We’re fed a media diet rich in monotonous blah blah blah and light on substance; the mix is occasionally supplemented with nutritive additives provided by thoughtful "consultants" convincing us like a square paper carton of bad Chinese food we’re not quite full and should maintain our rate and quantity of consumption.
Such is the debate over the Democratic campaign to "annoint" a new head of the Republican Party: Rush Limbaugh.
Yesterday’s news delivered the exclamation point in an op ed by former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. Politico ran coverage of the issue, as did the Washington Post. Jay Nordlinger weighs in over at NationalReview.com.
But sadly, it’s a strategy that is sexy to the media and to the public for the moment but is really a shock and awe campaign that will quickly fade.
Every candidate has had a mail piece dropped prior to an election with their face adjacent to the requisite grainy black-and-white imagery of Newt Gingrich or Speaker Pelosi or the boogie-(wo)man du jour. The LDS-Prop 8 association campaign is another example of late. I bet half of Karl Rove’s media references are in this fashion.
And while it’s a tactic effective in political and public affairs campaigns, in the case of the current debates (over heady policy stuff: economic stimuli, budgets, government scope and authority) the flash bang will end and the debate will be no further advanced.
So when all is said and done and the Obama/Democratic Party operations have sung their last "Rush made them do it!" refrain, we’ll still be left with a debate that answers questions of something with rhetoric oriented on nothing.
Speaking of Karl Rove…his Wall Street Journal columns have correctly noted there is a tectonic shift from day-to-day campaign battle mode–the world of shock and awe–to the environment of policy debate and governing.
The assertion is quite true: the two-year-long campaign glory days have come to an end–and a successful one from the Obama camp’s point of view.
But running the ship of state requires more than just a campaign tactic. Signs of change, or indicators of more of the same?