Here's a massive political inconsistency I noticed again today.

1. If you're a Republican, hope is a good thing. The surge, for example, is working, almost entirely because you hope it's working. Moreover, if you're the GOP's putative nominee for president, your "policies" and "positions" can often consist of little else but sheer hope. As when Sen. McCain punts on the mortgage crisis. From Salon.com:

    How the World Works just got off a conference call with McCain campaign advisors Doug Holtz-Eakin and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. The topic: "John McCain's Remarks on Housing Crisis."

    The flow of the call went pretty much as follows: Reporters pressed for specifics about possible McCain policy initiatives or legislation, to which Holtz-Eakin and Fiorina responded by stressing McCain's "principles." There were also repeated references to McCain's speech as being "vintage John McCain" and a few slaps at Hillary Clinton's proposal for direct assistance to beleaguered states and communities, which both Holtz-Eakin and Fiorina seemed to enjoy labeling as a "slush fund."

Yas, yas, in Neocon World, Republicans who punt on solutions are considered bold and wise and decisive. Read further about McCain's take on the housing crisis, and you'll discover that his "solution" is to call a meeting. Sort of like Bush's solution to global warming. "Waiting For Godot" might be another way to characterize both Bush and McCain.

2. Meanwhile, if you're a Democrat, hope is -- from the GOP standpoint -- simply not good enough. Obama's message of hope? Empty rhetoric, sayeth the neocons. From a recent David Brooks column in the New York Times:

    But those in the grips of Obama Comedown Syndrome began to wonder if His stuff actually made sense. For example, His Hopeness tells rallies that we are the change we have been waiting for, but if we are the change we have been waiting for then why have we been waiting since we've been here all along?

If you can see past Brooks' channeling of despair a la Samuel Beckett, the talking point here is obvious: Obama is all image because he preaches hope. Never mind that his campaign has actually issued any number of detailed policy papers. Nope. Any message of hope whatsoever is proof that Obama is fluff and not stuff.

Because, you see, we are supposed to accept at face value that McCain's fluff is not who he really is. He's really a straight talker who has a very keen set of principles and thus policies obviously can be expected to form out of that void. Whereas, Obama's actual policy positions are not to be believed because he is often guilty of, to put the worst spin on it, rhetoric.

It's all pretty much business as usual. Americans fell for this dichotomy in the last two presidential elections, electing a man who used rhetoric to portray himself as something he was not. Who went on not only to implement policies contrary to his "philosophy," but in many cases policies contrary to his policies.

And thus the Alice Through the Looking Glass character of our election process proceeds apace.

If you're wealthy and your Republican candidate tanks, you get your money back. Just like if you're a giant bank and you tank, the feds step in to help. However, if you're of modest means on either front,  or a working-class victim of Katrina, don't bother exerting yourself because you'll never see your money again.

 From the Los Angeles Times:

Wealthy donors receiving refunds from GiulianiThis could be Rudy Giuliani's own brand of national economic stimulus.

Unwinding his once-promising campaign, the onetime Republican front-runner has been handing out refund checks amounting to $3.16 million in February alone to more than 1,400 of his wealthy presidential campaign donors.

In a campaign finance filing, Giuliani discloses that he raised a total of $64.94 million for his campaign and spent $56.95 million on his candidacy, which ended after his loss in the Florida primary.

The rest of the money is being returned, most in $2,300 chunks to more than 1,400 donors.