Friday, July 18, 2008
Revealing
C-span was showing a discussion among top political operatives about this year's Congressional election. The brand-D operative was talking about those new hawkish Western Dems that I find impressive. He said those candidates were the third or fourth choices from the Party's viewpoint. After the losses of '02 and '04, the horizon looked dim to the "real candidates", the lifetime brand-D politicos with long state-level experience and good fund-raising connections. So the "real candidates" refused to run in '06, leaving the party to scrape the barrel. And what did they find? They found some Real Americans instead of the usual Real Party Hacks. (Apologies to Geico for the phrasing.)
You'd think the brand-R operatives would have found this instructive. You'd think they would say "Hmm... maybe we should lop off our first-tier choices and scrape the barrel to find some uncorrupted candidates, some candidates who don't resemble Duke Cunningham, Conrad Burns and Larry Craig." Nope, from the inside-the-system viewpoint, these new hawkish Dems didn't win because the voters liked them; these fresh candidates won because their records were so short that the brand-R operatives couldn't dig up any dirt on them.
Tells you all you need to know about party operatives. The concept of Representing The Voters is alien and incomprehensible to them, in the same way that a Religious Christmas Card is Martian to Barbara Walters. Party operatives are blackmailers, and the only thing they understand is extortion. ¶ 6:48 PM
You'd think the brand-R operatives would have found this instructive. You'd think they would say "Hmm... maybe we should lop off our first-tier choices and scrape the barrel to find some uncorrupted candidates, some candidates who don't resemble Duke Cunningham, Conrad Burns and Larry Craig." Nope, from the inside-the-system viewpoint, these new hawkish Dems didn't win because the voters liked them; these fresh candidates won because their records were so short that the brand-R operatives couldn't dig up any dirt on them.
Tells you all you need to know about party operatives. The concept of Representing The Voters is alien and incomprehensible to them, in the same way that a Religious Christmas Card is Martian to Barbara Walters. Party operatives are blackmailers, and the only thing they understand is extortion. ¶ 6:48 PM
