Talent La Penna Prolifica™

The No-holds-barred Sport of Political Campaigning

By La Penna Prolifica™ | 2008

The No-holds-barred Sport of Political Campaigning

By Michael LaPenna

As many of you know beyond any doubt, (unless you are one of the few people trapped under a rock or engulfed by a black hole and stuck in the Ninth Dimension), you know that the now historic February 5 Super Tuesday elections took the race for the Presidency to a level of fervor and excitement that many Americans might have thought only happened during Super Bowl Sunday and World Wrestling Entertainment’s Royal Rumble. Yet, like the body slamming war of wills, Campaign ‘08 started as a battle royale with many hopeful candidates entering the fray, (nearly a dozen viable prospective candidates had entered the race nearly nine months ago), as eventually the final two will battle for the Heavyweight Title of American Politics come November.

Yet since the February frenzy, the battle has dwindled with the departure of two of the early GOP frontrunners and one very ambitious Democrat. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt “All Business” Romney and America’s favorite mayor, New York City’s own Rudy “Mr. 9/11” Giuliani, who were initially thought to be the Republicans’ go-to guys for the nomination, dropped out of the race after the public realized that they might actually have other options. The exit of Democratic populist John “I’ll give you health coverage as great as my hair” Edwards comes as his two opponents gain fan bases that may rival boxing’s Mayweather-Hatton clash from this past December and as the rounds continue with cable and talk radio on an endless loop, anyone who might be waking from a coma could conceivably make the mistake of thinking the election was in five hours rather than the actual 7 months we have yet to endure. And yet there’s more!

February also, saw the then assumed GOP nominee and Vietnam veteran, John “Never Surrender” McCain (R-AZ) taken to task to prove his conservative prowess to doubting pundits such as radio’s Rush Limbaugh and CNN’s Glen Beck in the hope to maintain the confidence of the entire Republican Party almost nine months after seemly no one in the mainstream public thought he could gain even enough support to cover fuel costs for his campaign bus, let alone fund to his candidacy.

For months McCain had sat opposed by a seemly nice guy, Southern Baptist Minister and wouldn’t you know it, Arkansas Governor Mike “Underdog” Huckabee). Until Huckabee’s March 5 epiphany that not even Satirist Steven Colbert’s “Colbert bump” could save him from defeat. Huckabee seemed all the time to be reinacting that scene in every Rocky movie when Rocky’s on verge of death, his corner and everyone watching can see it but Rocky marches on saying, “If you stop the fight I’ll kill you!”

And after a year of being hailed as the sure thing for the Democrats, former First Lady and current New York Senator Hilary “Experience” Clinton was now trailing what could be our country’s first Black President in Illinois Senator Barack “Yes, we can” Obama after some of us thought to ourselves, “No, he can’t.”Then, just when we all might have thought the general election main event of Obama versus McCain might once and for all be flashing on a marquee somewhere next to the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Las Vagas: Enter Mrs. Geraldine Ferraro and Sen. Obama’s pastor of 20 years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Yes, the Democrat’s equivalent to a post-fight weigh-in came in the form of a few notorious remarks on the subject of race. Below are some of those remarks:

Geraldine Ferraro: Obama’s Winning Because He’s Not White! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqL_sm0J8jc

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” he said in a 2003 sermon. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye,” Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he told his congregation.

(ABC News). Video: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Wright_on_film.html

In response to these to remarks, Mrs. Ferraro has voluntarily resigned form the Clinton campaign early signaling a self-inflicted technical knockout of sorts While Rev. Wright’s vitriolic brimstone blasts at our government –of which include a claim the U.S government invented the AIDS virus– have forced Sen. Obama to address race issues in a way few politicians ever have in the long history of our country. He did so on March 18 in Philadelphia. Obama spoke of Wright’s frustrations as part of a racial stalemate but also went on to denounce the comments as expressing a …”profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America.”

And while Obama refused to flatly denounce the man in March, he found he had no other recourse but to do so after Wright confirmed his personal beliefs concerning U.S. sponsored terror in a succession of interviews with PBS, the NAACP and the National Press Club where Wright suggested that Obama’a rebuke of Wright’s statements is Obama’s way of doing “what politicians do” in order to be elected. Obama has since come out saying Wright’s feelings toward him undermine Obama’s credibility and that the man who made those remarks is not the man he met twenty years ago.
Still, with all this, America may now wonder where the election can go from this issue of race. More poignantly, Americans may ask themselves why the subject was not brought to forum sooner. This coupled with Obama’s recent statement that the working class often “cling to guns and religion” and an elitest label by critics is clearly a tough combination of blows to withstand. But does this one have a winner? With cornermen and promoters like these, do the Dems even need opponents? Seriously, Folks… Don King may have a stake in this one.

It is duly noted that trouble has not passed over Sen. McCain in recent week with an alleged extra-marital affair with female lobbyist Vicky Iseman in 2000 as reported by the New York Times in late February. He has also garnered the endorsements of Televangelist John Hagee of San Antonio, TX who has called the Catholic Church a “great whore” and Hagee’s Trinity Broadcasting Network colleague Rod Parsley who is known to be a fiery reviler of Islam. (See links below). Yet McCain through it all has managed to escape any the uppercuts that would knock him into the Bottomless Pit from Democrats, Republicans and the press in general. I can only think this is only the case for one or both of two reasons. First, McCain is a quieter fellow with the experience to know when to stand out and when to shut up. Second, this is a man who has been a prisoner of war and may have an unshakably tough character and wise mind that knows when sit back and the let the opposition destroy itself.

Full New York Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.htmlRod

Parsley Endorses McCain: http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

John Hagee Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qNi7tPanUA&feature=related

Funnily enough, the opposition did in fact get the chance to destroy itself somewhat on a recent Pennsylvania Primary Eve airing of WWE Monday Night Raw on which after three short taped messages from all three hopefuls, two impersonators poked fun at Obama’s big ears and Clinton’s notorious husband who, by the way, “did not have illegal contact” with the faux Obama during the brawl. I dare not give away the ending. To see the match in its entirety see the link below.

WWE Raw Obama vs.Clinton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noVpNyPB54c

So now you’ve heard the trash talk, banter and backlash. I guess now would be the time to place bets on who lands the knockout blow in the prized fight for the White House. Who do you like in this one?