Tom Watson

The Great Redistribution

Type the word "redistribute" into Google news, and you get a virtual Republican onslaught of attacks on Democrat Barack Obama for his supposed socialist tendencies.

Obama, screams the McCain campaign to America, wants to redistribute the wealth! My friends, Obama and his yes-men in Congress will institute higher tax rates on big business and the wealthy! To which America replies: where do we sign up?

The death of supply side conservatism has been disguised in some of the cultural noise around Sarah Palin, by the promise of expurgating America's original sin of racism in electing Barack Obama, and by the silly (and lame) "terrorist" attacks from a right-wing smear machine that has skidded wildly out of kilter, like a demented set of Tinker Toys in Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium.

The latest obscenity is the claim by that fanatical pipefitter Joe the Plumber that Senator Obama's election would mean "death to Israel," a bizarre bit of backwash promptly endorsed by McCain himself.

Sure it's ugly, but all that blather covers up the real story like a ten-dollar Obama mask on a Klansman from the local Racists for Obama chapter going door to door for votes on Halloween. And that story is the destruction of the conservative majority that came to power under Ronald Reagan.

The signs of civil war on the right are everywhere: the McCain-Palin feud for one. And stories like this in today's LA Times for another:

The social conservatives and moderates who together boosted the Republican Party to dominance have begun a tense battle over the future of the GOP, with social conservatives already moving to seize control of the party's machinery and some vowing to limit John McCain's influence, even if he wins the presidency.

In skirmishes around the country in recent months, evangelicals and others who believe Republicans have been too timid in fighting abortion, gay marriage and illegal immigration have won election to the party's national committee, in preparation for a fight over the direction and leadership of the party.

As Al Giordano told a seminar on whether (and how) the Obama movement would continue post-election among the grassroots: "You know what's going to happen to them? What happened to us - when Reagan got elected."

Some of that will clearly manifest itself in howling at the moon in sheer demented anger. Such a Were-Columnist is Melanie Phillips of the Spectator, author of Londinistan, and the leader of one corner of Conservatistan that sees everything through the lens of TGWOT*. You can almost feel her fingers shaking with brittle anger as she typed the lead to her most recent column, subtly headlined "Is American Really going to do This?":

The impact of the financial crisis on the American presidential election has somewhat obscured the most important reason why the prospect of an Obama presidency is giving so many people nightmares. This is the fear that, if he wins, US defences will be emasculated at a time of unprecedented international peril and the enemies of America and the free world will seize their opportunity to destroy the west.

Get that? Not just the destruction of Israel, but "the west." There was some of this, of course, when Bill Clinton got elected - but the circumstances were hardly as dire for the right in those days. Now after eight years of Bush, an entire movement lies nearly in ruins.

And Republicans face the redistribution they really fear the most: the cracking of their old hegemony into tiny fractured factions dominated by anger and bathed in the disrepute of the worst administration in U.S. history.

* The Global War on Terror

Mad Men and Women

The season-ending episode of Mad Men beckons us tonight, our last weekly window into 1962 for 2008 - the final glimpse of the strangely disconnected world of Sterling Cooper, with its various plot lines lying askew like a pair of untied Chuck Taylor high-tops. How those strands are relaced tonight will determine how the series lopes into the mid-60s, and where its center of gravity lies - in trippy faux existential crisis on the beach in LA or in the trenches of the New York ad wars.

M.A. Peel hosts our final run at newcritics tonight, and she finds both of those competing worlds in crisis:

The end of season two of Mad Men finds us all in crisis.

Crisis. It’s a very powerful and distinct word in the English language. It’s married to certain other words: the Cuban Missile Crisis (more about that later), the Energy Crisis of the seventies, the Savings & loan crises of the eighties, today’s Wall Street Crisis, the generic midlife crisis and spiritual crisis.

As we prepare to leave Don and the gang at Sterling Cooper, this is what we find:

Betty is in crisis from being forced to acknowledge Don’s cheating; Roger’s crisis is the classic midlife variety, with a woman younger than his daughter; Freddy Rumsen’s is the crisis of midlife unemployment; Pete Campbell has had several, from the death of his father to that of elusive parenthood; Joan’s is the most horrific—sickening proof her fiancé’s abusive nature—and not running from it.

