Mike Sweeney, Kurt Warner, Patricia Heaton. Wow this is an ad full o' stupid!
This ad, dumb as it sounds, will... much like the stupid Limbaugh comments...reach the niche vote Talent is looking for. It's why Dems can't win on these kinds of issues. They don't lend themselves to considered debate but rather open the door to the kind of "limbic politics" that Billmon is referring to here.
The sexual corruption "issue" may be hurting the Rovians this year, given the GOP's reliance on its fundamentalist Christian base. But over the long run, I have to think limbic politics still work in their favor. Democrats and liberals now tend to insist on pitching their political tents higher up the cerebral slope, where rationality and the "real issues" can dominate the landscape. Having been beaten so many times down in the emotional swamps, they're determined to stay clear of them entirely. But the Rovian political strategy, if not the entire modern conservative movement -- like most authoritarian and/or fascist ideologies -- is entirely about emotional manipulation. Sex and death.
In some years and in some elections, a limbic strategy may not work well -- although if that's the case this year, why has a congressional sex scandal turned into such a deal breaker? But most of the time it works, if only because television provides such a powerful and perfectly adapted tool for making it work. (This, more than the alleged incompetence of Democratic consultants, may explain why the GOP usually seems to get a bigger bang out of its advertising dollars.) And winning most of the time is good enough to gradually squeeze the life out of the political opposition. The limbic system is a natural one-party state.
More backlash: Hannity this time.
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