The Problem with Nice

It's almost frightening, the copiousness of detente that's spreading through both party's campaigns right now -- you would think that all the politicians were holding their debates in Helsinki. The absolute worst display of disgustingly genial showmanship occurs between John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. To be fair, in all disclosure, McCain has never been glaring in his reproach of Giuliani while campaigning (probably due to Rudy's low poll numbers), but he hasn't been overly laudatory either, and all rightly so, considering they were running against each other. But Rudy's quick shift is disturbing, and the animosity that overnight turned into a man crush between two extremely straight men shows how disingenuous and ridiculous it is. Rudy practically coos over McCain, and yesterday, on a late night show that both men would have had to cross picketing lines of striking writers to get to, they appeared next to one another as if they had just arrived after a leisurely evening of heavy petting... each other's egos. McCain, who was all but dead a few months ago, has pulled out the smelling salts. As Miracle Max would say, McCain was only "mostly dead", which means he was still "partly alive" -- and he's found something worth living for. Plus, McCain is able to do something that Giuliani couldn't do alone - and that is use Giuliani's strengths. Giuliani discovered through the course of his campaign that what he did for New York didn't travel nearly as far across the country as he assumed - it's common for certain New Yorkers, Giuliani among them, to suffer from the delusion that everyone outside New York understands and is up-to-date on the microcosm of the NYC universe. The only time that claim is true is with certain moments in history, like 9/11. Unless you've been to Times Square pre- and post- Giuliani, you don't really get a sense of the actual "clean-up" he inspired. And of course, if you do know a bit about Giuliani, that can also be bad for his campaign as well - some of his questionable practices have been well publicized. But the brilliance of McCain using Giuliani as a kind of pseudo attache is that McCain can keep all his prior experience, his renown as a war hero, and whatever other favors he might have, and also cling to the 9/11 message that Giuliani, unsuccessfully based his campaign on. What ailed Giuliani was the fact that the 9/11 management was really his only universally recognized positive, and it was not enough to sustain an entire campaign. But McCain, with Rudy's endorsement, can buy that extra morsel of post-apocalyptic hope, and wrap it up with a little bow and serve it on his stump speeches to each audience member, hungry for not only McCain's current policy, but added assurance he could get the job done. "Giuliani light" is decidedly better than the blown up, cross-dressing, wife cheating full-calorie version. It's easier on the digestion for a fractured Republican party. And Giuliani is no dummy - he's getting something from this deal, though it's a reluctant prediction to think he would accept an offer as McCain's running mate. We'll see, but if that does happen, it would be one fearsome political creature to behold. Of course, every Republican machine is pretty fear-inducing these days.

Remember what happened to the last officially dubbed "Queen of Nice?" Sprint, or jog, your memory while we recap the latest Democratic debate. Obama and Clinton were talking nice, as if only sunshine and quaint democratic sentiment shines out their bums. Obama could get some more traction from being nicer to Clinton, because his audacious message of hope, while running a mostly positive campaign, has taken exceptions when it comes to Clinton-bashing, and his comment a month or so ago at one of the earlier debates that Clinton was only "Likable Enough" actually didn't fair well for him at all. Despite his universally recognized flair for charisma, Obama just isn't up to snuff when compared to Clinton's debating ability. He comes off more like the snarky showoff who pedals in all directions whereas Clinton always has a witty retort and is well-versed in debate, her main flaw being the forcefulness in her delivery that appears jarring to some. But lately, Clinton has been nicer too. Her well-placed snipets of humor are reinvigorating what could've turned into a bleak campaign, and all this news coverage of a supposedly "angry" Bill leave her with the trouble of running damage-duty. Her well-chosen weaphon of choice: the well-placed quip. For instance, when asked about the possibility of history recording Presidents in the following order: Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton; Hillary Clinton remarked "it may take a Clinton to clean up after a second Bush."

So what do all these niceties mean? Perhaps this is the eye of the storm - the outer winds and wreckage from the huge field of players has dwindled down to basically two major candidates still standing on both sides. One thing is for sure, it's going to get ugly again before this thing moves out after the nominations. We can only guess how, and afterwards assess the destruction. But Democrats need to be wary- both Clinton and Obama would agree that the only thing worse than losing the primary nomination is losing the presidential election to a Republican because of an electorate dissatisfied with a quibbling Democratic party. Democrats are historically known as the slightly more disorganized party, one without a completely solid platform -- either that or the platform just never seems to dry like the harsh concrete Republicans like to stomp on all campaign season. So we can see why killing the voters with kindness might be the best method...for now.