Then you see my point.
That we do not engage in any such shenanigans is really a triple-whammy, if you think about it.
First, our candidates are made to look like goofballs and Alinski’ed into making follow-up goofs and follow-up goofs and pretty soon the whole party is branded as goofball. Tell me this isn’t an ongoing, every-day effort that is overwhelmingly successful. War on Women. Hate Blacks. Only for the Rich. Every stupid bumper sticker that’s ever been printed, works, because there’s never a counter.
Second, we are consistently thrown into a defensive mode from which all manner of goofy statements are made. Todd Akin. Christine O’Donnell. It is not my suggestion that every one of our candidates has to go through a 21-day intensive North Korean media-conditioning exercise (although it wouldn’t be the worst idea I’ve heard) because frankly, there are perfectly viable candidates from flyover country who are...well, hicks, and that’s fine, their constituents are hicks, and that is great. Those folks should damn well want their representatives to be one of them versus the polished turds the other side seems to have an endless supply of. It is not possible to prevent any and all gaffes, but the other side is the only ones actively trying to induce them and actively working to exploit them. We forgive the other side when they make their outrageous statements and move on. Fifteen minutes later the next dirtbomb gets thrown at us.
Third, the continued and virtually uninterrupted success of these tactics does nothing if not encourage the other side to keep using them. If, every time you took on an opponent, your left hook knocked them out, would you get bored using your left hook? The left spends loads of money getting this crap out, but we let them use the same tactics over and over and do not give them the opportunity to destroy themselves having to come up with newly-minted sleaze. They get to stick adhesive labels with new candidate names on the same hit pieces they were using in 1996. It’s embarassing and appalling to fall victim to such cheap shots but who can blame them for reusing what works?
So it’s just flaming stupid to keep losing to stupidity, that’s all I am saying, and if people are to be judged by their actions, then we are being stupid. It’s a tautology. Good decisions are being *not made* because people with the smarts to see an opening have no confidence that the machine behind them will act with deftness, and those with integrity aren’t all that interested in seeing their reputations smeared. We are cooperating in our own extinction. It is our own meek behavior which is causing these sleazeball tactics to be repeatedly used and used successfully, entirely to our detriment.