Friday, November 12, 2004
Spins and sore losers
"Politics is a blood sport." Ronald Reagan
"Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time." Baretta
The spin is up. A number of Democrats should try to learn something from both Reagan and Baretta. Empty spinning becomes boring, especially when the spins are obviously cover-up attempts for a poor election result. Michael Moore, who predicted a landslide victory for Kerry, has been using the last week to create a parallel universe where apparently everything he says is true, as opposed to his claims about the real world. So, according to Moore – the Republican victory is the beginning of the end, because there is going to be a great divide between Republican fractions in Congress. And Moore seem to have his followers. Colleen Shogan from GMU Political Science Department is only too eager to approve of this spin in the Fairfax local edition of The Washington Post (November 11, not in the net-edition), while at the same time trying to argue that she is in fact not spinning at all. Judge for yourself.
Shogan in WP: ”I’m not a talking head, and my job isn’t to spin. But I do see a silver lining for the Democrats. President Bush’s second term could mark the beginning of the end for the Republican regime. We have already observed the early fissures of the coalition. The two dominant factions within the party, the “small government” libertarians and the interventionist “big government” social conservatives, may soon come to blow over emerging policy issues.”
Aaaah, sweet political science – when you’re lacking a decent theory you can always go back to good old wishful thinking. A victory is only the beginning of the end... Well, let's look at it from a more sober point of view - after all, it is not only the Republicans who face problems with internal fractions. Even Democrats have to deal with strategic positionings, where moderate senators like Joe Lieberman have to face the left-wing of Nancy Pelosi. And they didn't even win the election.
