The Southern Male Democrat

Yes, the SMD is still alive! I suppose it’s hard to ever consider myself as a serious blogger when I take nearly two weeks off. If I have learned anything over the course of writing this blog, it’s that feeding the beast on a regular basis is not as easy as it may seem. Writers definitely go through cold spells where nothing really stikes their fancy to write about. And when you throw in the fact that “life” just seems to get in the way with business trips, illness, family and whatnot - let’s just say I’ve got a new admiration for those who really do this more seriously than I do.

But enough of that. Though I struggled to find one topic to write about the last two weeks, a series of events has come together that highlights both the challenges and opportunities facing Democrats in the fall election.

If I have one major pet peeve about life on the internet, it is the rapid pace with which urban legends seem to spread. Whenever I get one, I tend to take the admittedly jerk-like course of action in taking the email, doing the web search to find out the truth and then send the whole debunk back to the original list of people the thing got forwarded to. I know that I need to be nicer, but I don’t have much tolerance for people that won’t think for themselves.

So why are there so many more of these kinds of urban legends about Democrats than Republicans? Think about it - every campaign cycle the email chains get going. In 2004 there were all sorts of emails and web accusations about John Kerry, mainly relating to his service in Vietnam. In 2000, Gore supposedly said that he invented the internet, was the basis for the character in the movie Love Story and other untruths. Certainly this year the emails about Obama have been flying at a rapid pace. The vast majority of these get proven untrue AFTER the election.

Now tell me, where are these same types of emails and rumors about McCain? A cursory search of the urban legend debunk website Snopes.com finds less than 10 urban legends directly about McCain, and a handful of those are actually proving something positive to be true, rather than disproving a negative. I can think of one urban legend about President Bush when he was still in campaign mode -about a photo circulating that showed him snorting cocaine. But that mainly circulated amongst the politico crowd, it certainly didn’t make it out to Joe Six-Pack voter. To be fair - there are a fair amount of urban legends about stupid things that President Bush has done or said in office, but looking over the list on Snopes, a great many of those are true! Regardless, when doing a comparison, urban legends naturally would surface about an actual President at a higher rate than a candidate for President, it comes with the territory.

In the words of one of my favorite hair bands from the 80’s, Twisted Sister - “We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore!” Just this week I debunked an email about Obama and taxes that was circulating among a crowd that typically votes Republican. And then I debunked a website purporting to show the “facts” about Obama, by letting that email chain know which political group was behind the website and showing examples of how they “spun” things their way.

I know that my doing this is something akin to taking a pebble of sand off of the Great Wall of China. But my point to all of my non-political readers is this - as things heat up for the fall campaign, if you get an email that makes either candidate sound like the best thing since sliced bread, or the worst thing since Dean Smith, then do your due diligence to check it out. Don’t accept these emails as gospel just because they are specifically written to play into whatever biases already exist within each of us. As I have stated many, many times, I completely respect someone who votes opposite from me, as long as they can factually back it up. Vote for John McCain because you think that his vision for Iraq is better, you think that his tax plan is closer to your political values, etc. But don’t oppose Obama because you think he’s secretly a Muslim who won’t wear a flag pin in order to raise all of our taxes while not supporting the troops. There are plenty of great reasons to support either candidate, and it’s our job as voters to factually, figure those out.

When I am not slaying internet dragons, I have been finding more and more canaries in the coal mine that I truly think are harbingers of what will happen this fall. We can read all the horse-race polls we want, but I don’t think that any of the statistical models can account for what looks like unprecedented turnout. Rather, in an anecdotal fashion, I see little snapshots that are truly bad news for the Republicans. Consider the following;

• Mrs. SMD and I live in the red state of North Carolina. The vast majority of our friends outside of the political arena are Republicans. Yet, at a golf and pool club we belong to, I see more and more Obama bumper stickers in the parking lot and have yet to see one for McCain.
• Over the last few months, I have had conversations with several southern, white males who are typically the Republican base. None of them would dare vote for Obama, but no one is excited in the least about McCain. Many of them openly talk of not voting, or- voting libertarian for Bob Barr. To which I tap my fingers together and say in my best Monty Burns voice - “Excellent!”
• As a person of faith, I am also friends with voters who would consider themselves evangelicals. Not one of them has mentioned gay marriage or abortion this cycle. Instead, many of them are interested in issues like the environment and Iraq. And there is a certain amount of positive reception in this community to Obama’s message.

Now again, all of this is anecdotal. To be sure, McCain is going to still win among all of those groups I listed above. But if Obama peels off 15 to 20 percent from each of those, we could be looking at a realignment election.

Chuck Todd of NBC News put it best - “McCain can certainly still win, but Obama has the opportunity to win a landslide.”

I can only hope!