2012- The Art Of Intimidation By Christopher Chantrill
What a joy it was to watch the Romney campaign executing on the Hilary Rosen flap, launching Ann Romney on Twitter in a heartbeat. And then the Romney war room followed up with the dog-meat play. Liberals thought that the dog-on-the-roof scandal had legs. But it turned out that the legs were Indonesian roast pooch.
Of course, as Bill Kristol insists, the candidate himself needs to be presidential and stick to Big Think presidential speeches about Big Issues. That's especially important in 2012 because the community-organizer-in-chief has left the role of national uniter up for grabs while he shamelessly descends into the gutter, dividing the nation up into the Balkan States of America. Let the president be shrill; let him be petty, writes Bill.
Romney can give serious speeches about the Constitution and the Supreme Court, the case for limited government and the threat of bankruptcy and penury, about undoing Obamacare and what will replace it.
But let's not get too good-government about this. Government is force, and politics is intimidation. While every campaign needs a great candidate who rises above it all, campaigns are won mostly in the trenches by the side that doesn't give up first. That's where intimidation comes in. You need your troops to see the opposition taking hits.
The name of the game in political intimidation is to delegitimize the agenda of the other side and shut them up. The last national Republican who knew how to play the intimidation game was Ronald Reagan. Liberals tried to intimidate him and read him out of the mainstream as a mad bomber and an extremist, but they never quite pulled it off. Once Reagan had got liberals on the floor, he never let them back in the game. George W. Bush, bless his heart, tried to appease the liberals by running as a "compassionate conservative." That worked about as well as "hope and change."
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