In my weekly column, I wrote that for Democrats to win, they must Define, Defend and Dumb Down. There is a pretty good debate about this on The Huffington Post that you might want to check out.
This morning, I read Gail Collins’ column in The New York Times, “Sarah’s Amazing Race”. In it, there was an example of how dumbing it down creates winners and playing nice makes losers.
In the Republican primary for the United States Senate race in Alaska, her pick, a hitherto unknown person named Joe Miller, beat the incumbent, Lisa Murkowski. Whether Palin’s backing made any difference to the 28 percent of eligible voters who flocked to the polls is unknowable. But Palin’s endorsement did inspire the Tea Party Express to give Miller nearly $600,000 for TV commercials, which he used to brand Murkowski as a liberal insider who changes her positions “more often than a moose sheds its antlers” and as a member of a family that regards itself as entitled royalty. “We stayed on the high road,” Murkowski said when she finally conceded on Tuesday.
You see, one talked about moose antlers and won. The other took the so-called high road and lost. I can only conclude that the “high road” is the one travled by losing politicians with U-Hauls in the opposite direction of Washington, DC.
