’t feel comfortable any more with the kinds of people they have let themselves become. People are willing to support very aggressive, nasty, and even grossly dishonest and deceptive political tactics from those who speak on behalf of their party when they believe those tactics are just the ugly costs of war on behalf of a higher cause. But when the spirit falls out of the movement, and the higher calling is obscured, the rank and file look around and realize that they have just become little more than a rather large hate group.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
a big cup of shut-up
Do you get that at the same store where they sell cans of whup-ass?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
A party in Lileks’ backyard–lots of regrettable food, and clouds of annoying gnats buzzing around . . .
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
#14: You only find it at out-of-the-way little stores of the sort that have beat-up gas pumps by the side and derelict vending machines that handled bottled soda.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
What Dan Kervick said. Hyperpartisanship in the political sphere is often a consequence of one side’s weakening.
I’m looking forward to the time when John Cole of Balloon Juice re-registers as a Republican, when Andrew Sullivan can argue against pretty much everything on the poltiical agenda, and for a time when I can read James Lileks again, because those will be signs of a healthier polity. (Also, when Assrocket shuts up.)
I get the feeling that there are competing camps already forming for the inter-party realignment that follows. Huckabee’s planning ahead; Romney might be; Jeb Bush might fancy his chances as a synthesising figure.
It’s barely worth saying that if, by some strangeness, McCain wins, they’re fucked. We’re all fucked. But I’ve been trying to work out whether this is closer to 1992 in Britain, when the Tories scraped out a Pyrrhic victory, or 1997, . Looking at the Congressional prospects, you could have a bizarre situation where the bulk of the Republicans in the House survive in very conservative districts, even when the future direction of the party lies closer to the Blue Dogs.
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