And then there’s Don.

Read more from Ms. Peel - and add your comments. We'll be live-blogging all the Sterling & Cooper mayhem later on. Be there tonight @ 10 EDT - AMC and www.newcritics.com.

And Lay Bare the Secret Heart of America Itself

There have been only ten national election cycles since Lyndon Johnson stood before a special joint session of congress on March 15, 1965 and gave the greatest presidential speech of my lifetime. And LBJ has had only seven successors in the office soon to be occupied by the first African-American president. The history is so near, and the voices of that era still echo.

The other night, I walked over to the Paley Center and listened to some of those voices - civil rights leaders Diane Nash, John Lewis, and Andy Young along with veteran newsmen Dan Rather, Richard Valeriani and Haynes Johnson - discuss the events that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The audience included LBJ's daughter Luci Baines Johnson and the voices on the stage paid tribute to her father for his leadership on civil rights - colorful tribute, to be sure. Video from the Paley's incomparable collection punctuated the discussion, which was ably facilitated by Pat Mitchell; the footage from the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma police riot was particularly compelling, no matter how many times you may have seen it.

It was a night to consider the passing of four decades and just how much change we've witnessed - in 1965, blacks were routinely turned away from the offices of poll registrars across the south. Now those same states and cities and towns generally welcome an army of grassroots volunteers for a black presidential candidate.

No matter who wins in two weeks - and I think I know who will - that is change. Throw in the final sputtering death throes of the over-used southern strategy of American conservatism, and LBJ's political promise looks more like a prophecy. We have overcome.

What struck me in listening to Diane Nash, Congressman Lewis and Ambassador Young was their simple matter-of-fact tone. We did this. They did that. I went to jail. Their lack of anger, and the absence of any bitterness in their tone was incredibly moving. Like most Americans, I've heard the closing coda to LBJ's famed '65 speech - but the whole thing is worth reading (I haven't found a full video file - the clip above has the first five minutes). The video shows how deeply Johnson believed in his words, and how strongly he sold them in the House chamber. The contained anger, the singularity of purpose, the sheer all-in wagering of ever bit of his political capital remains compelling. But the words were elegant, and the speech brilliantly composed - like in this middle section:

There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our Democracy in what is happening here tonight. For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great government--the government of the greatest nation on earth.

Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country--to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man. In our time we have come to live with the moments of great crises. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues, issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For, with a country as with a person, "what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.

So often, we tend to throw around the word "leadership" with the same alacrity for dumbing down linguistic superlatives that we reserve for "legendary" and "star." On that night in 1965 when Johnson called the Congress into a rare joint session, he laid it all on the line without knowing the political outcome.

Quote of the Week: Colin Powell

I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as:   "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim."  Well, the correct answer is:  he is not a Muslim.  He's a Christian.   He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is:  What if he is?  Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?  The answer is:  No, that's not America.  Is there something wrong with some 7 year old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be President? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion:  he's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists.  This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Meet the Press this morning, repudiating the Republican Party.

The Book: Some Reviews Are In

I haven't posted here about my book in a while, so here goes. CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World comes out on November 10th and you can pre-order it on Amazon now at a significant discount.

We have a bunch of review copies out there and some of the reviews have started to come in, including a few prominent endorsers who looked at galleys over the summer and were very generous with their comments. I blog a lot about the book and online social activism over at CauseWired.com, but I thought readers here might enjoy a few review excerpts - and perhaps lead some of you to pre-order it on Amazon now at a significant discount! In any case, here's what folks are saying about CauseWired:

Charles Best, Founder, DonorsChoose.org:

"In CauseWired, Tom Watson has written the seminal book on peer-to-peer philanthropy and its counterpart movements in politics and branding." 

Mario Morino, Chairman, Venture Philanthropy Partners

"Whether you're a net-native college student or a geezer like me, CauseWired is required reading if want to understand the future of activism and engagement. Tom Watson gives deep, insider perspectives on the transformative potential of social networking and other innovations for linking communication and compassion." 

