I am reminded of the first time I'd ever heard Bill O'Reily describe quoting him as smearing him.
Meanwhile, the Des Moines Register has come under strong criticism from Iowa Democrats and liberals for its coverage of the Senate race, which has featured strikingly scant scrutiny of Ernst's aforementioned remarks and positions. Just two Register articles about Ernst's impeachment comments; zero articles about her comments attacking the social safety net (one editorial mentioned them); zero articles about her pledge to take up her Smith & Wesson against an overweening government; zero articles about her Agenda 21 warnings; one article about her support for nullification of federal laws; and zero mentions of her comments at a summit organized by the Koch Brothers in which she thanked them and their financial backers for having "really started my trajectory" in politics. By contrast, there were five Register articles featuring Braley's comments about Grassley not having a law degree alone.
- The New Republic
In a truly awful cycle, an off-year election that was bad for the entire party at every level of governance, a contest filled with built-in and grossly unfair advantages for the other side to begin with, an already pitifully low bar was lowered in a significant way. I suspect lastingly.
No amount of previously established extremism, on any issue, area of American politics, rhetoric, or public policy, was deemed extreme enough to make the perfectly legitimate act of pointing that extremism out acceptable for a Democratic candidate in this brutal election.
This was the year that Democrats were told that "compare and contrast" was beyond the pale.
Both local and national news media had the same impossibly unfair standard. If you wanted to run against a Republican as an extremist, no matter how much evidence you could gather to back up your claims/argument, you could not do so unless your opponent had a new "Legitimate Rape" or "I'm not a witch" or "2nd Amendment Remedies" bed shitting.
Short of that, you were ruled to be grossly out of bounds for even daring to suggest it.
A development timed perfectly to bookend with this development inside of conservatism.
Little was left to chance: Republican operatives sent fake campaign trackers -- interns and staff members brandishing video cameras to record every utterance and move -- to trail their own candidates. In media training sessions, candidates were forced to sit through a reel of the most self-destructive moments of 2012, when Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock's comments on rape and pregnancy helped sink the party.
... in the end, the disciplined approach worked: no Republican imploded with the kind of fatal campaign gaffe that crushed the party's hopes in the last two elections. Every establish candidate prevailed in the primaries. Republicans credited this to their rigorous training program. The fake trackers would even surprise candidates at the curb outside the airport when they flew into Washington to meet with NRSC officials, who then forced candidates to sit down and watch themselves on film.
-The New York Times
Since there were few incidents where GOP extremists dropped rhetorical suicide bombs on themselves ala 2010, because a lot of time, money, and effort went into to coaching the biggest idiots about keeping their idiocy at least somewhat in check, Democrats had to make the Sharron Angle is Nuts case based on raising concerns rather than gift GOP mega-gaffes.
How do you do this, practically, if making such a case is essentially off limits barring epic fail?
This is, for lack of a better term, the "compare and constrast" era in Democratic Party politics.
But this has implications beyond the debate over the merits and shortfalls of "compare and contrast" as a tactic. If you strongly believe that the Democratic Party has a messaging problem, for example, the same forces that ruled making an issue of a GOPer being an anti-UN Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist "unfair" can also rule anything more partisan or nuanced "unfair".
The Village essentially barred the heart of the establishment Democratic playbook in this cycle. Something potentially obscured by ugly outcome of this election. Worse, this nasty development was largely unprompted by GOP complaints. Various outlets and agencies around the US did this sort of thing on their own. Ernst. Gardener. Cotton. All were aided by this shift.
Previously, calling a liar out for being a liar was a bigger sin in DC than actually being a liar.
Now?
A Democratic candidate, anywhere in the nation, saying an Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist was an Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist was more unserious and disqualifying than actually being one.
That's worse than where we were before, it's just that the GOP didn't really need it this time. As with voter disenfranchisement efforts, it can be a much more decisive in a less overtly hostile year. Say in a Presidential cycle, like 2016, where down-ticket coattails will likely be required to allow any Democrat winning the Presidency to be able to govern once sworn in.
Overhauling the Party, and how it approaches partisan politics, has to include overhauling how the Party deals with the growing role the media plays in how the Republican Party can not only be viable, but thrive, after periods of great obstructionism, bad faith, dirty tricks, and a sustained track record of catastrophic epic failure. The bar? It can always go down a bit lower.