Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Governor Dean, Listen to This Guy!
[1]A blogger writes:
Howard Dean, on why we lose elections to Republicans in spite of
our undeniably superior positions:
One major reason his party lost the 2004 race to the "brain-dead"
Republicans is that it has a "tendency to explain every issue in
half an hour of detail," [Howard] Dean told the semi-annual meeting
of Democrats Abroad, which brought about 150 members from Canada
and 30 other countries to the Toronto for two days.
Conservative law supporter (and contributor to the Bush campaigns
to the tune of several thousand dollars) Eugene Volokh's response:
Hey, how's this for another possible major reason: Might
politicians who assume their adversaries -- and tens of millions of
voters -- aren't just mistaken but "brain-dead" not be very
effective politicians?
He has a point there. Dean ignores the fact that many of the
Republican voters are not stupid, but rather completely corrupt and
utterly lacking in common decency. I'm not sure what political
strategy I would advocate, if any, to appeal to them, though.
What a helpful perspective -- yes, Governor Dean, that would be a
really great way to frame your political plans. Trust me on this one:
Just say that, the Republicans are "brain-dead, completely corrupt,
and utterly lacking in common decency" -- or if you think that's
impolitic, just think it hard; no-one will ever know that this is your
view. You'll be sure to win lots of elections against us awful
Republicans if you do that. At the very least, if this approach
doesn't persuade Republicans to treat them this way, it will surely
persuade the center. Centrist voters just love it when one party
condemns adherents of the other this way.
References
1. http://momentlinger.blogspot.com/2005/03/ones-that-arent-stupid.html
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