"Crime Story", "Hardcastle" Holding Up Well

Last year around this time, I conducted my "Battle of the 80's Crimefighters" and expressed regret that I was nearly two decades removed from having watched two of my favorites, "Crime Story" and "Hardcastle and McCormick". I added that I was only months away from purchasing both series on DVD. It ended up being slightly longer than that, but I nonetheless got both seasons of "Crime Story" last Christmas and ordered all three seasons of "Hardcastle and McCormick" from their Canadian DVD distributor back in February.

I finished off "Crime Story" with most of my original feelings of the series remaining intact, even though some of my original memories of how the series unfolded didn't mesh. I remembered the first season being vastly superior to the second, but after a stunning two-hour premiere, the series took some time to find its footing (and the original ratings back in 1986 took a beating for it as well) but the grudge match with Ray Luca really took center stage by about the eighth or ninth episode and the series really hit its stride late in the season when the action moved from Chicago to Las Vegas. I didn't get to see most of the second season in its original airing, but actually found that to be just about as good as season one upon reviewing it. It was somewhat inconsistent, but had more action than season one and no extended period of slow-motion dramatic exposition like the first season had. The closing of the second season, set in Mexico, was perhaps the best stretch of episodes of the entire series. Sure, a great deal of the storytelling was dated to 80's era TV which made for some entirely too predictable car bombing, would-be surprise attacks, and campy dialogue, but for the most part, the series was exactly the kind of hard-edged gangster epic I remembered it being.

"Hardcastle and McCormick" is also proving to be an exciting trip down memory lane, as the buddy chemistry between the two characters is exactly as amusing as I remembered it being. Few 1980's action series had capable acting and consistently intelligent dialogue, and the fact that this series did helps it shine like a diamond among its contemporaries. Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh-Kelly are both very good actors and had a handle on their respective characters right from the get-go. I'm exactly halfway through the three seasons as of this writing, 11 episodes into the second season, and thus far, the chronology of the series is holding up as I remembered it, with season 1 being fairly routine and conventional action show content, and season 2 delving into some more outside-the-box story ideas. Both seasons have been good in their own way, and I look forward to the rest of season 2 as well as season 3, which had a number of well-executed episodes I still remember vividly from 22 years ago, and may have been the best season of the three.

With these series under my belt in DVD purchases, I'm struggling to come up with new DVD sets of classic shows that I expect to enjoy as much as these two. "Wiseguy" is on my short list, but I just can't bring myself to pay the outrageous prices that the "Wiseguy" DVD sets run for.

If Bush Could Run For a Third Term, He'd Win

Sound outrageous? It shouldn't. Sure, he only has a 28% approval, but keep in mind that at least 15% of those who disapprove of Bush are doing so because they deem him insufficiently conservative. If Bush were to go up against an opponent to his political left in the year 2008, the vast majority of this group will return to the Bush fold. Combining his 28% approval rating with, say 14% of the the 15% of the electorate who consider Bush "too much of a liberal", and you're at 42%. But how does Bush get the other 8% of the vote? That's where Bush's secret weapon would come to play. He's a Republican who would be facing a Democrat in a national election....and Democrats do not, cannot, and will not win national elections unless there's a crazy anomaly.

And this is not an indictment against either Obama or Hillary, even though those two Democratic candidates probably have more national election liabilities than the average "sure loser" the Democrats quadrennially nominate. It's not even a matter of "nominating better candidates". There are incredibly few Democrats capable of winning national elections in the modern era. Whether the Republicans run John McCain, Willard Romney, Mike Huckabee, or hypothetically George "28% approval rating" Bush, the electorate would invariably be so terrified at the caricature of whatever Democrat they run against the GOP that they would opt for the "safe" choice....the devil that they know....even if that devil is George Bush or his geriatric 2008 proxy John McCain. There's only one Democrat I know of who would certainly be able to George Bush or John McCain. This Democrat is named "generic Democratic challenger", and as was the case in previous election cycles, he's not on the ballot in November.

