All right, this is kind of silly, and will soon lose its relevancy, but last night when I was up too late, I saw this on my TV:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Presidential-Polling-in-a-Real-Battleground-Azeroth

Long and short of it is, someone went on World of Warcraft and polled the residents there.  If Azaroth were a state, it would be a blue one, with players choosing Obama by a 2-to-1 margin.  Among the character races, Obama takes almost every demographic, but splits humans and loses to McCain among dwarves--runs strongest among elves, I think.  Among character classes, it's a similar story with McCain taking priests and splitting warriors, and Obama taking the rest, running strongest among sorcerers and rogues.

Oh, and there's some funny visuals where they superimpose WoW characters over this year's third presidential debate and Obama's 2004 convention speech.

A Folklorist's Perspective on the 2008 Election. 

The Democratic candidate has referred to himself as "a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."  The Republican ran a campaign based on experience and foreign policy, then nominated a running mate so unprepared that proximity to Russia is the highlight of her résumé.  2008 is turning out to be the year of the Trickster.  But as the trickster archetype in all its variations takes over the campaign trail, we find that each of the candidates embodies a different trickster archetype from the one you would expect.

Let us look at the four key players and their specific trickster archetypes, in the order in which they locked in their candidacy.

 John McCain

Seventy-two years old and based in the Southwest, with a penchant for running ads so vile and baseless that you can believe he hired his own feces as a consultant, McCain certainly seems to have a lot in common with Old Man Coyote. 

But the Coyote of legend is a schemer who lays careful plans and enacts them.  And the coyote of the animated cartoons is the biggest technophile in the Warner Bros. universe.  When you contrast this against McCain's sudden impulsive turns, his Luddite streak, and his predilection for running (away from Bush, away from the truth, away from his own record), it's clear we're looking not at Coyote but at Jackrabbit.  Especially when you consider the Bugs Bunny twist on McCain's hero, Teddy Roosevelt:  "I speak LOUDER! And I carry a BIGGER stick?  And I USE IT!"  (wham! wham! wham!)

Analysis:  While McCain projects strong leadership, he is much more reactive than he seems.  It can be challenging to predict which way he will turn but startlingly easy to predict how to make him turn.  This may make him easy America's enemies to provoke but hard to predict the specific response to their provocation.  All in all, it's a good thing Obama resisted the temptation to throw him into the briar patch.

 

Barack Obama

Tall and slender black man, sharply dressed, with an African father and an African name.  Anansi the Spider, right?

Anansi is impulsive and driven by hunger and greed.  It's hard to imagine the Spider giving up a job in the Financial District to work for $13,000 a year as a community organizer.  It's even harder to imagine Anansi nursing a real ambition so carefully for so long.  Or, for that matter, losing weight on the campaign trail.

No, if you want to find Obama's trickster archetype, you need to consider the tricks in his arsenal and how he uses them.

Sparingly, to begin with.  He'll lie when he has to--like claiming that racism isn't an obstacle to his campaign--but as often as not he'll trick you by telling the truth when you would expect a lie (for example, refusing to support a gas tax holiday) or fighting political one-upsmanship with one-upsmanship to get people's attention on the real issues (as with the lipstick on a pig debacle).  Obama is astonishingly patient for a candidate but notoriously slow to respond to attacks from his opponents.  He consistently polls below where pundits say he should, but surprises that would destroy most other politicians (e.g., Reverend Wright) just bounce off his shell.

Which is why Obama embodies not the Spider of African legend but the one trickster who always gets the better of Anansi:  Obama is an avatar of Turtle.  When Turtle is at the top of his game, you think you have the upper hand, and you only realize who was in control when it's too late to stop him.  Anansi tries to trick Turtle into catching dinner for him, and Turtle says, "When I fish, I work and I get tired.  Which would you like to do?"  And alone among all characters in African lore, Turtle gets Anansi to work.

Like Turtle, Obama knows how to sit still and let his opponents do the work for him--so McCain tries desperately to slime Obama, and just gets it on his own imported shoes.  And it works on supporters, too, who work harder and give more money because it seems like Obama is behind. 

Analysis: Don't expect a Bradley effect.  When the votes are tallied, Obama will take 3% to 5% more than the polls predict.

 

Joe Biden

Joe Biden is not a trickster.  If Joe Biden is a trickster, he is a brilliant one, because as far as anyone can tell, there isn't a dishonest bone in his body (the hairs on his head are another matter).  If Joe Biden has an animal archetype, it's something lumbering and noble, full of strength and honor, but without guile.  No wonder McCain chose a running mate who could gut a moose--he knew she'd have to debate one.

Analysis: In a war of tricksters, it's hard to tell whether this dependable lug will get lost amidst the spin or provide much needed balance to the ticket, though it's looking like stability is winning out.