Peter Daou, Internet Advisor to Senator Hillary Clinton:

"With eloquence and enthusiasm borne of deep experience in the world of social change and philanthropy, Tom Watson describes the intersection of causes and technology and shares a compelling vision of a philanthropic future powered by the social web. This is an essential book about one of the Internet's most important functions: bringing people together to help make our world a better place." 

Jed Emerson, Managing Director for Integrated Performance, Uhuru Capital:

"CauseWired is a fascinating look into the rapidly evolving world of the Internet, social networking, and social change. Watson demonstrates how individuals are using new digital outlets and tools—most importantly, blogging, social networking, and online giving platforms—to explore how we may each act to impact the critical events of our day, from the 2008 election to Hurricane Katrina and Darfur. His engaging writing style and breadth of perspective help us see not only what is happening today, but what will happen in the years to come as we each act upon our potential to change our world and communities." 

Judy Miller, Director, Hilton Humanitarian Prize:

"If you don't want to be left behind in our new wired society—or if you're already behind—this book is a must-read! Tom Watson has produced what could be a marketing bible for the field of philanthropy, and a primer for individuals who want to help change the world." 

And some reviews from bloggers are starting to roll in - a few excerpts:

Max Gladwell, Social Media and Green Living [full review]

One way to express the measure of a book for us can be the ratio of total pages to those we’ve flagged with the venerable dog ear. These are the pages that have a memorable line or a profound thought that we’d like to reference or revisit at a later time. These are the essence. Which is to say, one could read only the dog-eared pages and get a pretty good feel for that given book. Of CauseWired’s modest 200-some pages, we marked 22 as having these exceptional qualities. At about one in five, it’s quite possibly a record... The title of the book is not only intended to describe the movement toward networked social and political action, but like The Long Tail, Groundswell, and Tipping Point, it’s predisposed for buzzword status. Which is to say it’s potentially a term that transcends the book itself and becomes a part of the language we use, where the entire meaning of the book can be conveyed in a single word: CauseWired... In sum, this is a must-read for anyone in this burgeoning social-media-for-social-change space. It is recommended reading for anyone who wants to better understand what’s taking place on the social web in general. We’re officially adding it to our sidebar of recommended reading.

Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud [full review]:

Tom Watson explores the societal impact of online social networks in his new book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Wiley, November 2008) CauseWired is the first book focused on making sense of social media in the nonprofit world. Watson not only gets it — but he also explains why social media matters in understandable terms. ...Watson believes that there are two major trends on a collision course: "On one hand, people are ever more conscious of philanthropy and its role in commerce and society; on the other, these people are talking to each other more than ever before." The traditional fundraising practices of acquisition, cultivation, and stewardship are forever changed by wired causes. Are you prepared? ...Tom Watson's CauseWired is must reading for anyone in the nonprofit world.

Matt Kelland, The Mongoose [full review]

It's easy to dismiss mass grass-roots activism as just a rent-a-mob, but that would be a mistake. True, some causes may be just a flash in the pan, but our leaders need to be aware that there are other issues that people - voters - really do give a shit about. I may not be personally affected by starvation in Darfur, by court-sanctioned rape in Pakistan, or be displaced to make room for a huge hydro power station, but I, and literally millions of others, don't want to live in a world where those things happen, and I want those in power to damn well do something about it. When a million, or ten million people all stand up and say, "hey, buddy, this ain't right," they can't help but take notice. CauseWired isn't a manual.. It won't tell you how to change the world. However, it's an important chronicle of a social upheaval in which the silent majority are being replaced with a vocal majority.

David Bailey [full review]

...I am in business, but I guess I have reached the age when ranting at my long suffering wife over the breakfast table about articles in the Sunday papers is just not enough. I want to change things, and some things really need changing. If you have ever felt like that, then this is a book for you. Singing along to Nickelback's "If Everyone Cared" is just not enough for you. Really, you need to get a few thousand people to change the world with you. And Tom's book can help you. It is not a "how to" book in the way of thousands of other pointless pages of lists. This is a down in the dirt, first hand reportage on some of the largest social movements on the Internet and what made it work for them. He documents how social change really happens, what kind of people it takes, and the tools of the trade. More importantly, he explains that if you set out to change society, then you might very well succeed. That, to me, is one scary message: are we ready for the power that we now have in our CauseWired Internet Age hands? Are we educating our children and our friends about the responsibility that comes with such power?

