In the final months of a campaign large majorities in the country simply shut off all information that doesn’t confirm their own candidates’ superior virtue and intelligence.
This is from the wonderful back and forth between David Brooks and Gail Collins, this jumped out at me (this is Brooks):
It’s true. Rational arguments have gone by the wayside. People have either tuned out, are rabidly still promoting their candidate, or are rehashing old standards for/against their candidate. And I don’t believe in the undecided voter anymore. They’re not undecided, they just won’t answer publicly. Either they’re closet GOP’ers living in primarily liberal enclaves or families, or they’re voting for Obama but won’t admit it. Or they’re not voting at all and they’re too ashamed to admit they’ll be too lazy to make it to the polls that day.
So we’re basically done, we just have to endure three-ish more weeks of the back and forth. And like a flaming car wreck, we can’t turn away. Nothing I write is going to change the mind of someone who believes Obama is a terrorist Muslim and nothing they say is going to get me to vote for the angry old guy and Caribou Barbie.
It’s a rather sadomasochistic effort to even try. I have been trying not to. But then either McCain or Palin will do something so outlandish I’m simply flabbergasted that anyone would want them anywhere near the White House. But I’m renewing my efforts to be done. The election’s over, we’re just waiting for the results. It truly is more fun to read Pundit Kitchen than DailyKos at this point. Repeat that three times and it might sink in.
Or maybe not. Because then I see something like this. While it doesn’t matter whether the picture is of Obama or not, the resemblance is enough to get the message across. I still can’t believe there are people in this country that would do this, that would buy into this, or that continue to ignore this.
Breathe, relax, chill. Unsubscribe from the mailing lists. Delete the bookmarks. Yeah … right. Not gonna happen. Thanks to things like McCain’s airquotes about women’s health. As Salon put it, not only does he not care (we knew that) he doesn’t even seem to realize he’s supposed to pretend to care. But still the passionate outrage is waning. This campaign is no longer fun. I’m bored now, can we hurry up the voting? The signs are everywhere that it’s over, one way or the other. Even Ann Coulter (the video at this link is a must-see love letter to Ann Coulter) isn’t arguing for McCain/Palin, she’s reduced to spouting past election statistics about polling accuracy. When Ann does contortions to avoid promoting Republicans, you know it’s over. That either the Dems are going to win or the GOP hates its own candidate.
1 comment:
There are lots of ways for Obama to lose. Complacency could lead to low voter turnout, especially in all those young voters that have disappointed before.
The negative robocalls could turn back many of the swing states from blue to red. All these GOP challenges to the election boards across the country can invalidate hundreds of thousands of votes. Do you think all these investigations by law enforcement into ACORN are really about protecting the voters? It is about using all the power at their disposal to subvert THIS election, too. Misprinted or poorly designed ballots can and probably will do some more sabotage. Then there are the so easy to mess with electronic voting machines that are worse than the old card punch method since the majority have no paper back up and thousands of votes can be lost in an eye blink. There are thousands of dirty tricks to undermine this election and you can be sure that we haven't seen more than the tip of the iceberg so far.
Notice I didn't say there were any ways for McCain to win. If Obama loses it will be because once again Democrats couldn't keep their attention on the objective until the job was done.
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