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it won't get her in trouble amongst the conservative set for three reasons:
a. the republicans are already trying to head off the association by claiming there's no paper trail to demonstrate it, whereas there is a paper trail which shows her affiliation with the republicans. as if the latter excludes the former.
b. this is a far right group and in the schema of political demonization abroad in the land, so long as you don't blow up a federal building somewhere, anything goes. consider for example the non-reaction to the mobilization of militia groups to operate as de facto vigilante border guards. not a word about the problematic relation of militia organizations to the existing political structure. as a thought experiment, however, consider what would be the case amongst the rightwingers had a negative image of palin belonged to a trotskyist group, even one the membership of which was 3 guys who met in a bar once a month. THAT would be a Problem.
c. so there's no space for far-right groups in contemporary political demonology, and because the republicans are already mounting a counter to this problem of membership in the aip....well, this should not be enough, should it? but fact is that you also see taking shape an attempt to align the press as a whole with some phantom coastal Elite which hates those who "love life" blah blah blah, and because the campaign is based not on issues but on the construction of affinity, what results is a situation in which the republican denials will probably be enough for the faithful---addressing one of those "non-issues" you see (as a function of the non-place for the far right matter)--and information to the contrary will function to confirm the Persecuting status of the evil "elite media" and so will function to delegitimate the messenger.
what seems to already be getting conceded in all this is that the mc-cain base is not going to expand. so what the idea seems to be is to use any and all tricks to appeal to identity as a way of mobilizing that base as a base. whcih means that, in the end, the election will be a test of political machines, one against the other, fought out over who can get the largest number of bodies out.
if this is the case, then it is a mistake for obama to distance himself too much from the approach he was adopting earlier in his campaign, speaking to a broad and new demographic in a language designed to mobilize them. if he allows himself to get hoovered into television-style campaigning, once again the democrats will find themselves fighting on a terrain they do not define.
and i would not underestimate the power of the right's grassroots organization.
i wonder if this is accurate....
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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