I Just Realized

It's about two months until the Michigan primary season really begins. With the Democrats pulling out (Like the establishment toad licking cowards that they are, of course. You want me to vote for you, show some fucking stones already.) that leaves only the Republican field in play. A fact which I've been sort of looking forward to since it means we get to pull another McCain.

Short history lesson, in the 2000 campaign, Michigan's primary was also pretty far up on the calender - just not as far as it is now. Before he flared out amidst a sea of rumors and innuendo against the Bush campaign in South Carolina, a victory which should have served as a warning klaxon instead of a victory coronation, in the hardwon retrospect of a tarnished America six years later, there was the Michigan primary. Which was the only state he carried after his surprise victory in New Hampshire. But a little quirk about the Michigan primary is that it's an open one - you don't have to be affiliated with either party to vote for their eventual candidate (Something I fully support, by the way, and wish more states did as it might help pull politics away from the extremes on either end and more towards a workable appeal to the mainstream. Oh god, I sound like a Broderite, advocating for High Broderism, don't I? I don't mean that there should be an end to partisanship, far from it. What I do mean is that the modern political parties are too beholding to their ideological bases and the primary system and other mechanisms serve to reinforce that, driving an ever increasing cycle of hyper-partisanship which is hurting our ability to effectively govern the nation and only enforcing the toxic status quo. Our leaders need to have ideals and to fight, passionately, for the ideas they hold, but they also need to be able to compromise in order to get things done.). And, well, take it from me, there were plenty of Michigan folk who turned out for the expressed purpose of throwing a monkeywrench in the Republican's machine. Sure, from what we know now, McCain is every bit the unhinged wackjob, beholden to the same special interests and misguided philosophies, to which the Bush administration clings and probably wouldn't have been any better than what we wound up with. But, at the time? He seemed like a much better "least bad" option. Pretty sure that little quirk is still in play so now that there's no Democratic primary (I believe the only restriction is that you can only vote in the one, not both.) the Michigan primary just might be the one to watch to determine which Republican candidate has the most mainstream appeal.

But the talk I've heard indicates that the Republicans are well aware of the fact that having the stage to themselves means this isn't a primary for the dedicated anymore, it's effectively the first battleground of the actual election. They're going to try to turn this into a popular mandate for the most electable candidate, one who'll be able to capture not just the diehards but the independents and maybe even a few of us hated liberals - after all, just look at how many turned out to vote for candidate X, just imagine if he could do that in the general election!

But you know what that means? Campaign commercials. As the primary gets closer, those Republicans aren't going to quietly ignore the state and hope our problems go away like the Democrats. They're going to be inundating our air waves with advertisement after advertisement to get out the vote. Come this time December or January, you won't be able to turn on the TV without getting bombarded by a bunch of campaign ads. All of them Republican. Oh, they're going to have a field day with the whole sales tax fiasco and I'm sure the "dirty brown people stealing our jobs" drum will be banged. I'm going to wind up clawing my eyes out to end the pain, I just know it. Is it too late to switch the primary back to a later date?