Thursday, October 26, 2006

Derision

One thing our side has never embraced very well is the political power of derision, of turning a political opponent into a national joke. Obviously it helps if someone like Senator Man on Dog provides lots of ammunition, but my guess is that if Santorum does indeed lose this election it'll be in large part because a few years of sustained mocking reached into the brains of independents and low information voters (mostly the same group in my opinion). They may not know exactly why Santorum's a joke, but they know he is one, and that's enough to keep them from voting for him.

Along those lines, kudos to Casey's person for probably understanding this:

"The people of Pennsylvania are smart enough to see through this," Smar said. "Rick Santorum said North Korea isn't a threat, because Kim Jong Il just wants to watch NBA basketball. He's the same Rick Santorum who compared the war in Iraq to 'The Lord of the Rings.' This isn't the person to take foreign policy advice from."