Oh, and a big #thankyou to Fred Wilson, who has been excerpting some of the stuff from the chapter on DonorsChoose to encourage donors to support his campaign in the DonorsChoose bloggers challenge.

Did I mention you can pre-order the book on Amazon now at a significant discount? Tell your friends. (And now back to our regular programming). 

UPDATE: If you want to understand the business of selling books in the wired world - and how limited the bricks and mortar side has become - delve into Andy Wheeler's latest post. Andy's the erudite marketing director at Wiley who has my book, and he's done a fabulous job.

On President Obama

Met Barack Obama last night. John McCain as well. Nominee name-dropping aside, I bring no particular insight to the big temperament question so much in vogue this week (it rivals the Joe Sixpack-Plumber chimera for lazy pack journalism meme). Both men were unfailingly polite in the reception line at the Waldorf, greeting a sea of glittery gowns and penguin suits with kind professionalism - just as they showed their comic delivery chops an hour later, delivering the requisite one-liners from the dais at the annual Al Smith dinner and reeling in the big bi-partisan yucks. I'm a total sucker for this stuff, for the tableau of political rivals scattered in white tie and tails across the ballroom, seemingly united for a dinner of good cheer and Crosby-Hope digs and banter (though it was the Dorothy Lamour of this two-year road show who got the loudest cheer last night - Hillary Clinton really has ascended to some other level of political stardom).

No chills ran down my leg as I chatted briefly about our year of collegiate overlap on Morningside Heights with the ascendant 44th President of the United States. No magic passed between us. He seemed like a nice guy, a bit tired and perhaps a notch out of his comfort zone standing next to the Archbishop of New York in a rented old school get-up straight out of Golddiggers of 1933. It was a situation that cried out for William Powell, but he's been dead since the year after Obama graduated from Columbia - where, I can now reveal in an exclusive My Dirty Life & Times report, the young Obama had a hard time getting campus housing as a transfer student and enjoyed sitting on the steps near Alma Mater on sunny days. Or so he said, as Governor Patterson piped in about his time at Columbia in the mid-70s and we all moved on, the line churning as these things are apt to do.

No, the meet-and-greet was nice but my Obama moment came earlier in the week - a week that witnessed Barack Obama's finest performance in a presidential debate over these last two long years. Oh, I know the pundits don't agree. Many scored the Hofstra tilt for John McCain, and others called it a draw. Obama, they seemed to complain, was cool and careful and distant.

To which I shout: "exactly!"

While the silly season of desperation GOP flea-flickers unfolds around us, from crazy talk at Palin rallies to the insane belief that William Ayers or the ACORN scandal will somehow arise to sink the Obama candidacy, the Democratic standard-bearer sticks to the game plan: a much better play from scrimmage that consists of a winning trench war and moving the ball down the field. Obama has taken to wearing a bemused look at some of the craziness. And when I saw his reaction to some of McCain's scattered buckshot a1t Hofstra, a bell went off. The guy is enjoying himself. He sees the humor in it. And the pressure doesn't sway the actor on the stage. My kind of president.

Obama also knows this: he carried the ball to midfield and beyond in this long race. But events outside of his control have changed the entire playing field over the last few weeks. The imploding economy and looming years-long recession have destroyed the last arguments for the kind of "conservatism" that has largely ruled American political life since Reagan: that is to say, deficit spending and tax breaks for the rich and powerful tethered to nasty and dividing social issues.

Ben Smith had a post a few days back that went largely unremarked upon, but I think it might contain one of the most insightful emails of the entire cycle. Ben got this little missive from a veteran Republican political operative:

Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.

Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama.

The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

I felt like I was taking crazy pills.  I sat on the other side of the glass and realized...this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy....

The Seventh Seal is broken. Very poetic for a Rovian. Yet it's just about right. And Obama's cool and conservative offense is on the verge of more than covering the spread. He may just run up the score and relegate the other side to a lower division for a generation or so.

UPDATE: Ben posts Racists for Obama, more notes from the field suggesting the old order is fading and that true economic interest is being reweighted by voters who are otherwise socially reluctant about a guy like Obama.

