Campaign 2012: The art of distraction

 

 

When you mess up — the perfect way to delay or avoid the repercussions is to change the subject.  We are seeing that tactic playing out rather nicely in our politics on the national and state levels.  Look over there.  Pay no attention to what we’re doing — or not doing — over HERE. 

HANDS DOWN, the biggest issue facing our country is the disastrous economy.  We’ve got monstrous debt, record unemployment, and anemic economic growth.  BarryO has NOTHING positive to campaign on, so he and his minions have been whipping up the controversy of the week to avoid talking about that really uncomfortable subject — the economy.

Republicans and conservatives should be taking a page from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign playbook.  Bush and Quayle wanted to talk about “family values” while the economy was tanking.  The Clinton campaign stuck to the slogan “It’s the campaign, stupid,” and reminded the public (and the Republican campaign) of it every day.

Folks on the right need to dig that slogan up and paint it across Barry’s forehead.  Stop letting him and his allies get away with ginning up fake controversies about Rush Limbaugh, birth control, and racism.  NONE of that stuff has put all of these people out of work, jacked up gas prices, or  pushed the value of real estate underwater.

It’s so much easier on the political ruling class in DC to sit back and let us slug it out over these contrived “issues.” It’s better — for them — than us coming after them with torches, nooses and pitchforks.

We’re seeing the same kind of thing in the General Assembly in Raleigh.   Republicans took over both chambers of the assembly in 2010. Finally, we were told, the bureaucracy in Raleigh was going to get cut down to size.  Two years later, we’ve still got a monstrous, obscene gas tax.  Republicans are calling it a victory that education spending is only slightly smaller than what Bev wanted.  Lacking anything close to a conservative revolution, Raleigh Republicans HAD to come up with something to keep the natives from getting too restless.

(They JUST got those committee chairmanships, after all. )

So, we got this referendum on same-sex marriage in May.  The majority on Jones Street thought it was so important.  They’ve put it out here for those us here in the grassroots to defend. Yet, the silence on this issue is deafening from our “friends” inside the beltway.  In fact, some of our so-called conservative leaders — Thom Tillis, Richard Vinroot, Renee Ellmers, and John Hood — are making it a point to publicly belittle the referendum. ( All we’re getting out of NCGOP HQ is tweets about Mitt Romney, Patrick McHenry and The Florida Gators. ) 

So, we’re out here slugging it out with the granolas over procreation and the continuation of the species.  Meanwhile, the Raleigh ruling class is breathing a collective sigh of relief — chuckling over how they pulled YET ANOTHER ONE over on the rubes outside the beltline.

Don’t fall for ANY of this.  This campaign is not about Rush or condoms.  It is about expelling the scoundrels who have bankrupted our state and country morally and financially from Raleigh and Washington.  For every one of them who has a primary, vote for their opponent.  If the scoundrels make it back for another term, lean on them so hard that they feel your breath on the back of their necks every time they even contemplate lying or stabbing us in the back.  

It looks tough to get the leaders we want.  We’re going to have to live with what we can get.  But we don’t HAVE to tolerate their games, their distractions, their sleaziness, their nonsense.  Keep the heat on them.  Stay in their faces.  Our state and our country are too important.