Outsider Perceptions of Smith in Oregon

A well meaning poster at DailyKos makes, I think, a mistake in her analysis of Gordon Smith:

... the biggest drawback right now for Smith's Democratic challengers in this race is his 38 percent approval rating among Democrats, a testament to the importance of Iraq as an eduring issue. Smith's break with Bush on Iraq so far seems to be trumping other issues for at least a portion of Oregon's Dems, despite the fact that he has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time.

Here's the comment I made in response to this:

I think Smith's approval among Democrats has little to do with his positioning on Iraq. In fact, my impression is that most people think said positioning is more opportunistic than idealistic.

No, the simple truth is that Smith is not the stereotypical monster Republican that Democrats (and others) have come to despise. He seems like a pretty nice guy, moderate by modern Republican standards and someone who Oregonians of all political strips can generally get along with (he and Wyden work together quite often).

If you had asked me six years ago if I approved of Gordon Smith I probably would have said yes (though I wouldn't have voted for him as I had already pledged myself not to vote for any Republican).

I've been saying since the 2006 election that defeating Smith will be hard simply because he has a well cultivated image as a moderate and Oregonians don't generally go in for firebrands (of any political leaning). There are very vocal minorities on both the left and right here. The loudest elements of the left have little to no influence here while the louder elements of the right have come to dominate the State GOP.

That's why the Republicans, outside of Smith, has been having such a hard time in recent elections. It may also be why Smith may win re-election, because Oregonians may want to give a lifeline to the one "reasonable" Republican that they know about.

Pony

There once was a boy who was eternally optimistic. He could always find something good in everything. He never saw the negative.

His parents, concerned that he would grow up naive about the ways of the world and thus leave himself vulnerable to exploitation by the unscrupulous, decided that they needed to teach him a lesson about the bad side of life.

So on Christmas Eve, after he had gone to bed, in lieu of the usual gift giving bonanza, they left him a large pile of manure right next to the Christmas tree.

They were woken the next morning by shouts of joy coming from the living room. They rushed downstairs to find the boy digging into the pile of manure, covered in shit, with a huge grin on his face.

"What are you doing boy? Why are you making a mess of yourself? Don't you know you are digging in crap?" They asked.

"Yes," he replied. "But I figured there had to be a pony under here somewhere!"

...

I used to think that George W. Bush was the boy. Always looking for what he was sure had to be there (WMD in Iraq, then in Iran, etc.) Always sure about the way the world had to be. Always twisting reality in order to make the world match his vision.

Not any more.

Bush is not the boy looking for the pony.

Bush is the creator of the manure.

He is the author of the poop.

His is the administration of shit.

He is the commander-in-chief of caca.

It's the press that is the boy.

For eight years they have repeatedly told themselves that Bush really couldn't be as bad as he seems. There has to be something worthwhile there. He couldn't have made it where he is without having some positive quality.

There has to be a pony somewhere under all that shit.

There just has to be.

Regurgitating The Regurgitation

Dan Bartlett characterized right-wing blogs as useful cogs in the right-wing message machine because they will simply "regurgitate" whatever they give them. This comment has naturally caused many right-wing blogs to protest that they don't receive any memos from the White House.

I think they misunderstand the nature of the regurgitation. It isn't necessary for the White House to send memos to all the hundreds of right-wing blogs out there. They only have to send the word to two or three key blogs (on a rotating basis). Those blogs will post the information, virtually unedited. This will result in a blog swarm as all the other right-wing blogs pick up and carry the message forward.

So, most right-wing blogs aren't regurgitating White House memos. They are regurgitating the regurgitation of White House memos.

And now that I have spoiled your breakfast with that image ...

An object lesson for political partisans

Don't be so quick to assume that, since a Clinton staffer was on the recipient list of an Obama/Osama chain mail sent by a Clinton volunteer (details here) that that means the campaign had to know about the smear.

First of all, the staffer apparently responded angrily to the original email at the time but didn't forward it on to the rest of the campaign.

Second, just because the staffer received it that doesn't mean they knew it was being sent by a Clinton volunteer. I'm sure staffers get all sorts of crap like this in the mail. It would be very easy for said staffer to not notice the connection of the sender to the campaign.

The lesson of this story are that partisan supporters of candidates can be both a blessing and a curse for campaigns. You need their energy to get out the vote. But you expose yourself to the possibility of them embarrassing you like this. Said partisans need to understand that their enthusiasm can lead to them doing truly stupid things. Which is one of the reasons why I always urge partisans to be careful when passing on "juicy tidbits", especially if you don't know its origins.

I got burned once during the 2004 campaign passing on one such "juicy tidbit" before I realized that it was actually a smear being propagated by a Republican outfit.

Let's be careful out there.

Why Bush's tallking points on Iran changed

There's an aspect of this that I haven't seen covered yet. Apparently the Bush administration has known for nearly a year that Iran had halted is nuclear development program back in 2003. So a lot of people in the blogosphere have been talking about how the administration has been hyping the threat even though they knew it was false.

However, it occurs to me that the administration actually backed off the "nuclear Iran" talking point quite some time ago. For the last year, they've been pushing the "Iran is helping insurgents in Iraq" talking point. I've read speculation that this shift occurred because the "nuclear Iran" narrative just wasn't working as well as the Iran hawks liked.

But what if there was another reason for the shift? What if they changed the dialog when they were informed that it simply wasn't true?

Just a though.