![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoI really like it when people let their guard slip, and show you their baseline assumptions when they don't think you're listening closely. For example, longtime readers may remember this article in USA Today that I pointed to (scroll down a bit, past the fairly accurate predictions), wherein a pair of oil industry analysts wrote, "Iraq's ability to extend its aggressions beyond its borders has been significantly reduced since the Gulf War..." Keep in mind that was in Decemeber of 2002, when Bush, Cheney, et al. were all trying to persuade us of the opposite.
One of the interesting things about Slate is how it's slowly become almost an "insider's-only" rag. Not so much like, say, The New Republic, or National Review, but more like a color supplement to National Journal.
Anyway, they have a think piece about Howard Dean. Or, rather, the reactions to the strategy he used in the (hugely) successful Congressional campaigns just past, in his role as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Here's where the mask slips off:
"There are at least two debates taking place. The first is about resources devoted to specific races in 2006. Could more money from the DNC have tipped those 14 or so House races where Democrats lost by a razor-thin margin? It's impossible to say, since the correlation between dollars spent and success is murky." {emphasis added}
Not only does Slate make this bald assertion by itself -- contrary to the overwhelming trend in political coverage I'll bet you've ever heard in your life -- they go on to cite other insiders making the same analysis!:
"Josh Kraushaar at Hotline makes a good case that only four of those races could have been saved by a late dose of cash."
I've long thought the idea put so succinctly by Jesse Unruh -- "Money is the mother's milk of politics" -- has been highly corrosive to the common, everyday voter's sense of whether they matter. Because, after all, how many of us have large sums of cash available to spend that way? To me, it's been yet another way to discourage hoi polloi from participating.
One can only hope people come to be more aware of what the insiders already know -- "...the correlation between dollars spent and success is murky."
Which means your effort, and your vote, and your participation is just as valuable as anyone else's, no matter how large their bank balance may be.
One of the interesting things about Slate is how it's slowly become almost an "insider's-only" rag. Not so much like, say, The New Republic, or National Review, but more like a color supplement to National Journal.
Anyway, they have a think piece about Howard Dean. Or, rather, the reactions to the strategy he used in the (hugely) successful Congressional campaigns just past, in his role as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Here's where the mask slips off:
"There are at least two debates taking place. The first is about resources devoted to specific races in 2006. Could more money from the DNC have tipped those 14 or so House races where Democrats lost by a razor-thin margin? It's impossible to say, since the correlation between dollars spent and success is murky." {emphasis added}
Not only does Slate make this bald assertion by itself -- contrary to the overwhelming trend in political coverage I'll bet you've ever heard in your life -- they go on to cite other insiders making the same analysis!:
"Josh Kraushaar at Hotline makes a good case that only four of those races could have been saved by a late dose of cash."
I've long thought the idea put so succinctly by Jesse Unruh -- "Money is the mother's milk of politics" -- has been highly corrosive to the common, everyday voter's sense of whether they matter. Because, after all, how many of us have large sums of cash available to spend that way? To me, it's been yet another way to discourage hoi polloi from participating.
One can only hope people come to be more aware of what the insiders already know -- "...the correlation between dollars spent and success is murky."
Which means your effort, and your vote, and your participation is just as valuable as anyone else's, no matter how large their bank balance may be.
