Tangentially, Castellanos always looks to me like a sleazy 1950s traveling salesman. The kind who thinks that under 10 minutes and out of town doesn't count.

The RNC appears to be Not Ready for Prime Time.

There is a current tendency in the GOP to wing it, rather than hit the books, do the homework, spend time in the trenches learning the craft of politics.

Sarah Palin is the epitome of this; sooner or later she will discover that being voted Most Popular, being selected as Homecoming Queen, will not get you that baccalaureate degree. . .

"Castellanos always looks to me like a sleazy 1950s traveling salesman."

That's just the makeup talking. I think it's too much lip gloss. So now we have two different minorities heading up the RNC. I guess we'll see a "real American" next, a native Indian perhaps?

It might be worth remembering that Castellanos' ad for Helms WORKED -- the guy was re-elected, after all, in an election he should have lost. Gantt tried to run on education and "time for a change", he was proud to call himself a liberal -- and Helms got 60% of the over-60 voters to crush him.

The classic description of wedge politics is forcing a 2-1 split your way -- that is (with a lot of variation), each party starts with something like a third of the electorate. (Actually, Democrats these days probably start with something closer to 40% and Republicans something in the high 20s, but you get the idea.) Identifying a wedge that moves votes and framing a campaign around it, so the model goes, costs you a third of the swing voters in the middle, and gains you 2/3s of 'em (2/3s of 1/3, plus your base third, gives you @ a comfortable 55% of the vote.)

In practice, wedge politics has another effect -- suppressing turnout in the middle, while energizing your base, sometimes the other guy's base, too. This is where comparing the two party's ability to execute a wedge strategy is useful.

Imagine if Democrats tried to use health care as a wedge issue: Republican X takes health insurance company money because he wants the old and sick to die fast! I dunno as anybody seriously thinks that sorta message would increase Democratic turnout, particularly into the swing voters we'd need to turn out in large numbers to win. It'd lose us the middle third more reliably than it would gain us the rest. So we don't do wedges well.

But Republicans constantly play "death panel" cards, cuz they work for them. It increases their turnout into their swing voters. It DOES tend to solidify Democrats -- but as it does, wedging the issues tends to frame 'em in a manner calculated to benefit Republicans.

The white hands proves the point: it MADE an issue that played Helms' way the buzz of the campaign. Where are the ads that make OUR issues the focus?

So the whole game gets played on our side of the 50 yard line, where it is easier for them and harder for us to score.

Run down the list of decisive issues for next year -- the economy, Wall Street villains, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, health care, etc., and it seems a bit premature to brag about how Sarah Palin is "Most Popular" but won't graduate.

She ain't gonna be on the ballot in 2010.

All that inside politics strategery that theAmericanist posits makes ones Pythonesque brain hurt.

The Average American Moron, taught to vote with his $1.99 cell phone call to American Idol, wants a sound bite, to quote The Bard, that is 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. Cut taxes ! Cut spending!

We awoke this morning to the news that Lou Dobbs is considering a run in 2012. As is Glenn Beck. The names of Hannity and Laura Ingram were mentioned.

I suspect that winning any election is not their end game, but rather to increase Brand Recognition, and thereby sell more books.

It's working pretty well for Sarah. . .

LOL -- see, this is where it helps to have people involved in a political discussion who, yanno, actually believe in democracy.

It seems pretty clear that much of the leadership of the conservative movement plays pretty much the role Glenn Beck described for himself: a rodeo clown. Of course a Rush Limbaugh or a Lou Dobbs is in it for the money -- and that means their interests ferociously contradict the interests of the ostensibly political movement which they "lead".

But that just sets up our opportunity in the problem -- so, whyohwhy can't progressives ever USE it?

Methinks it's precisely cuz of Day's habitual preening, here -- when he looks at the basic geology of American politics (divided into thirds, with the third in the middle up for grabs and also divided into thirds, YMMV), all he can see is "the Average American Moron".

As I prove around here for fun all the time, it's damned hard to persuade people while you dis 'em.

Take the hint.

That's just the makeup talking. I think it's too much lip gloss.

No, no, it's the creepy 'stache, I think.

so is francis going to take castellanos' place at cnn?

Sort of puts the lie to CNN's claim of being straight down the middle when one of their on air personalities gets hand picked by the republicans to be their communications director. CNN is FoxLite. Watch MSNBC and boycott Fox and FoxLite.