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Pre-order Tom's new book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World

Dow-Bound Train

Last Friday as the public markets completed a 40-percent loss year over year in reaction to the still-roiling worldwide credit crisis, some observers took the Wall Street cataclysm as an opportunity to play a little politics. Witness the sage editorial writers at Investors Business Daily who used their years of market savvy and investing experience to pinpoint the real reason for the collapse....wait for it...a near-certain Democratic victory in three weeks.

...right now it looks like the U.S., which built the mightiest, most prosperous economy the world has ever known, is about to turn its back on the free-enterprise system that made it all possible.

It isn't only that the most anti-capitalist politician ever nominated by a major party is favored to take the White House. It's that he'll also have a filibuster-proof Congress led by politicians who are almost as liberal.

Throw in a media establishment dedicated to the implementation of a liberal agenda, and the smothering of dissent wherever it arises, and it's no wonder panic has set in.

No wonder indeed. It's creeping socialism that sowed the panic, not over-leveraged mortgage securities toppling into the crater of a real estate valuation sinkhole. Oh, noooooooo. That bunch of energy-saving bulbs at IBD have it pegged to worries about electing a liberal, never mind that the supply-siders themselves threw unfettered, unregulated capitalism under the bus these last two weeks.

Cue one Jonah Goldberg, as ever a leading crankonomic indicator of dwindling blogospheric consumer confidence. Under the headline, The Obama Discount, Goldberg soared to his usual standards of reportage:

I have no idea whatsoever if there's merit to this, and if there is how much merit, but lots of email like this:

When are people going to start talking about the REAL reason the markets are down - Obama up in polls. If I was McCain, I'd start telling people, "If you want to lose more money, vote Obama."

Of course, as Glenn Greenwald points out today, none of these loonball Obama/Dow theorists are crediting today's all-time stock surge to the continued high polling of the Democratic ticket.

Could it perhaps have just a leeeetle bit to do with the leadership of one massively-noggined Brit, the dour Prime Minister Gordon Brown (and by the by, this fancy Cameron chap seemed dashed cranky about it), who went all Keynesian on George Bush's ass with a limited nationalization of the British banking system - a move now being parroted by the rest of Europe and by the Americans as well? Yes, the threat of socialism really tanked things today, old sod.

And what a cherry on everyone's economic sundae this morning: the news that the bold Paul Krugman had won the Nobel Prize for Economics. The Hillary-loving enemy of the supply siders wins world acclaim in the year of Obama, and just keeps on blogging. Good on 'im.

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Pre-order Tom's new book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World

 

We're All Liberals Now

Funny how George W. Bush is now a liberal. John McCain too. Republican Senators Lamar Alexander, Bob Bennett, Tom Coburn, and Saxby Chambliss and many of their supply side brethren. William Buckley's son is voting for a progressive. The Republican Treasury Secretary's more of a socialist, of course. He's really out there. Hell, even the Democrats are moving left.

Yes, good old big government is back. Funny how "conservative" capitalists scurry to the collective when their survival's on the line. Now, they say, we should all hang together. Now, they say, Americans should bail them out. Now, they say, we should all rally to the exchange and the ledger book and the bond rating. Regulation is back in vogue. Centralized economy is the big hit of the fall season.

Supply side manque Ronald Reagan is now a dusty discredited ghost of a failed economic jester, a gimmick-embracing old fool with no understanding of true American values. Sure, Sarah Palin still uses the old reprobate's name - but hell, that tells you something right there, doesn't it. Wink.

No, on the Dow of dead presidents only one stock is rising - that of the true blue chip liberal of the last Great Depression, the political stud named Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And let's hope there's a little FDR in the skinny Senator from Illinois, who has his work cut out for him starting in January. The markets are eating their young, destroying their own super-leveraged brand of unregulated capitalism - but the effects will go far beyond the exchanges. Are we ready for double-digit unemployment, shortages, bread lines, Reagan Towns and Bushvilles, and lots of grass growing through highways and parking lots and strip malls filled with empty stores and abandoned automobiles?

