Thursday, December 04, 2014

On winning primaries

One of the most astute observers of the American political scene, in my opinion, is Ace at the Ace of Spades blog. Here are some excerpts of one of his posts today:
That is how you win. Not by actually changing people's minds, but simply by arguing the issues upon which they already agree with you are paramount and determinative, and the issues on which they disagree with you are minor and not worth discussing much.

Only egotistical fools bull forward with a plan to run on issues -- emphasize issues -- that he knows the voting public disagrees with him on.

A winning politician is often likened to a weather vane. He can also be likened to a mirror. Barack Obama, a narcissistic fool if there ever was one, was nevertheless astute enough to recognize the heart of his appeal, noting that he was but a "blank screen" upon which voters could project their deepest beliefs.

So Jeb Bush's candidacy is essentially a Protest Candidacy. Protest Candidacies are all about "convincing people" of this or that thing they don't already believe. Occasionally they may have some impact, in that they raise the profile of an issue.

But what Protest Candidates do not do is win primaries, and Jeb Bush's Protest Candidacy (apparently protesting conservatism itself, it seems like) will likewise fail to result in an actual nomination.

It will be the most high-profile, most extravagantly funded Protest Candidacy in history, but it will result in a failure, as all Protest Candidacies result in failure.

I don't know how many of these egotistical imbeciles (Huntsman, Bush) are going to go into a primary swearing I can fight all 40 million of ya and beat ya!

You can't. This is a negotiation of a corporate merger, not a philosophy class with one man leading the class towards wisdom. A political campaign is a negotiation of a multiparty merger into one short-lived political corporation.

You don't win by "winning," you win by making most of the factions feel they're all winning.

The "Jeb is the moderate warrior who will fight the conservative base" story is largely promulgated *BY THE PROGRESSIVE MEDIA* in covering Jeb, not by Jeb in his own words, himself.

That said, I only tend to hear Jeb taking on the conservative base. I do not hear him attacking the progressive Social Justice Welfare State.

I think the media is juicing this some, possibly just seeing what they want to see, but Jeb is in fact helping them do this.
Read more here.

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