Women Against Christine O'Donnell

I've been kicking this horse for a while, but there is a political purpose behind nominating right-wing candidates even when they're unelectable--knocking out the moderate Republicans. The tactic may seem counterproductive, but conservative hardliners have been doing the same thing every election since the 1970s, starting with Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguerie. Look at how much money the Club for Growth spends in the primaries.

In short, it's about control of the GOP. And it has been working. Conservatives used to be a minority in the party, which was controlled by moderates. After a series of purges, conservative leaders finally wrested control in the early 1990s, starting with Gingrich and Lott. Now moderates are all but instinct. And O'Donnell is a bit player in another round of purges.

PS Sorry Doctor, this is slightly off-topic, I know.

What I really love about ODonnell and Palin is that they make me feel like a genius.  What bothers me about them is that some people think that their ignorance is a sign of great leadership.  Why would anyone want a leader who obviously has not thought any deeper than, for example:  "Which faith is the one for me?  Hmmm....Well, not THAT one -- no meatballs!"

So you think it's another sort of sexism at play?

You might be right, Ami, but I have an alternate theory. The conservative officeholders who are men probably think that they can control these women if and when they achieve office, but I don't think the average voter thinks that deeply about the ins and outs of congressional horse trading. Instead, I think the average conservative voter sees an attractive, young, somewhat charismatic woman who is a member of their party. I think that the President's detractors would say the same thing of the average liberal voter and their might be something to it. But at least our guy isn't a lunatic who can't think his way out of a paper bag.  

Great comment, Bruce.  Recc'd.  We need some coherent messages from the Dems.

But really, Bruce, isn't the most important thing to criticize other people's blog posts? How will progressives ever win if we don't make sure that other people blog about what's on our minds, rather than what's on their minds?

If you feel that blogging about Palin and O'Donnell is a waste of time, by all means: don't blog about them. We've provided you with blogging capacity here, and I look forward to reading what you write.

I blog about different things on different days. Sometimes that's long-term think pieces. Sometimes it's questions apart from partisan politics. Sometimes it's a response to the things happening in the news that day. Today it was about a recently-released poll. I blogged about this particular poll today because it was released today and because I found some of the data in it striking. If this news item hadn't caught my eye, I would have blogged about the way higher education works in America at the moment, as part of a series of posts on that issue.

I have occasionally written posts about what the Democrats or the Administration need to do, and at least one will be coming up in the next few weeks. (I tend not to write "What the Democrats Are Doing Wrong and Why They Suck" posts, because I don't find them especially helpful, but I don't object when others blog about that.) But again, that Whither the Dems? piece is still queued up behind at least one or two posts about academia.

It's quite possible that I'll blog about O'Donnell again, and all but certain that I'll blog about Palin. Most of what I do as a blogger is try to think analytically about things, and the Palin phenomenon is one that I think hasn't been fully understood yet. So from time to time, I'm going to think about what the hell is going on there. Moreover, the Palin/O'Donnell/Bachmann axis does involve other questions I'm interested in blogging about, such as the way gender politics and discrimination intersects with partisan politics.

If your objection is to the overall amount of blog or news coverage about right-wing crazies these days, all I can say is that (1) I decline to take responsibility for other people's blogging and reporting choices and (2) the bizarre behavior by candidates for important political office is inherently newsworthy. I'm sorry if you're tired reading about how many Republicans are behaving like lunatics, but I'm more sorry that so many of them are, in fact, behaving like lunatics. And when Republicans dress up like Nazis, e-mail pictures of women having sex with animals, or buy television ads to deny that they are witches, that behavior does demand public comment.

What exactly are bloggers missing by not covering Feingold's apparently losing campaign?  What  goal would be achieved by doctor Cleveland writing about it?  Does the good doctor have enough influence to sway that election?  If so, then I agree with you, that that blog should indeed be written.  I would like to see Feingold remain in the Senate.  

If DC does not wield that level of influence, then your comment is just another in a far-too-long list of random blog commenters trying to dictate what others should write, when the means to get their preferred message out there is literally at their fingertips.  

True enough. But Herbert Hoover still carried between 39 and 40 percent of the vote in 1932. And that was a landslide stomping after three years of not fixing the Great Depression.

In electoral politics, as in baseball, just about everyone wins somewhere between one-third and two-thirds. The thing is to win as much of the middle third as you can.

I suppose if you're looking for change, then all you have to go on is presentation because electing someone with a long record of political achievement isn't change. So we get Survivor: Government in which most of the contestants are eventually revealed to be models, actors and screwups that never made a mark anywhere else.