It's the same routine every four years. Democrats have a clear advantage on nearly every issue and in party affiliation. The media and party leaders admire the various political strengths exhibited by the nominated Democratic candidate, but just as quickly turn on them once the inevitable Republican caricature is volleyed and, with increasingly rare exception, the smear sticks. Come November, the Democratic nominee loses by either a small or large margin, forcing party leaders to "soul search" and the media to echo amongst themselves what a truly horrific candidate the Dems nominated, even though the same people have been acclaiming the losing nominee's sharp political acumen for months up to that point, with the addendum that "surely the Democrats will do better next time". Three years later, the process begins anew with the same trajectory of high early expectations and devastating campaign-ending disappointments....followed by the same Monday-morning quarterbacking of how the Democrats need to do this, that, and the other better heading into the next election. Rinse and repeat.

Nixon perfected this hallmark of the modern GOP Presidential campaign back in 1972 and the Republicans have successfully deployed it almost every election cycle since, caricaturing their opponents with a close variation on the same sturdy boilerplate. And with only one exception (Bill Clinton), the caricature has worked like a charm every time. And you can set your watch by the fact that the media and Democratic party leaders will inform us of "the lessons to be learned" from their latest disaster....that if only they handled the attack differently, they'd have deflected the controversy. Unfortunately, the dirty little secret is that when the Republicans attack, the candidate's response will always be deemed "the wrong one". Dukakis and Kerry's attempts to rise above the morass and not even address the smears against them were wrong because they "made them look weak". Kerry's fiery 2006 rebuke of the GOP's accusation that he called the troops stupid was widely condemned for being too angry and forceful. Any Democrats who questions the motives of those smearing him/her are accused of "whining". Barack Obama's speech following the Jeremiah Wright debacle, after receiving early adulation, is now being retroactively dismissed as "attempting to change the subject" while his apology and attempted explanation of the ridiculous "Bittergate" are also falling on deaf ears by the media and his critics, the very people who will continue beating him over the head with these comments until enough people are convinced to be "offended" that he becomes unelectable. If there's a proper response to inevitable Republican character assassination, almost no Democratic nominee or his/her staff has been able to come up with it.

But, you say, some Democrats have won in recent election cycles despite the MVP-quality batting average of the Republican slime machine. True...but all three victories in the last 40 years have been anomalies. In the extremely un-Republican year of 1976, Jimmy Carter was in the unique situation of being able to forfeit 18 points of his early lead and still squeak by with a two-point victory, winning about a dozen states that no Democrat will be able to win in a national election in the foreseeable future. In 1992, Bill Clinton was fortunate to run against an unpopular Republican incumbent splitting the anti-Democrat vote with a nutty right-leaning populist in a time of global peace where the GOP was unable to effectively exploit the national security card. The 1996 election had some of the same variables as the 1992 election, but comes closest to being a Democratic victory that one can take seriously of any election in the last 44 years.

And as America's median age continues to increase, the Republican Presidential election advantage is likely to get even worse. Therein lies the fundamental miscalculation of Barack Obama's campaign message. Voters do not crave "change"....they fear it. This is especially true of older voters, who have long been the demographic most likely to buy into the caricatures that Republicans paint of Democratic Presidential candidates. It doesn't matter how strongly poll numbers indicate that the "country is heading in the wrong direction", the Republican Party offers voters a policy agenda they are familiar with no matter how much they claim to despise it. And the more dramatic the message of "change" coming from the Democrats, the more likely that American voters will circle the wagons come the first Tuesday in November when choosing a Commander in Chief. That's why John McCain will be the 44th President of the United States....and why George W. Bush would continue to be the 43rd President of the United States if he was poised to the Republican nominee yet again.

