Red-Diaper Babies Still Crotchety, After All These Years

Senior advisor David Axelrod during a meeting in the Oval Office, May 29, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Went to an Obama parlor meeting Tuesday night. Gender ratio 70:30, women to men. All seemed something over 60-70. One very pretty girl of about 20, in inappropriate short shorts and white t-shirt–but she turned out to be an intern working for the party HQ in Manhattan itself, and told the room what to do and where to go, etc. She was the only one that could be said to know very well what social media are–but after their Minute of Hate for Republicans, during which I was in the loo, their groaning about the Supreme Court, as if the two female swarthy inepts pushed in by Obama were not enough, they strained forward to hear, because no one spoke above the loud A/C in the UWS apartment. The more whispery the talkers, the happier I was. No one could hear much of anything, and few thought to speak up.

The food: chips, two kinds of so-so cookies, store bought; taco chips; four bottles of different wine, red/white; three kinds of cheese, and rye and pumpernickel bread rounds. The heat was brutal, and their A/C was loud.

I carefully avoided being in any of the cell-phone pics taken by the intern, used a fake name, and did not sign in after three separate attempts to make sure we all signed in. I had mistakenly come an hour earlier than the time called, so left and came back a bit after seven, when there were already about 15 or so in the apartment. Some 10 people came late (all women) and did not participate in the round-the room brief ID of name and where one lived. (I gave that non-me alias, and a false address.) Everyone was an UWS person, from West 60s to 90s. There was one child, and her mother–but the mother must be single, looked older than the child’s age indicated, and thus I think the 7-year-old or so was adopted. So she was not a rep of the younger generations, either.

Among a sea of 33 whites in the crowded living room, there were two blacks. One party stalwart, a party functionary, who explained what jobs there were for the volunteers; and a sourly distinguished-looking, long white-braided Cherokee type of old guy who, when asked to say a little something, mumbled his name, and said “I am left of left of left …” to which the group said, giggling loudly, “So you’re not a Republican?” He resembled a younger sibling of Chief Sitting Bull. He said nothing more after his initial pronouncement.

David Axelrod called in or they called him in, which surprised us, because it was low volume, and the hostess held up the cell phone for all to hear, but it was not very distinguished talk or very impassioned. He kept repeating how “We are very glad to have you, this will be a tight race, not like last time, when we had a “53% landslide,” and it will be “very dirty.” He invoked JFK and the “huge surplus Bill Clinton worked so hard to amass.” No mention, of course, of the gargantuan debt occasioned by unholy and unfettered borrowing from China and others.

No mention of jobs. No talk of massive bailouts. No talk of voter fraud. No whisper of dissatisfaction with Obamacare, now one of the country’s major complaints. No talk of Fast and Furious, or government leaks of intel at the highest level. No discussion of foreign failures and loss of credit rating and global prestige. No tendril of talk on ‘Taxmageddon’ coming on the tiptoes of 2013. No one in the room, it would appear, still cared about jobs, since they were, to outward glance, long past working or the disgruntlement of low incomes. No one talked entitlement tsunamis. They did speak forcefully of the backing of unions, and took time to deride the Staten Island firefighters, police and other public servants who had the peculiar oddity of voting Republican, despite the obvious superior wisdom of union fealty. Not a person in the room save perhaps one elderly gent in his 90′s who had worked for TV “in research” had ever, it seemed, actually worked for a union. One lawyer spoke at length about her efforts to thwart Republican efforts in legal circles.

Axelrod made mention, stressing it mournfully, that the Republicans were trying to “stop the electorate” from voting by several states now insisting on ID, so he reminded people to get friends to beat the… bushes… for voters—clearly not registered, or even necessarily citizens, just get the vote out and help get these “new voters” to the polls, to trounce the suspect efforts of Republicans who had the nerve to insist on ID and citizenship before voters could pull the levers.

“We have to win Pennsylvania, no matter what,” he and the hosts and the cute little intern kept saying. Winning Penn is the thrust of all their efforts.

They send buses to canvass and ring bells in Pennsylvania every weekend–but the guests of a certain age had clearly little acquaintanceship with retail politicking, and seemed very uninterested in door-to-door campaigning, or phone banks, or computer date entry. They seemed to be short of funds, since the in-charge folks kept saying you can use your own cell phones and chargers, and you can send these calls from your own home.

Frankly, I was delighted that this seemed the best they could do–33-35 people, not very energized (one Japanese woman, white haired, very polite, very quiet), not very revved up, though they clearly loathe Republicans and whined about “Congressional gridlock caused by the Republicans.” The host thanked everyone for being “so passionate”–but they were not. The excitement could not have sustained one candle, if it depended on oxygen ergs in that living room.

On departing, I left feeling cheerful that these were Obama firebrands, there seemed no one other than myself who actually had campaigning experience on the ground–and as I left with a full elevator of attendees, earlier than the stated time of 9–it was 8:05–I told them all how hard campaigning and door to door and the rest was–bad weather, bad streets, rain, snow, long long days and getting home after midnight (all true), remote locations, rural people who tell you to shove off, or hang up, etc. So that is one full elevator of people who shan’t be toddling off to Pennsylvania to ring the bells for any candidate. Some people were still in the apartment when we left. But the folks in the Otis were not firebrands, and listened eagerly to my bad-mouthing the political grassroots experience.

Feeling pretty smiley and cheered, since the bulk of the attendees were relatively clueless and would not hoist sail to Pennsylvania, it seemed to me these people were not very optimistic, though they kept hoping they would win, because “it is sooo important” for “the country” that they win. If this is any signal, this is terrific, as not a soul was excited, and all they could say on their modest bookmarks was that Obama “kept his promises” to lower student loan debt (!) and universal healthcare. That was it. No other accomplishments. Aloud, they bemoaned the Iraq war, and mourned that Gore had lost so the world would have been a different place now than with Bush having won (twice–nyaaah, nyaah).

The intern kept telling the group to “Like” Obama.com and cognate sites on Facebook and Twitter. They kept telling us to sign in to the web page and to follow the prompts.

This is a paper tiger, it seems. I do hope this is representative of the weak-ass showing for the current resident of the WH. The opposition, even if they are not madly in love with the handsome businessman candidate, are certainly more energized than this elder-hostel of dithering and near-frailty and no ideas. Here, Red-diaper babies had come to share their poop, and perhaps to molt.