Eight long yearsAs noted in previous post, we have three pretty good case-studies illustrating the failure of "hate, fear, and division" and character assassination as campaign tactics.
... The Republicans tried to win with hate and fear and division, and instead they failed. Spectacularly, definitively, repudiated in a landslide. And you know what I hope, at this moment? That Joe the Plumber becomes a widely-used symbol for all that has been wrong with America. That tv commentators invoke his name as shorthand for the politics of stupidity — “Maybe Joe the Plumber thinks we need to put all the Danish-Americans in internment camps, but no rational person agrees!” — and a heartfelt chuckle is had by all, and no more need be said, so universal is the understanding.
I very much want that to be the legacy of Joe the Plumber.
What to do when the supposed intellectuals of the right - I have in mind William Kristol - embrace Sarah Palin, who has been revealed by Fox News (!) to have believed that Africa is a country, not a continent!
In fact, I honestly hope that Sarah Palin & Joe the Plumber are the future leaders of the Republican Party! To whom will such a party appeal? To the 25% that still think W is doin' a heckuva job! - not to "moderate" Republicans, not to Independents, not to the modern equivalent of "Reagan Democrats", not to George Will... Only to those who believe the antediluvian Eden is a real, physical place.
Now that's the Republican Party I'd like to run against!
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