Jack Murtha’s big mouth just made his reelection campaign a bit dicey. Meanwhile, the NRCC is pulling out of Marilyn Musgrave and Michele Bachmann’s districts, leaving them for dead. Murtha will probably survive, considering how much federal lucre he brings home to Johnstown. But all of these candidates are learning the lesson that George Allen was taught in 2006. In a YouTube world, you can’t go around saying really intemperate stuff and think that you are not going to pay a price. Another example is the Muslim-bashing Virgil Goode of central Virginia. He may not get beat this year, but his opponent raised $1,339,603 through September, matching his coffers. If nothing else, Goode’s intolerant rants have made it necessary for him to work extremely hard in what should have been a cakewalk reelection campaign.
People are really sick of demagogues and fearmongers. And, yet, that’s the route McCain and Palin chose for themselves. The route is leading to a rout.
when YouTube first was available I pooh poohed it. No longer. It is a powerful tool for keeping public figures accountable.
Isn’t it mind boggling how YouTube has revolutionized politics in such a short time?
And politicians, particularly Republicans, seem to be clueless to its potential to completely reshape the political landscape overnight. They still seem to think we are living in a time where stuff can be flushed down the memory hole. In the recent past they could continually say stupid shit, then deny it, and then quickly create a he said-she said narrative that the media would obligingly parrot. This would then allow the right-wing wurlitzer time to shriek at full volume a contrary view until the corporate media gets in lockstep and everything conveniently vanishes off the radar.
It is a whole different freaking world now. It all seemed to start with The Macaca Moment and has just exploded.
let the countdown begin.
never thought I’d see Republicans openly repulsed by their own candidates’ campaign.
Obama republicans may surprise.
I had discussion related to this just yesterday. Now, when presented with the offending video, the best that can be done is furious spinning. Denial is no longer an option.
Obama and Biden are on to something when the say they do not question the motives of others. My brother is a staunch conservative – we’ve had some pretty serious brouhahas discussing politics – but I’ve always believed we want pretty much the same things for our country. We mostly disagree on how to get there.
That said, it’s hard to be tolerant of intolerant people. At some point it’s no longer reasonable people choosing to disagree. These idiots who associate opposition to their screwed-up world view with lack of patriotism demonstrate a profound hostility to the bedrock principles of democracy. And the problem is that the ideas of the right are bankrupt…
What do they believe in? They’ve got nothing.
It ain’t just YouTube, though YouTube (or something YouTube like) is a necessary component.
I hate to say it, but Drudge and Limbaugh led the way here. If it weren’t for an active blog culture finding tidbits and hammering them around, these YouTube clips wouldn’t be doing anything. When the blogs seize on a clip and pound it to death it “creates news” – pundits begin to feel the need to comment on it.
The right wing has been using this to great effect for years. It’s the “echo chamber” that people have complained about forever. The media sees that people are talking about something, and they feel the need to report on it. Blogs have finally given folks on the liberal side of the aisle their own bullhorns to create their own echo chamber. And what do you know – it works for the left once they have a mechanism to apply pressure to the narrative.
Obama’s real victory this year has been in burying Rovian tactics — for a while at least — and I don’t think we can say often enough how important this is. Greenwald had a good piece about it the other day.
Do a Happy Dance:
You’d think a politician wanting to represent Virginia would know that Muslim/Middle-Eastern bashing is a losing strategy. There are over 300K Muslims in VA and many of them are not only politically active, but financially connected.