… I still think Romney owned that debate, and the Brady Campaign are still irrelevant.
Category: Politics
Watching the Twitter Debate Meltdown
Under their new leadership, the Brady Campaign has basically conceded that they aren’t planning to be serious players in the public policy space when it comes to actually lobbying for change to gun laws. They put their entire faith of any relevancy whatsoever in public policy in relying on the media since they hired an advertising executive to take over the struggling group. He was put to the test in his focus on getting a gun control question asked at tonight’s presidential debate in Colorado.
First, let’s say outright that not a single question was asked about gun control. In a swing state that was the site of the last major press event for the Brady Campaign, they put everything they have into getting a question inserted into this debate by the mainstream press moderator. It didn’t pay off.
Second, the rather interesting thing was to watch the meltdown on Twitter via the direct tweets from Brady and their retweets. Let’s watch how it unfolded…
Can’t believe Lehrer is asking the same Q re: economy 5x but won’t ask about #guncontrol as they sit a stone’s throw from Aurora.
— Jennifer RiceEpstein (@jriceepstein) October 4, 2012
.enough talk now about economy- get to talk about preventing gun violence #debate2012#wearebetterthanthis
— Joan Peterson (@commongunsense) October 4, 2012
RT @bmalte32 Numbers, numbers. How about these: 48K Americans will die in next 4 yrs from guns unless our leaders act #wearebetterthanthis
— Brady Campaign (@bradybuzz) October 4, 2012
@mittromney @barackobama #debate2012 #wabtt Shame on both of you! Not to discuss gun violence IN DENVER @uofdenver! #auroratheatershooting
— Sandy Phillips (@MamaRedfield) October 4, 2012
RT @mreifler Enuf of politics standing in the way of safety. Candidates r 10 mi from Aurora. What will they DO about lax gun laws? #wabtt
— Brady Campaign (@bradybuzz) October 4, 2012
20 mins left in #debate2012. Candidates are in DENVER, a stone’s throw from Aurora & Columbine. #AskAboutGuns! #wearebetterthanthis
— Brady Campaign (@bradybuzz) October 4, 2012
Shocked gun control isn’t an issue brought up based on the proximity of the debate thanks @bradybuzz for the reminder #debate2012
— Elissa Nauful (@elissan) October 4, 2012
Finally, the Brady Campaign staff must have been watching MSNBC after the debate. From what I’ve read tonight, the MSNBC talking point is that Obama’s failed performance was all the fault of Jim Lehrer. The Brady folks jumped on board with that blame game.
Jim Lehrer missed an opportunity to move our national conversation forward but we know the conversation has only just begun. #wabtt
— Brady Campaign (@bradybuzz) October 4, 2012
Clearly, their message is so relevant that not even a Chicago politician who has previously supported bans on handguns wants to touch their topic in a presidential campaign.
UPDATE: While they might have had a meltdown on Twitter, the Brady Campaign posted outright lies and fabrications on Facebook tonight. In fact, they made up their own alternate reality debate where gun control was the main focus of the debate.
One Take on Technology and the Debates
TechCrunch has a timeline of when they believe technology started to kill serious presidential debates. It’s worth your time to read because there are a lot of good one liners.
As someone who normally is wildly optimistic about the impact of technology on democracy, presidential debates are one area in which innovation has yielded nothing but mindless drivel to the presence of civil society.
Before any of you old timers start in with “in my day…” rants on how good it used to be, take a look at when they claim the decline in serious political debate at the national level began. It’s far earlier than any of you remember.
Sebastian has his liquor. I have my wine glass. We’re ready for tonight’s debate.
The New Tolerance
Dissent was patriotic, until it no longer fit the party line. That’s the message in one Philadelphia classroom this year.
During a casual dress day, a student who support Mitt decided to wear a shirt that expressed her support – a fully protected right of the student in any public school. However, she was informed by her teacher that her school was “a Democratic school.” She was also threatened with having her shirt destroyed while she wore it. She was ordered to remove the shirt while having it compared to support the KKK. Then, the teacher tried to kick the student out of the public school classroom for daring to have a dissenting opinion from the supposedly officially “Democratic school.”
Philadelphia taxpayers will be happy to hear that they not only have to pay this teacher, but now they have to pay another teacher to come in teach the class because even the school district doesn’t believe the student could possibly feel comfortable in the classroom anymore.
The article doesn’t note a teacher’s name, but I think the parents would be fully within their rights to name the teacher who threatened their daughter. Put it out there for all to see. This isn’t a case of one inappropriate statement, these were threats and attempts at retaliation against a public school student just for having a different political opinion – something that has nothing to do with math class.
A House Divided
A bit of a back and forth between Profs. Reynolds and Althouse on Instapundit over the Daily Caller’s latest video, and her own blog, is interesting. It’s very rare that I find myself in disagreement with Glenn Reynolds on a topic, but in this case I have to agree with Ann Althouse. I think to any extent that conservatives drag racial issues into this election, it will benefit the Obama Campaign, even if objectively you might have a point. The reason is, because as Prof. Althouse puts it:
Politics, like any other human endeavor, entails human emotion, and unless you want to turn away from politics altogether, you have to play within reality that exists. The emotions around race are deep and complex. I recommend not toying with them. Move to something more optimistic and positive.
If there’s anything true about how we approach issues of race in this country, it is almost never with objectivity or rationality. It is a touchy subject, because there is a lot of awful history there we’re not that distant from. I get that a lot of people want to show that Obama isn’t the post-racial President he was sold to the public as, but playing the race card is playing with fire, and we’re best leaving that topic alone. There are plenty of criticisms of the President that don’t involve Rev. Wright or issues of race.
It’s Debate Night
Mitt and Barry go at it starting at 9PM EDT. Will guns be brought up as a topic? What are your thoughts. I’d suggest that Obama and Romney both would likely prefer it not, but I think there’s a good chance it will. The Brady folks obviously thinks this too, or they wouldn’t be making such a big deal about it. One thing is for sure, if it is mentioned, expect Brady to spin it in some way as to play up their influence on the public debate.
Suppressing Votes in Florida?
I get the campaigns are large organizations made up of humans who make mistakes. So when I heard that a robocall into Florida from Obama’s campaign gave some people the wrong dates for voting, I gave the benefit of the doubt that it was merely a mistake when recording.
However, now there are reports that not only is the robocalling giving out false dates to votes, but an Obama door-to-door campaign targeting seniors in a county that went Republican is also giving out the false dates, I’m not so sure this is an accident.
As someone who has done my fair share of campaigning, I have never felt the need to resort to lying to supporters of my opponents. I don’t actively encourage them to get out and vote, but I won’t give them false information in hopes of confusing them so they aren’t allowed to cast a ballot.
Quote of the Day: Tyranny of Cliches Edition
From Jonah Goldberg’s “Tyranny of Cliches,” talking about the phoniness of many who abhor political labels:
The same goes for the fake nonideologues of the No Labels crowd. Michael Bloomberg is a nannying, statist bully who, much like Napoleon, hurls around charges of ideological ensorcellment as a way to delegitimize political opponents he cannot defeat in open debate.
Yeah, I’d say that about accurately describes the situation.
The Libertarian Case for Romney
Steven Green was one of the first bloggers I started reading back before blogging was cool, and he pretty much echoes my views on Romney, not because Romney will save us, but because he’ll buy us time. There’s been some speculation as to whether time really buys anything, but I think it does. I am not certain whether we can avoid hitting the iceberg looming ahead, but I am pretty sure if we keep moving at this speed, we will definitely hit it. I’m happy to give someone a chance to slam the rudder hard to starboard and at least try to miss it.