 

 Sarah Palin

 

Of course, her supporters would say Sarah Palin isn't a trickster either, but an embodiment of the Frontierswoman, like Annie Oakley.  But that doesn't square with her record, not really.  Flying in from Alaska with sleek black hair and a raspy voice, Sarah Palin would seem to evoke Raven.  But Raven isn't a big fan of abstinence education--or abstinence anything.  Having earned his scorched-black color by directly challenging the Sun, Raven wouldn't need a tanning bed in the governor's mansion.  And most importantly, Raven wouldn't want public schools to teach a creation story unless he's the star.

But if you consider how difficult it is to pin Palin down on the issues, how easily she wriggles out of substantive discussion, her apparent indifference toward global warming, and the cold-blooded way she has treated the people who helped her in the past, Sarah Palin's trickster archetype is Snake.  You knew she was one when you picked her up, so it's not her fault she bit you.  And if you didn't know, well, that's not her problem, either. 

In addition to the sidewinding and the forked tongue, Snake is also the only trickster to appear in the creation story in Genesis.  And like the Serpent in Genesis, Palin begins by appealing to women with false promises.

Analysis:  McCain had better hope he loses--she will put poison in his coffee.

 Overall Analysis:

We've heard this story before and we know how it ends.  Of course, Obama has already warned his people not to get complacent, lest the Hare become the Tortoise and the Tortoise become the Hare.  But in the end the economic meltdown didn't so much change the dynamic of the race as just throw it into sharper focus.  When history looks back on this election, the collapse of the banks will be remembered, but without the mortgage crisis, the election would likely have broken much the same because of the essential character of the two candidates.  And if the history books don't reflect that, it will be because Turtle mojo, at its purest, often hides its greatest strength.

 

Cross-posted at http://davidwriting.com and LiveJournal

The McCain campaign has released a new ad that they describe as, well, less inflammatory than sex ed for first graders.

[Close-up pic of Obama with a cocky smile]

Voiceover: The Obama campaign has released a new ad targeted at white women.

[Pan back from pic to show that Obama is loosening tie]

That's right, Barack Obama is Targeting.  White.  Women.

[Vulnerable-looking pic of Scarlett Johanssen moves onto screen, next to Obama]

Especially 18- to 25-year-olds.

[Lights dim.  Obama and Scarlett are lit by disco ball.  Barry White music plays.]

Some of whom aren't even old enough to drink.

[2 wine glasses slide onto screen.  A bottle of Thunderbird fills both glasses.]

When it comes to protecting your daughters, who do you trust?

[One wine glass moves across screen toward Scarlett]

This man?

[Close in on Obama's face.  Wine glass remains in shot.]

Or this woman?

[Fade in pic of Sarah Palin with shotgun.]

Palin-McCain.  Protecting young women with. . . um. . . varying results.

[Close in on shotgun.]

Voiceover [Palin]: I'm Sarah Palin, and John approves of this message.

Voiceover [McCain]: Well, sort of.

 

The McCain campaign denies that this ad contains subtle racial overtones.  Senator Obama has also said that he doesn't see any subtle racism in the ad but wonders why McCain would make an issue of marketing to a key demographic.  When asked whether the ad contained overt racism, both campaigns declined to comment.

http://davidwriting.com

Looking at Astra 166's post about Barry Goldwater's granddaughter endorsing Obama, I can't help feeling a little sorry for John McCain.  Sure, he's running a vile, disgusting campaign now, but every complaint about him is something he fought against in 2000.  Personally, I'll never know if he sold out his integrity for a slim chance of becoming President, or if his fabled integrity was a facade from the beginning.  But no matter what his reasons, I know McCain once fought against the kind of sleaze he's now pushing--and worse, that George Bush got away with it for the first 5 years of his presidency (or, arguably, all 8, since he hasn't been impeached). 

So it saddens me now that the children and grandchildren of Goldwater, Eisenhower, William F. Buckley, etc, have taken this long to come forward, and that in their silence we have suffered through 8 years of national humiliation.  But I'm still glad that they're coming forward at last.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nycity-news-service/foreign-journalist-transl_b_136155.html

Apparently one translation for "maverick" is "Dog without a leash."

As of this week, Time Magazine's "The Page" scores 10 wins for Obama and 7 for McCain, with 2 weeks left.  A minor victory, but now there's no way for McCain to win in this venue, which many people (myself included) think has been skewed toward McCain all along.

Forget all that nonsense about Obama being secretly a Muslim--his comments at the Al Smith dinner make me wonder if he's secretly a comics nerd, having referenced both Superman ("I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on krypton....") and Mad Magazine ("People tell me I share the politics of Alfred E. Smith and the earns of Alfred E. Neumann"). 

