Tuesday’s election results demolished the conventional wisdom that Democrats need to run cautious, corporate-friendly centrists to win in purple and red states.
It makes the candidate weaker than he would otherwise be if everything else was equal, but you’re right that a candidate opposed by special interests can overall be stronger than a candidate not opposed by them. My point is just that you can’t judge a candidate’s strength or weakness as something independent of those attack ads.
Well since the attack ads were primarily focused on his name, religion, and ethnicity, I don’t think we should accept that as a rationale. I found myself unable to skip them when they played, and holy shit were they bad. His ability to attract those attack ads was almost entirely because he offended AIPAC and because he is Muslim. They tried some other tactics early on (Medicare, ‘fake doctor’, etc), but the last few weeks has been almost nothing but attacks on his identity.
It makes the candidate weaker than he would otherwise be if everything else was equal, but you’re right that a candidate opposed by special interests can overall be stronger than a candidate not opposed by them. My point is just that you can’t judge a candidate’s strength or weakness as something independent of those attack ads.
Well since the attack ads were primarily focused on his name, religion, and ethnicity, I don’t think we should accept that as a rationale. I found myself unable to skip them when they played, and holy shit were they bad. His ability to attract those attack ads was almost entirely because he offended AIPAC and because he is Muslim. They tried some other tactics early on (Medicare, ‘fake doctor’, etc), but the last few weeks has been almost nothing but attacks on his identity.