Reply #44: Debasing the political discussion

[Quill Pen]

As long as we keep thinking we're too good to take the low road, we'll lose.

The Democrats need another Louis Howe. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/32_f_roosevelt/f_roosevelt_early.html

We need a slick, shadowy stylist and spin master. Somewhere out there, there has to be a left-bank Karl Rove, a master puppetteer for a progressive candidate. I love Joe Trippi, but the guy's too human, too warm-blooded. No, I'm talking about someone who's half reptile, who can eat a live rat for dinner without chewing and still get his man (woman?) on the 6:00 news.

The Repugs call us "liberal whiners." Well, they're right. They pull off everything from clandestine terror attacks to election theft, all funded and assisted by corporate leviathans. In the end, since we Dems have spent the battle working to be as scrupulously, fastidiously fair, ethical and inclusive as possible, that's all we have the energy and the power to do, is complain.

For example, I certainly admire Bev Harris and the Black Box Voting crew for their dogged pursuit of voting enfranchisement, I really do. But I'd be lying if I said I believed any of that was really going somewhere. If Rove and his operatives believed her or her org to be a genuine threat to their election-hijacking machinations, I don't think it would be long before she'd be found dead "of mysterious causes" in a motel room.

Fair and ethical obviously isn't working for us. Fighting a good, clean fight isn't working. Assuming that the average voter is sentient enough to understand his own interests, if we'll only explain them the right way, has proved to be our downfall. Yes, by all means, let's sink to the Brand X level; let's use the genius of advertising science, or any other nonviolent means of persuasion, on our short-bus-riding countryfolk.