I like the idea of a nerd in the White House.  I really wanted Gore to win in 2000 (and by win, I mean actually getting to be President).  But this could be potentially a very damaging thing for Obama.  After all, if Obama is into comic books, some voters may conclude that he is also interested in Dungeons & Dragons, and if he does play D&D, then some may think he secretly worships the Devil.  Combined with those voters who believe he is secretly a Muslim, a member of some radical black church, or a Jehovah's Witness (based on an e-mail claiming he refused to salute the flag), and we may start hearing, by election day, that Obama practices every releigion in the world.

I wouldn't put too much stock in it, though--anyone who's ever actually played D&D knows that gamers don't have time to run for President. 

...was actually the day after the second debate, when Obama said McCain didn't mention Ayers because he "couldn't say it to my face."  From that moment on, McCain had no way out (at least none that he could see): if he didn't mention Ayers he was a pussy; if he did, he was beating a dead horse.  So of course McCain did mention Ayers, but in a half-hearted way, so he was beating a dead horse with a dead cat.

All in all, McCain had his best debate performance yet, and Obama may have had his worst, and yet somehow Obama won more clearly and decisively than in either of the other two.  I'm not sure how that works, but I felt it, and so did the focus groups.

Has anyone out there seen an article in the mainstream media that debunks the stuff about ACORN fraud?  I've been trying to allay the concerns with some more moderate coworkers, and I don't know that TPM would be as persuasive to them as evidence from the MSM, if it's available.

More on the "overhead projector" earmark.  Looks like Johnny Mac is getting really good at getting people ticked off:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl78

In the first debate, McCain closed by talking about the need for a President who is flexible.  In the second debate, he talked about needing a steady hand at the tiller.  Now Cindy McCain is accusing Obama of waging "the dirties campaign in American history.

At this rate, McCain may well end the final debate by calling Obama a white-haired honky.

When the news first came out that the McCain campaign announced they had to go negative to have a chance, I though, "Oh, my gawd, these people are stupid!"  But when the pundits before the debate brought it up over and over again, I suddenly realized what was going on.  They had made this announcement because they wanted Obama to think they would go negative.  That way, if he fell for it, he'd be ready to counterattack when McCain could seem to take the high road. 

Then, again, I thought, "My gawd, these people are stupid!"  Obama's been at least a step ahead of him this whole time, did they really think he was going to fall for that?

But on third thought, it did work on the pundits.  At least a few gave McCain points for not trying to rip Obama's heart out on stage.

Not too long ago, I wrote a piece of satire claiming that Palin and Biden had abandoned the traditional debate format in favor of a duel to the death.  In it, I wrote that the last kink to be worked out would be the weapon of choice:

Biden favors bare knuckles, while Palin would prefer hunting rifles. Presidential candidate John McCain has suggested a compromise in which each candidate uses the weapon of his or her choice--Biden’s fists versus Palin’s Remington.

Having had the chance to watch the debate, I think I was wrong about whom the VP candidates would attack, but I got right what weapons they would use.  I can't escape the feeling that McCain, watching the debate, must have gotten a nosebleed from all the hard punches that Biden landed.  But through it all, he acknowledged that the man he was attacking was a military hero and a dear friend.  Palin, on the other hand, stopped just short of calling Barack Obama a traitor, and seemed to wonder why Biden would associate with such a fiend.  Where Biden landed frequent hard punches, Palin was going for targeted lethal force.

For all of that, however, I'm not too worried.  The thing is, as nasty and baseless as Palin's attacks were, they were nothing new, and Obama has survived much worse all along.  Biden's attacks on McCain revealed some surprising vulnerabilities, whereas Palin's attacks on Obama made one wonder if he really is invulnerable.

[Still figuring out how this process works.  Hopefully this one will post OK.]

After the financial bailout crumbled before he could take credit, Arizona Senator John McCain has finally taken the bull by the mess it left behind, and announced a bailout plan of his own.  “The problem with the earlier plan,” McCain explains, “is that it relies on big government to save the banks.  My plan puts the bailout in the hands of the free market, which is the only solution that works in times like these.”

The McCain plan will not fund the buyouts directly but instead give tax dollars to private corporations, which will use these funds to purchase failing banks.  Golden parachutes will be strictly prohibited under the McCain plan. To compensate CEOs for the lack of gold parachutes, the plan will fly executives of failed banks to Aruba for parasailing, using only parachutes made of canvas, nylon, or silk.

The proposed bailout will come with a price tag of $805 billion because of a 15% processing fee paid to the purchasing institutions, but that’s OK, because it contains no earmarks.  McCain’s handlers view the absence of pork as especially important to McCain’s support among Jewish voters, in light of Obama’s recent gains in Florida.  However, there remains a strong consensus that something about this plan is not kosher.

 At present, the McCain bill has the support of 3 congressional Democrats, 12 congressional Republicans, and President Bush.  Senator McCain has issued a press release saying that if this bill fails, it will be because the Democrats are too partisan.  Unfortunately, the only person who can deliver this statement with a straight face is McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who isn’t allowed to talk to the press this week because she’s grounded.

McCain Touts Plan to Privatize Bailout