One of the things that was stunning last night was to read some of the comments on weblogs and on Twitter about the NY 26 election insisting…shouting…that this had nothing to do with Medicare. That’s like saying Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus’ birth. This is a problem now locked into our political debate where there is a belief that if you say something over and over and over it must be true.
This may work with listeners of talk shows who hear a host suggest Barack Obama wasn’t born here or to followers of a guy who says the world will end on one day and then when it doesn’t happen pushes up the date of his prediction a few months. But it does not make for election-winning politics.
The Republicans now face a fundamental messaging problem. David Frum NAILS IT HERE.
If you couple this with Scott Walker in Wisconsin, a Democratic strategist will have a field day with anti-Republican messaging unless some in positions of power in the GOP step back and stop smelling the tea. The assertions of a Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity may feel good but they’re not the stand back analysis of a David Frum or a Larry Sabato or a Nate Silver.
Most fascinating: Despite the 24/7 partisans who insisted that anyone suggesting Medicare played a role in their GOP defeat in NY-26 MUST be a hack Democratic partisan, Paul Ryan himself acknowledge as much.
So — by their line of reasoning — he must be a Democratic party mole.
Actually, given the election results, who knows?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.