Posted by
on Thursday, March 22, 2007 8:13:34 PM
Hugh Hewitt participated in a blogger conference call today regarding his new book A Mormon In The White House?, of which both Thomas and I have read. One of those involved in the call was Matt Lewis, who wrote this about the call:Hugh went on to say that he believes the public is now too sophisticated for scurrilous attacks to work. For example, he pointed out that the pictures of Rudy Giuliani in drag haven't hurt him. I asked Hugh why it was that attacks that used to work (think Gary Hart, Mike Dukakis, or even the Swift Boat ads), don't seem to be resonating, anymore. I asked: "What happened?"
"The people on this call happened!," he answered.
His point: The amount of information that the public consumes has increased exponentially. For this reason, the old paradigm no longer works.
That point is well-founded. Yes, Mr. Lewis states that such an ad may not resonate nationally, but locally, as in South Carolina, it may. That may indeed be true, but for the most part Hugh is correct. The electorate, with the advent of the alternative media, is no longer stumbling around int he dark, having to digest the MSM's gobbley-gook about candidates.
The old rules do not apply anymore, and there is enough proof of it already in this race. There are social conservatives that are ripping up both Rudy (for his pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-civil unions stances) and Mitt (for his Momonism), and there will always be detractors. We know this. We have witnessed this first-hand with those we know in the real world, and those we converse with on the Internet.
What is different now is that besides the electorate not being as dumb as many people believe, the candidates are also better prepared to deal with the sort of attacks that are going to come at them. Rudy has done a phenomenal job deflecting the criticism on his social positions. Mitt, in Hugh's book, points out that while people may question his religion, they cannot argue that he is a loving father and husband, and has been for some thirty-plus years. He also deflects the allegations that he would be "ruled" from Salt Lake City stating, with no ambiguity, that he would not expect or entertain any calls from the Mormon presidency with regard to national issues.
The old ways of attack are done. The only avenues that people have to go after candidates is through what they say. In 2004 John Kerry was assailed on three fronts. His record in Vietnam (which had no real bearing on the election other than the fact he was running on that record), his voting record and attendance in the Senate, and what he stated in campaign stops and the debates. And no offense, ladies and gentlemen, but he gave his critics more than enough firepower to finish him off.
With both Rudy and Mitt (I exclude the others right now because as of this moment they are not even close enough to the front-runners), they are not being cautious, per se, with how they handle the issues in front of them. Technically, they really do not have to address them now, completely. The primaries have not even started. What they have to do right now is present themselves to the voters, and both are doing a superb job of it. I know many wil say that Mitt is not even in this race, but that would be a costly mistake to overlook him.
The voters do not put their faith or futures in the hands of a congressman. They want a leader, not a compromiser. Both Rudy and Mitt were, and still are, leaders in a long tradition going back to Ronald Reagan. Both are strong on national defense. Both believe that there are issues that social conservatives are concerned about that originalist jurists can best deal with. Both are fiscal hawks, and both have had success in turning around liberal bastions. That record is what resonates to the electorate, not a man who dresses in drag for a joke, or another's faith that some disregard as not being mainstream enough.
Again, the old world is gone. Dead and buried, and thank God. That is not to say that some sort of "gotcha" politics will not be prevalent in the upcoming election. But that is saying that such attacks will be more on the local level than the national level. If they do rear their ugly heads in national ads, the electorate is likely to ignore them in favor of what they know about the candidates themselves.
Marcie
UPDATE: Welcome Hugh Hewitt readers!! Feel free to leave your thoughts.