How Much is That Doggy in the Window?

--What was Mr. Cruz thinking?

That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball! 
--Pinball Wizard, 
The Who

 You gotta ask yourself a question:
"Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?
--Dirty Harry (1971)

Jump, little doggie, 
better do what she say,
jump, jump jump 
--Jump. Jump, Jump,
 Blondie

So you get nothing!
You lose.
Good day, sir!
--Willy Wonka and 
The Chocolate Factory (1971)

__________________

Subtitle: Despicable Me. (Of course, Mr. Cruz is not the only one to qualify for that sobriquet.)

Watching the PBS News Hour last night, one would get a totally different perspective of the conventions than if one had actually watched them. Saith one of the panel members, the Democratic national Convention went off smoothly, save for a minor glitch: 

"That Debbie Wasserman Schultz [former DNC Chairwoman] has been a problem for awhile now. She had to go," thereby effectively dismissing with a fillip what should have been the biggest convention gotcha -- the behind the scenes machinations to shuttle the campaign of Mrs. Clinton's only viable contender, Bernie Sanders.

That story did not fit the press's agenda, sadly. Journalistic integrity has died a slow, lengthy death starting about 50 years ago with Walter Cronkite's decision to breech the journalistic posture of indifference in exchange for editorial comment on the Vietnam War. 

Nothing which transpired at the Republican National Convention -- a predominately orderly affair -- remotely compares, but since we peeked into the Democratic National Campaign Wednesday, it is only fitting to recognize a once-contender in the Republican posse who shall now be relegated to a footnote in malcontent convention history for his spectacularly ill-behaved, egotistic and churlish performance, Mr. Ted Cruz.

It was a surreal moment when Mr. Cruz announced that he would not be supporting his party's candidate, Mr. Trump, and moreover that he refused to play Mr. Trump's "puppy dog". Mr. Cruz had not been invited to do anything, really, beyond the formality of recognizing the Party's choice (i.e., someone not him), and welcoming Mr. Trump into the bosom of the Republican family.

He failed to recognize that -- like a couplet from Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham , They did not like you then / and they do not like you now, Sam-I-Am.  Or as megachurch pastor Rick Warren would say, it's not all about you.

In the South, they would say Mr. Cruz showed himself to be a dog that won't hunt for you. He was barking up the wrong tree if he thought to gain any positive regard for his sourpuss solipsism.

He may have defended his lady fair, but we saw the mess that George W. Bush created when he went after the man who "tried to kill [his] daddy". Politics is not the art of getting too personal, and of putting on a thicker skin.

At a certain point, one must put on one's Big Boy or Big Girl panties, suck it up and move on. It's called grace, and it's called integrity. A politician is part of Bernard Mandeville's hive, and should tame his ego for the larger good of the party. 

Sadly, this is truly the age of Mega Me, and Mr. Cruz mistook the microphone for a megaphone with which he could impugn the party's nominee and possibly earn some Facebook Likes for doing so. However, the press and the Democratic party has been lashing Mr. Trump for a year, and to no good effect. What good was he possibly thinking might result from his petty show?

Humans are nothing so much as emulative creatures, so perhaps by witnessing the the equally small behavior from certain party denizens who had boycotted the event via their glaring absence, Mr. Cruz got the idea that he was doing something praiseworthy.

Sadly, it was not comme il faut, and far from presidential. He found Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard bare.

 

No Milk Bones for you, Mr. Cruz.

She Stoops to Conquer

 --Jim, staunch Bernie fan

I understand; you took them in a round,
while they supposed themselves going forward.
And so you have at at last
brought them home again.   
--She Stoops to Conquer,
Oliver Goldsmith

 Yeah runnin' down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin' on a mystery
That never would come to me
--Runnin' Down a Dream,
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 

 You will never see a team play harder
than we will the rest of the season.
God bless.
--Tim Tebow promise
____________________

[the latter two quotations are in honor of Gainesville. Sa-lut.]

We were hoping he would be there, and so he was.

We noticed Jim last week outside of a Gainesville Starbucks, proudly displaying his "Bernie 2016" sign at the corner bistro table. When we arrived back in town today, he was precisely as we'd left him, though we thought with an ineffable air of wistfulness (or perhaps it was a slight melancholy) following the latest shenanigans of the Democratic (i.e., Clinton) machine.

When asked how he felt about his candidate's situation, he did not voice any rancor. He said he was proud of Mr. Sanders (to whose campaign he said he had donated money), and that Bernie had "opened the debate".

He had a certain equanimity, a peace that surpasseth all understanding. Perhaps it was resignation, but Jim's civility stood in stark contrast to the boorish behavior to which we are party on the tube.

Much as Mr. Trump has functioned in the Republican's posse, Mr. Sanders was a burr, albeit a mild- mannered one, who also functioned to animate those members of his party who held out hope against hope for something new.

The behaviors at both party's conventions is vexatious. Certainly campaigns have historically often been rowdy slugfests, but the party faithful always coalesced behind their candidates at convention time. Not so this year.

Bernie's supporters heckled Elizabeth Warren as the farcical handover of power to Mrs. Clinton occurred in a scripted, crypto-Soviet fashion. "You betrayed us!" the crowd chanted, unaware that the betrayal had already occurred echelons above Ms. Warren.

