In the debate for Republican presidential candidates the other day, John McCain had a canned, prepackaged zinger that garnered a standing ovation.
“In case you missed it, a few days ago, Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock Concert Museum. Now, my friends, I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time.
“But the fact is, my friends, no one can be president of the United States that supports projects such as these.”
The McCain campaign was apparently so pleased with the reception the zinger received that it created an entire TV ad out of it. It features the exact quote from the debate, interspersed with images from Woodstock and a young McCain on a recovery bed.
One gets the sense that Team McCain feels like it’s struck the jackpot — this quip includes an attack on Hillary, criticism of earmarks, and reference to McCain’s Vietnam heroism. For that matter, there’s a cultural undertone, connecting Clinton to those wacky hippies and the drug culture of the 1960s.
But is that necessarily the message McCain wants to send? Does the candidate who, if elected, would be the oldest president ever to take office really want to score points by beating on a bygone era?
As Matt Stoller explained very well, “The Republicans at the last debate cheered when McCain attacked Clinton over Woodstock. Woodstock. That was 40 years ago. The GOP has lived off of the fumes of the civil rights backlash for a decade or so, and their whole mythology is built around fighting a liberal establishment that transparently doesn’t exist. The notion that drug use is some sort of cultural marker is sort of hilarious and ridiculous all at once.”
It reminded me of Thomas Friedman’s recent column, in which he complained that today’s youth isn’t as vocal and mobilized as the 20-somethings of the 1960s. He called the current generation “too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good.”
Today, Atrios has a helpful suggestion about putting the previous generation to rest.
I’m getting emails from various 60s era types which roughly suggest that it makes sense that people who lived through that era see everything through the prism of that era because lots of stuff happened. I don’t deny that the 60s were a significant historical and cultural time for the US for a variety of reasons, I just don’t understand why 40 years later some people can’t seem to comprehend any political issue without shoe horning it into some template stamped out back then.
So, yes, 60s was time of important change. Political battles had profound impact on many individuals then. I understand all that.
But whether it’s conservatives trying to relive the “glory days” of the cold war, real liberals expecting that political activism in the 21st century should look 60s era activism, or fake liberals like Joe Klein desperately battling the dirty fucking hippies who apparently live under his bed, I just don’t get it. Move on. Times have changed. And, yes, of course, lessons to be learned from the past, blah blah blah, but we don’t live in the past.
Getting back to McCain’s ad, it’s why I thought the canned zinger made for a nice little soundbite, but I find it hard to believe it moved many votes. Even among the Republicans in the audience, it’s easy to imagine them giving McCain a standing ovation for his sacrifice four decades ago, but I don’t think anyone’s suggesting those voters would actually base their votes on it.