On, Wisconsin!

So let's analyze the Left's defeat in Wisconsin. Everyone else has, why not us? Oh sure, I don't have the credentials of the major (or even minor) pundits on the TV or the so-called "mainstream media" but I do have a brain and a blog so that makes me ultimately qualified.

To put it bluntly, the Left lost. And they lost because they didn't have a leg to stand on in the first place. All they had was an emotional appeal over a difference in policy. And they presented it poorly with an "in your face" strategy that could not be sustained over the long haul that political contests in this country entail.

I am often amazed at the audacity of the Left over the last 50 years. They assume they are correct at all times and anyone challenging that correctness is ignorant, evil, or both. They do not attempt to hide their contempt of their political opponents from the public. I am not sure they could.

They run emotional campaigns. Labeling the opponent as cold, unfeeling, indifferent to suffering, and the like. This works if the voters are not given sufficient time to contemplate the issues. Emotions often, if not always, trump logic. However, it takes time to stage an election and that gives the Right the time needed to present the other side of the argument and it gives the voters time to consider the issues.

The Left tries to maintain the emotional fervor. It has no problem doing this with the "True Believers", its hard core supporters. You can recognize them easily; they are the ones always stunned by defeat. This is best illustrated by the following:

[Pauline] Kael has often been quoted as having said, in the wake of Richard Nixon's landslide victory in the 1972 presidential election that she "couldn't believe Nixon had won", since no one she knew had voted for him. The quote is sometimes cited by conservatives (such as Bernard Goldberg, in his book Bias), as an example of cluelessness and insularity among the liberal elite. There are variations as to the exact wording, the speaker (it has variously been attributed to other liberal female writers, including Katharine Graham, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion), and the timing (in addition to Nixon's victory, it has been claimed to have been uttered after Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984.)

The story most likely originated in a December 28, 1972 New York Times article on a lecture Kael gave at the Modern Language Association, in which the newspaper quoted her as saying, "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael#Alleged_Nixon_quote]

This also illustrates a phenomenon reported during the run up to the Wisconsin Recall Election; the social division that emerged. People who opposed Walker stopped associating with their friends and associates who didn't. And vice versa, of course. We (and I have written of this before) tend to cluster in like-minded groups. Few of us want to be challenged in our views (though we often claim we do) so we seek out like-minded people (or people who look, act, and dress similarly) to associate with. 


Can the Left adapt to a new strategy? Can they offer cogent and logical political arguments? They have, at times. Just as the Right has offered emotional argument at times.

 It is up to us, the voters, to decide what to accept and what not to. And it is up to the politicians and political blocs to accept our collective decisions and not seek recalls based on policy disagreements.

And then there's this:
 Nothing to see here on Wisconsin recall, White House says

And maybe you might want to read this:
Democracy wins in Wisconsin 

In other news:

AG Eric Holder appointed two US Attorneys to investigate the National Security leaks...


Ronald C. Machen
Rod Rosenstein


Google them.  I did.


Can you spell w-h-i-t-e-w-a-s-h?