Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Democrats Losing The Mandate of Heaven

Well I'm not sure they ever had the Mandate of Heaven. More like Hell. But that is a theological argument. More interesting is the political argument. They are losing the Brain Dead Media. Which just goes to show you that even in a dying animal a few brain cells can trigger in synchronism giving the appearance of life. A twitch or two before going quiet.

CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Sunday mocked President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod for echoing last week’s unsubstantiated charge by a liberal website that the Chamber of Commerce is funneling foreign money to support Republican candidates.

“The New York Times looked into the Chamber specifically and said the Chamber really isn’t putting foreign money into the campaign,” said the Face the Nation host.

“This part about foreign money, that appears to be peanuts,” chided Schieffer.

When Axelrod continued to press the issue, Schieffer said almost laughing, “If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?”
That is not all. Here is a bit from Time Magazine that is worth a repeat.
With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.
Mark Halperin, for God's sake. Bob Schieffer for God's sake. (OK I guess I am getting a bit theological). The Democrat's fire wall strategy (only spend money on races where the odds of victory are good) looks to be shot. The line keeps moving on them. Which means that money that went to candidates on the edge of the fire wall has been wasted.

In this election small amounts of money for insurgent candidates has an effect all out of proportion to the amount. In engineering terms we would say that the gain is high and the system is well out of the proportional control band. In a word: instability. The system (as formerly constituted) is no longer responding to the usual inputs. (OK in terms of real engineering the above is not totally coherent - still - I like the way it sounds and it does generally express my views.)

When your biggest and most faithful ally no longer gives you unconditional support you are deeply wounded. We will only know how deeply come 3 Nov.

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