Personas eat policy wonks for breakfast.

    I go a little nuts when I hear Democrats talk about the recent election in terms of programs and policies---that we simply didn't blow our own horns loudly enough. We exist in a society so dominated by a media focus on celebrity that no subject with even a smidgen of factual information has a chance of taking more than one breath in a public forum. Last week a space ship landed on a comet---breathtaking. Unfortunately the comet landing was easily upstaged with a camera lens which landed on Kim Kardashian's bare backside. Personally, I did not go looking for Kim's buttocks. But every time I turned on my computer, there was the picture again and again. Kim has reached the lunar landing level of celebrity status---her latest quip being, "One large cheek for man, the other cheek for mankind".  Democrats will win when they master the art of manufactured personas and studied quips, not when they can explain policies better.

    Of course some wonk will immediately counter my premise of persona by pointing out the win of the governor's race by Dan Malloy in Connecticut who in the past day is providing post mortem advice to all the Democratic candidates who will now be returning to law firms, K Street, foundations and banks. If such losers had only stuck to the accomplishments of the Democratic party, of the Obama administration in particular, they would not be packing their bags. And, if you happened to catch the Governor's election debates with Foley I would have to agree with you that Malloy isn't a manufactured persona with high celebrity currency. In fact I wouldn't even say he is more charismatic than Foley. But Connecticut is unique. So to extrapolate Malloy's campaign to other states in future elections would be Folly.

    What facilitated Malloy's win is that his state has a high level of smart people---which is not something Democrats can count on in other states. I refer you to relatively current data on the educational attainment levels of the citizenry in various states, and Connecticut has the third highest number of degreed folks per capita, just behind, yes, Minnesota and Vermont.

    My point is that a low key policy oriented individual who has his facts and accomplishments well rehearsed can win as a Democrat in a state full of smart people plus rich couples in Greenwich who know how to split tickets. But don't try the wonkish approach in a place like Kentucky which has the lowest number of degrees per capita in the country, aside from Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. What was required in Kentucky was a candidate with a coon skin cap, a rifle, a bible---a "character" if you will. Grimes was Malloy in the wrong state.

    One is led naturally to a discussion of the persona of Obama, a journalistic favorite, and here, finally, some terms may be defined. I specifically refer to manufactured persona, not personhood persona---private persona---, projection of private persona, or even persona which may be legitimately adopted by an actor doing his job. Manufactured persona, in the political sphere, is a purposeful fake personality created by handlers, and abetted by our national media. Examples are Ted Cruz and Teddy Roosevelt. And a majority of people today would add Barack Obama to that list---that is, back in 2008.

    I think ahead to the 2016 election season. Trillions of words will be expended in the attempt to extrapolate the few Democratic wins in states with intelligent citizenry to the country as a whole two years later. The thought of 2016 fills me with dread and trembling. What the country needs is a good actor to divert our attention. Either Rand Paul or Ted Cruz would fill the bill. But there the Democrats will be with Hillary, or Elizabeth, or even Dan Malloy---explaining, explaining, documenting, teaching, fact finding, and truthful to the end. My head hurts just to imagine the disaster which awaits us in 2016.

       

     

     

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    Jim Webb just announced an exploratory committee for 2016.

    I see him as a man needing little additional manufacturing, maybe a little projecting is all that is necessary, I am beside myself, and declaring that this is what I meant all along---a man with some god dammed character and interest, not someone droning on and on about policy and progressivism. He's a marine, a novelist, chews tobacco, carries a pistol in his briefcase and just damn well looks the part of a  man's man.

    When General Clark was out there fund raising and Webb was in the last days of his campaign for Senator I lobbed in a donation far in excess of what I could afford and I'm pretty proud of it right now.

    Goodbye, Hillary. My money's on Webb. I predict he will, except for the faux pas, repeat the online fundraising and upsetting of the apple cart that Dean once created.


    I guess there's a long, sad history of anti-intellectualism in popular elections.  I don't really know much about "egghead" Adlai Stevenson but darn did people just seem annoyed that Al Gore was smart and of course Obama's enemies angrily reacted to his undeniable smarts by claiming he was a "C student," and "affirmative action beneficiary" even though these same critics had just twice elected somebody who really was a C student and legacy Yale admission,

    Yeah, it might be my four year old talking but maybe we should run a giant butt in 2016.


    How did your 4 year old phrase the suggestion?


    I like that, we could definitely make some money with www.GiantButt2016.com. We could ride around Westchester County and upstate N.Y in a sound truck like I did for Stevenson and "Kiehoffer".

     


    My anaconda won't vote none...


    I liked Obama probably more than I should have, but Al Gore was my favorite candidate ever. He seemed the perfect mix of intelligence and liberalism. I could imagine him struggling like I do with how cool it would be to send someone to Mars on one hand with the environmental cost of doing so on the other hand.


    First, because the landing on the comet was not accomplished by the US, the US lame-stream-media saw no point in giving credit where it was due ... taking glory away from the US space program that's unfortunately all tied up in knots because funding by Congress is so meager ... I'll bet republicans would prefer to out-source scientific research to the business community so as to save a few bucks.

     

    More importantly, you've forgotten the old marketing principle ... location, location, location. The comet is nothing more that a huge frozen ice cube, the size of Manhattan, millions of miles from Earth, while the big, fat buttocks lady in just a few keystrokes away. 

     

    So there you have it ... a once in a life time thrill to satisfy one's intellect, or an every day cheap thrill so satisfy people selfish behavior.


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