On television - which, saints preserve us, might survive to entertain us all in our poverty - the endless pimping of the good life hasn't quite caught up with the economic storm front. Ads for luxury cars, retirement schemes (what a crock "retirement" turned out to be), high-end travel, glorious clothing and beauty products, and - I swear I'm not making this up - financial advisers who counsel a buy-and-hold strategy for "long-term security."

It hasn't sunk in yet, but it's all headed down - the world we knew for the past thirty years is fading away. "Supply side" is the synonym of anti-Americanism. To espouse that failed economic theory is to hate your country; to act on it is treason, soon to be against Federal law. The great deleveraging is here. And we're all liberals now.

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Pre-order Tom's new book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World

Sign O' the Times

Sign O' the Times, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

Storefront, Third Avenue and East 47th Street early this morning. The haberdashers always know.

Kick 'Em While They're Down, Hit 'Em While They're Bleeding

The candidacy of Barack Obama has been most often portrayed by an enthralled national media corps as an uplifting gospel revival meeting, dedicated to hope and change. And so it is. But Team Obama has also displayed a willingness to press any advantage in the service of its ultimate goal: winning. So the fact that the campaign had a high-quality 13-minute video in the can portraying John McCain's involvement in the Keating 5 banking scandal of a generation ago should hardly be surprising to anyone who has been paying attention to Obama since last year. The man consistently hits back as hard as possible, and he is totally unafraid to go negative.

Now, I know we're all supposed to be singing from the same hymnal on the left these days - the positive plans of the Obama-Biden juggernaut and all that , the change brand - but I'm breaking ranks. To this Democrat, used to suffering through disastrous election nights in the full knowledge that the results will further ruin his country, Obama's instinct to go for the vicious final punch, the head-snapping lights out political blow, is a thing of beauty.

Senator Obama knows that Senator McCain is on the ropes and reeling. Virtually tied until the wheels came off the American economic system after years of debt worship, McCain-Palin has many Republicans looking for the exits and talking about rebuilding their movement. But he is not content to let McCain fade, or to allow his opposing campaign to trot out a series of lame attacks - really, Bill Ayers is gonna change this election?! - without using every weapon at his disposal.

Besides, the stakes are big and the reward expansive for going negative in the last month. The entire conservative movement is ripe for dividing into rival camps - the social/religious camp versus the so-called economic conservatives. Huge majorities in Congress beckon. A sharp national turn to the left - the next New Deal - is lurking in the eaves.

Howard Wolfson posited in the New Republic that this election is as good as over. I'm inclined to agree. and he's got the stakes entirely in focus:

The economy is simply bigger than the rogues gallery that John McCain is conjuring up.

Why is this?  Why won't the swiftboat tactics work this year?

Its easy to lose sight of it in the day to day coverage, but the collapse of Wall Street in the last weeks was a seminal event in the history of our nation and our politics. To put the crisis in perspective, Americans have lost a combined 1 trillion dollars in net worth in just the last four weeks alone.  Just as President Bush's failures in Iraq undermined his party's historic advantage on national security issues, the financial calamity has shown the ruinous implications of the Republican mania for deregulation and slavish devotion to totally unfettered markets.   

Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over the proper role of government for a century. In 1980 voters sided with Ronald Reagan and Republicans that government had become too big and intrusive.  Then the economy worked in the Republicans' favor.  Today the pendulum has swung in our direction.  Republican philosophies have been discredited by events. Voters understand this. This is a big election about big issues. McCain's smallball will not work. This race will not be decided by lipsticked pigs. And John McCain can not escape that reality. The only unknowns are the size of the margin and the breadth of the Democratic advantage in the next Congress.

So keep hitting, Barack - even if they're bleeding.

UPDATE: Jim Wolcott must have been posting just as I was, on a similar wavelength - so I have to quote him:

My rooting interest is less about Obama himself than about how big a hurt he can put to the Republican Party. I don't want the Republican Party simply defeated in November, I want to see it smashed beyond all recognition, in such wriggling, writhing, anguished disarray that it can barely reconstitute itself, so desperate for answers that it looks to Newt Gingrich for visionary guidance, his wisdom and insight providing the perfect cup of hemlock to finish off the conservative movement for good so that it can rot in the salted earth of memory unmissed and unmourned in toxic obscurity.

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Pre-order Tom's new book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World