The conventional wisdom in Washington is almost always wrong. Anyone who has watched any of the Sunday morning talk shows, the vomitoriums of conventional wisdom, can attest to that.
A Democratic focus group revealed a strange problem. In a red state, the participants simply refused to believe that ANY political party could take the positions that the Republicans have taken. When shown proof, they abruptly switched to supporting ANY other candidate. Still, we cannot drag them all in, kicking and screaming, to a group like this. But we can run against the positions that the Republican party has taken. I will not make a list here, because it is too extensive. However, most policy positions of the Republican party are very, very unpopular. The vast majority of Americans do not favor reducing (or privatizing) Social Security benefits. They just don't. Or raising the minimum age for benefits, or for Medicare. Actually, when confronted with the Republican platform, almost nobody supports it.
So why cannot SOMEBODY run some ads detailing what the other party is all about? Almost everyone who sees and/or hears it would say, “Holy Hell! I don't want THAT!”
Why can't we nationalize this (and EVERY) election? I mean, if almost everyone disagrees with the Republican positions on almost every issue, why not?
Almost all Republicans are in a contest to determine who is the most conservative. They apparently believe (and some even say) that there is no such thing as TOO conservative. Yeah, there is, and we passed it a long, long time ago. Now we are in crazyland.
Hey, someone, please. Listen to me. Yes, it is important to have a positive agenda, to say what you would do. But not when you are running against radicals. It is OKAY to say what the other guys want to do.
I have been SCREAMING this for a few years.