Mr. Sanders could've been a contender, but the power elite did not like him. He was the primary threat to Hillary; in fact, the only one. Now as more pesky emails emanating from within the Party itself deriding Mr. Sanders threaten to block Mrs. Clinton's hoped-for ascent to throne, Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has fallen on her sword for Mrs. Clinton. Buh, bye, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

It becomes curiouser and curiouser. It seems the only reason to vote for Hillary and maintain personal dignity would be for the Presidential power of Supreme Court nomination. However, as Mr. Trump is largely a centrist Republican, it could be inferred that given the opportunity he would nominate a centrist jurist. Perhaps someone in the vein of Nixon's nominee, Justice John Paul Stevens, who served the Court well and honorably.

Like the Peanuts character Pig-Pen, Mrs. Clinton is unfortunately surrounded by an obscuring maelstrom of -- at best -- less-than forthrightness. Boys can be excused for being dirty, but not girls.

Her husband Bill could weather such debris fairly unscathed due to his rakish charisma, of which Mrs. Clinton shares not a whit.

Shady Lady

--from Alice in Wonderland

Shady lady, you want it all your own way
Shady lady, you won't let go of your prey 
--Shady Lady,
 Uriah Heep

Stand by your man,
Give him two arms to cling to,
And something warm to come to
When nights are cold and lonely 
--Stand By Your Man,
Tammy Wynette 

How do ya do and shake hands,
  shake hands, shake hands. 
--Alice in Wonderland (2010)
_________________________

Hillary's choice of running mate is intriguing. It seems her road crew is trying to appropriate some of the Trump magic for themselves by being a little dangerous and choosing pro-life Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Mrs. Clinton is changing her tack, dancing on the edge of the white bread volcano, as it were.

Not that Mr. Kaine would give someone like Javier Bardem in his role as Chigurh a run for his money in the menace department. No, in fact he resembles nothing so much as a Raggedy Andy doll, with his button nose, faint smile and pale complexion.

By matching Kaine with Hillary, the Democrats are performing a sort of middle school science experiment, like mixing baking soda and vinegar, or watering the little shrimp that come alive when they hit the water. They are hoping for some sort of frisson -- a reaction, and anything would be to the good. Unfortunately, neither Mr. Kaine nor Mrs. Clinton throw off sparks.

By choosing a pro-life Virginian with working class roots, carpetbagger Hillary gets some street cred amongst the Oxy-fiend Appalachian belt. Presumably, Mr. Kaine's choice is an attempt to repair President Obama's misbegotten slight against a wide swatch of Americans with his early dismissive "Guns and God" characterization.

What the bland Mr Kaine does for Mrs. Clinton is to knock her down a notch, off her high horse. Though there was a brief moment where Hillary courted Elizabeth Warren for the post, she must have seen the moment of her greatness flicker in that eventuality. The queen has had to settle.

This will allow her to access women who are not Bella Abzug aficionadoes. It may be hoped that Kaine will be seen as smoothing her rough edges, making her accessible to a contingent inacessable to her heretofore.

In the moment of his unveiling, a vertical banner proclaimed, "Together", implying a seamless coupledom, the thing Hillary could not achieve with that man she now refers to as, "her husband". The sort of Tweedleee-Tweedledum-ness she proudly decried in the Steve Croft "60  Minutes" interview ("I'm not ... some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette"), has been re-packaged as a good.

The scene conjured up nothing so much as the lyrics to the middling Jack Johnson tune, "Well, it's always better when we're together / Yeah, it's always better when we're together." But WHY it's better, is one of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns.

This is the humbling of Hillary: she must stand by a white male, pro-life, at that. Hillary Rodham (nee Clinton, against her better angels), now sees the light, or so her handlers are hoping we will think.

LLMC (lower-lower middle class women) need a man to help them navigate through life. Kaine is a kindly-looking man, and the photos show Hillary looking trustfully his way. She must bear their reality, and accede that she cannot make it alone as "I am woman, hear me roar". However, she is still a sheep in sheep's clothing, for all that.

The subtext for the cognoscenti is, she will shepherd Kaine into a new awareness, post-1972. Like Sisyphus, she will continue pushing that male rock up the hill. She did it for Bill, she will do it for Kaine. The Clinton dream team is hoping that she will become beloved by hard-working women everywhere for bearing that cross.

This is a reactionary, retro Hillary, one which hopes to skewer the LLMC women who may be now on the fence. But can she surmount the irrevocable burden to which she is yoked -- her essential, indwelling unlikeability. ("Me, and my shadow, walking down the avenue ...").

There is no question that Mrs. Clinton would eat scrapple and Little Debbie cakes in a W. VA coal mine if it would buy her a few votes. By any means necessary, as Malcom said.

The press's viciousness could not stop Mr. Trump, so they have settled into a new position: he is wealthy, and cannot possibly feel your pain. Of course, this is just as disingenuous as all of the rest of their boilerplate, for no one may run for the United State's presidency unless one is wealthy, and Mrs. Clinton is very wealthy, indeed. While she joins in criticizing her opponent's wealth, she herself is a solid 1-percenter.

Time will tell if Clinton's undercut will reverse her fortunes. The lady taketh a fall, and will not let pride stand in her way.

Hillary may, in fact, have to stand by her man. Apologies to Ms. Steinem, Ms. Friedan, Ms. Greer, Ms. Beauvoir, et al.