Thankfully, the Democrats' inability to win Presidential elections has not, at least not completely, trickled down to the Congressional level. Hopefully it stays that way. For whatever reason, the GOP has not been as successful to caricaturize Democratic Congressional challengers to the point of rendering them unelectable as they always do with Democratic Presidential challengers. But as a bunch of devastated Kossacks will learn again this November, America is for all intents and purposes a one-party state when it comes to Presidential politics.

Another Issueless Campaign

The latest round of polls confirms my long-standing suspicion that the cult of personality will again likely help the Republican party snatch victory from the jaws of defeat this election season. Particularly after this long and bitter primary season, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have probably bruised themselves too badly to beat McCain in the fall. I knew the declarations of Obama "weathering the storm" in regards to the Jeremiah Wright controversy were premature, and my hunch was confirmed with the latest round of polling showing Obama slipping 10 points, now tied with McCain in the popular vote, which means an easy McCain victory in the Electoral College.

On paper, McCain should be a weak candidate, but he's been built up by the media as this freewheeling take-no-prisoners maverick for so long that it's stuck....and American voters will not unlearn that lesson no matter how much evidence is thrown at them and no matter how much deviation there is between McCain and the voting public on the issues. The reality is that McCain is every bit as hard-core as Bush on meat-and-potatoes issues, which makes me see all the more outraged whenever I hear Democrats threaten to vote for John McCain if their preferred candidate loses the primary. Such a decision would be the ultimate act of petulance and childishness, but we're a crybaby nation and I have no doubt that millions of Democrats would snuggle up to the enemy, perfectly willing to slash their own throats and the throats of their neighbors just to "show them" with a delusional, traitorous tantrum.

I think Obama supporters would be slightly less likely to vote for McCain than would Hillary supporters, but there would still be millions of them, particularly younger independent voters. For the most part, however, the threat coming from Obama being denied the Democratic nomination is disillusioned Obama supporters (particularly blacks and college students) sitting this election out if their choices are Hillary and McCain. And despite the latest chapter of the media telling us this thing is over and Obama owns the nomination, it's not even close to over...particularly with Obama's miserable, freefalling poll numbers this week. Furthermore, the fictional reports of a tightening race in Pennsylvania will prove completely unfounded as Hillary will win the state by at least 15 points on April 22, regaining momentum heading into a string of states where she'll get some of her biggest margins in the country (West Virginia, Kentucky). While it's doubtful that she'll win North Carolina, a solid win in Indiana will be devastating to Obama in the eyes of the still-up-for-grabs superdelegates, and the bad headlines assures us that the already plunging Obama will lose that much more steam in his numbers versus McCain.

With that said, Obama still has the odds of getting the nomination, and I'm still hopeful he will, if only because his candidacy will turn the entire generation of young Americans into lifelong Democrats even in defeat. But defeat seems almost certain at this stage in an Obama versus McCain contest. Older voters simply will not take Obama seriously, while conservative blue-collar Dems, particularly in the crucial Appalachian region, will go into the election believing Obama is a combination of unpatriotic, Muslim, and the modern-day equivalent of the leader of the Black Panthers. NOTHING will change their mind, especially if the opposition is running a nominee as artificially appealing as John McCain. And without the support of older voters and blue-collar Democrats from Appalachia, the three most crucial battleground states in the nation (Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida) will all go red in November.

But what happens if the economy continues to plunge? Will McCain's laissez faire, let-them-eat-cake worldview be a liability that puts either Hillary or Obama back in the game? And what if things continue to go as badly in Iraq as they have been for the last few weeks? Will McCain's never-say-die commitment to a permanent war provide an opening for the Dems to cut him down? Not a chance in hell! As long as the Democrats run either a black man or Hillary Clinton (the most polarizing American political figure since Joseph McCarthy), this will be an unwavering identity election that will completely undo any theoretical gains the Democratic Party has made in winning over converts in the last two years. Barring a litany of gaffes of epic proportions, independents and "I'll show them" Democrats will almost certainly give George Bush a third time through his geriatric proxy candidate McCain.