As IF Times

link Ellison: Bachmann wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant | Minnesota Independent: News. Politics. Media..

Here we go.  As Congressman Bachmann begins to get traction in her quest for the Republican nomination, she also attracts the expected slings and slurs from her political opponents.  Of course, that’s expected.  What’s also expected is the level of discourse aimed at her from the left.

If you do a google search of  ‘barefoot and pregnant’ paired with Michelle Bachmann, the only reference you will find of that pairing is of Rep. Ellison’s remark.  So out of thin air, this learned gentleman makes a comment which has no relevance at all to the political discussion.   It’s as if he was still  in the 4th grade taunting her with ‘fatty fatty, two by four’.  This is somewhat reminiscent of the last set of elections in which candidate Christine O’Donnell was labeled a witch.

While this may be amusing to people with only at least average intelligence, it’s very alarming to think of the ramifications of these witty characterizations.  First, it says something about the accuser, but secondly, it says something even more frightening about their intended constituency.  It implies that the intended audience are idiots.

It implies that rather than confuse the audience with reasoned discussions of policy differences, they can be much more effective by characterizing their opponents in some cartoon-ish way because that’s the only way they can absorb a message.  Ellison of course is only carrying  on along the path well worn by another Democratic Congressman with a tenous grasp on sanity, the  recently deposed Alan Grayson.  He of the  ‘Republicans want you do die’  fame.  Let’s not forget the characterization of Republican Paul Ryan pushing old people in wheelchairs off cliffs.  It’s as if the left cannot gather support for complex issues from their base unless they can convey some simplistic imagery that will galvanize their troops.  Are they really that dumb?  If so, is it therefore not frightening to have the beneficiaries of their votes sit in office making public policy?

Getting back to Ellison, if he’s going to affix the ‘barefoot and pregnant’  label on Bachmann, he may have to peel it off his party buddy John Edwards who actually demonstrated his affinity to that philosophy.   We understand Ellison’s dilemma though.   To bring up the more scandalous accusations of tax cheater, liar, philanderer, demagogue, communist and just general dumbness would evoke people  from within his own party.  Better keep the slags in the imaginary world.

link Howard Dean warns Dems Sarah Palin could beat Obama in 2012 – TheHill.com.

The on-going wisdom that is being peddled every day by the sage beltway crowd is amusing in their consensus.  The narrative is that Sarah Palin would be crushed by Obama if she won the Republican nomination.  Hmm.  Politics is the ultimate poker game of course.  Except that in politics, the game is played with other people’s  money and the rules, well there aren’t really any rules.  Posturing, positioning and misinformation are the standard techniques to bluff the opponents.  While the number of beltway pundits is small, their influence can be large since their opinions are transmitted via a sympathetic media to the mostly uncaring public.  The money aspect relates to the ability for any particular vested interest to sell their side of the story.  The more money, the more you can sell your story.  With the generally short attention span of most people, repeating a message often enough will make it true.  As an example, for decades, the media pushed the illusion of Camelot and the Kennedys.  We know this now to be fictional delusion, but most believed it for generations.  But, we digress.

Whether or not you have any stake in the U.S. elections and of course, in Canada, we don’t except by resulting consequences, the portrayal of the players is fascinating.  At the moment, the news surrounding the incumbent president is amazingly quiet.  This is in stark contrast to the pre-election hysteria, which carried through the first 2 years.  We all know how it was sold; hope,change, statesmanship, etc etc.  That was easy to do since he was essentially an unknown entity.  Now, 3 years into the program, to all but the hard wired partisans, it’s obvious the marketing was a lot better than the product.  A person who had never held a responsible position outside of a government funded bureaucracy has been an abject failure as the presumptive leader of the free world.  The much vaunted character and oratory genius has been revealed to emanate from a teleprompter.    If the next U.S. elections were based solely on policies and implementation, there is no logical way that he can possibly win.  In every measurable category, but especially the one of national finance, Obama’s vision has gone rapidly from expectations of hope to realities of despair. 

But that’s not how it’s been  sold.  We’ve seen the marketing and compared it to the product.  It’s been a masterful and coordinated sales job.  It’s as if you believed the hype about how wonderful a solar clothes dryer is until you receive a clothesline for your money.   Whatever solutions Obama has served up to ‘fix America’ are rooted in some form of government intervention or engineering. That is his prism of life.   Of course, the massive errors of this vision are now apparent and horribly so to the naive consuming public.  What has happened to the U.S. is analogous to someone taking some antacid for heartburn and then reading the label which states that “may cause ulcers, vomiting, rectal bleeding or death”.   This was buried  in the fine print. 

So if the partisan left can’t use Obama’s record to battle an agenda that someone such as a Sarah Palin brings to the discussion, then it becomes purely a popularity contest.   We take for granted that Obama would be popular among his core group even if it were revealed he liked to kick dogs and small children as a hobby.  People like Palin or Michelle Bachmann who have actually either run a state,  a business and  raised a barnful of kids (in the case of Bachmann, 23 foster kids) are portrayed as dumb, wild eyed loons and racist rubes.  At least that’s the beltway’s spin on it.  While not a fan of Howard Dean, speaking of loons, at least he has the clarity to see that there is a vast pool of disenfranchised but heretofore quiet majority of Americans who identify with the likes of Palin or Bachmann.  The media’s  haughty dismissal of these two as being non-serious contenders is a slap to this vast quiet majority.  

The press and the pundits can spend money and posture all they want and try to convince the public that their guy holds the better hand.  But with most of the cards dealt, their bluff will soon be called.   The geniuses  may recall the last time they practically anointed the presumptive winner of an election, albeit only within their ranks.  Hilary Clinton.