The silly season……

Only 17 days till the election-and November 4th could not come a day too soon. If I were Barack Obama though,  I would be having nightmares about this picture:

I hope that his political instincts are attuned enough to smell the real danger this whole “Joe the Plumber” thing can spell for him-and for any hope of changing the tone of political discourse in America.

Because Joe the Plumber is exactly the type of political bone that the dogs of the rabid right can grab on to and chew to death. The opposition will be slow to realize it and by the time they do react-the election will have come and gone.

Nothing epitomizes how stupid Americans have become politically than the whole discussion of the Joe the plumber. JTP is not even named Joe-his given name is Sam. Second, he may or may not be trying to buy his business and based on preliminary look-see, is not even trying to buy his business-although he might in the future. Contrary to what Mr. Wurzelbacher asserted and Mr. McCain echoed, neither his personal taxes nor those of the business where he works are likely to rise if Mr. Obama’s tax plan were to go into effect, they said.

However never let the facts get in the way of a good script. The Democrats have their script too-you have to be ready to acknowledge that-however its more varied than that you keep hearing from people who are supposed to be smart enough to know better.

The facts of the discussion are a lot different than you will ever read here, here, or on Fox News. And for sure they don’t have the Senator quoting from either Lenin or Trotsky:

…….was among those who turned out to see Mr. Obama, who had stopped to join campaign volunteers as they canvassed voters door-to-door in a neighborhood outside Toledo. Mr. Obama first noticed him when Mr. Wurzelbacher was shouting from afar, “Do you believe in the American dream?”

Mr. Obama walked over and engaged in conversation.

“Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” Mr. Wurzelbacher said.

For several minutes, the two men talked, as a crowd stood around and listened. A television pool report of the event provides this account of the exchange:

At the time, he did not introduce himself. But he said he had been a hard-working plumber for 15 years, so why should he be taxed more?

As he often does, Mr. Obama sought to win over his questioner by explaining his plan in great detail, offering rationale after rationale for his plan to raise taxes for those who make more than $250,000 a year.

“Over the last 15 years, when you weren’t making 250, you would have been given a tax cut from me, so you’d actually have more money, which means you would have saved more, which means you would have gotten to the point where you could build your small business quicker than under the current tax code,” Mr. Obama said. “So there are two ways of looking at it – I mean one way of looking at it is, now that you’ve become more successful through hard work – you don’t want to be taxed as much.”

It became clear that Mr. Obama was not winning him over.

“You’re going to be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Mr. Obama said. “But listen, I respect what you do and I respect your question, and even if I don’t get your vote, I’m still going to be working hard on your behalf because small businesses are what creates jobs in this country and I want to encourage it.”

As he walked away Mr. Obama said, “I’ve got to go prepare for this debate. But that was pretty good practice right there.”

The next day, the plumber’s story was picked up by the Toledo Blade, followed by radio and television interviewers. And, finally, he emerged on the debate stage again and again Wednesday night.

The difficulty, of course, is that one cannot discuss proposed tax changes with people unless those people understand what it is that would be changed. The average American citizen does not understand the nuances of federal taxation that both major presidential candidates seek to change. (proving again the myth of the rational voter)  Information is generalized, assertions are misleading, rhetoric trumps technical analysis, and people remain confused. Income of $250,000? Gross profits of $250,000? Revenues of $250,000? Joe can get him self a good CPA and depending on the answers to those questions and others-could find himself with a tax cut. Assuming he does not get slapped with penalties on those damn tax liens.

However don’t let important facts and distinctions get in the way of good old fashioned righteous anger and scathing arguments about personal responsibility-and how you don’t feel inclined to help me out of because my values are not lock step with yours.

At this point in the campaign the rules of right wing discourse are fairly well defined:

1) Never call the candidate by his name: Always refer to him as “The One”, “BHO”, or simply call him “The marxist”. Calling him by his name implies that he might, just might maybe be a real person and deserving of some degree of civil respect.

2) Blame the media for not telling the story exactly as McCain wants it told. Make the media an enemy-use the terms “MSM”, Liberal biased media, media elites or my personal favorite of late, “tanning bed media”. The implication of course is that they are all lazy and probably want to have the same skin color as Obama. ( A racist code word with out actually using the C, A or B words).

Case in point: score of commenters at various and sundry blogs, have taken to outrage that people went looking for JTP’s details in the public record and that the media did not continually re-broadcast Obama’s share the wealth comment.  They are shocked, shocked that media outlets and individual reporters,  bloggers, and others with a dog in the political fight,  quickly investigated the man. Such is the paranoia of the politics today. Did they go overboard? Sure they did.  Its a fair point. . However, as Andrew Sullivan points out, “If you live by the game of anecdote, you also have to die by it” :

Remember the woman in San Francisco a few years ago, took a shot at Ford? A guy grabbed her arm, saved the president’s life -and was a hero.

It turned out he was also gay. That’s news, right?

– Now the whole country knows that too.
(quoted from the movie-Absence of Malice).

If Joe does not like it, there are probably an army of lawyers who would do his libel case for him-pro bono. The public record is exactly that-public.

3) Always assume that the worst excesses of a few-in a free society with technology and the internet, and the protections of the first Amendment- have the explicit blessing of the campaign.  Then use that assumption as a means to trash the campaign and those within that campaign who might not have had a thing to do with it because they were actually busy trying to get their man elected. That too can be applied on the left wrt to McCain, -its done on both sides. Guess where they learned it from?

4) Never give the other fellow even the slightest shred of the benefit of the doubt. Assume from the start that he was out to ally himself with the forces of Marxism.  Take taxes again-somebody’s taxes are going to need to be raised, to undo the damage caused by excessive tax cuts that were not removed when the nation went to war. As has been said, “You can pay now or you can pay later, but you will pay.” It’s no longer now, it’s later, and we will pay.  If we don’t raise taxes, we face either crippling deficits that threaten the nation’s security and survival, or we cut spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and national defense, and perhaps even interest on the national debt, which also threatens the nation’s security and survival. Maybe Joe should ask McCain about the difficulties he will have getting a loan to buy the business-thanks in large part to the deficit and tight credit.

5.) Always make sure you pat yourself on the back about how noble your savagery is-and allow no comparisons to that levied by the other side.  Dismiss such comparisons as “unequal” and demonstrative of your inherent immorality.

6.) Really focus on labels.Call it welfare when you grant a cut in the income tax rate for lower income, while at the same time ignore the fact that poor people still pay taxes. Especially ignore the fact that other taxes as excise tax, sales tax, and payroll taxes (FICA) are regressive, meaning that the poor pay a disproportional percentage of their income in taxes. Ignore the fact that many of those “non-filers”  low-income, young, female-headed households, (who are) part-time workers-and some 30 million who are retired and may have paid their taxes “up front” so to speak. Use the word socialism a lot.

7) Finally when cornered, use the specter of the white flag and question ones patriotism-especially if they dare to point out that not all wars end in victory. Deify those running the war-so as to make any attack upon the overall idea of going to war in the first place-sound like a personal attack on the hired hand designated to pick up the pieces.  Back at home-dismiss those who have a different view of the world than yours-as unreal Americans.

Having arrived at the basics of the talking points ensure that these disparate points are broadcast again and again. How? Through the vehicle of the supposedly biased and in the tank media-who like any other business generally do not turn away paying customers.  Find folks to send you cute little anecdotes ( which starts the whole cycle all over again). What ever you do, don’t use the power of investigation and analysis. In fact, dismiss those who are tasked to teach you that skill as “bad”- or in the power of the unions.

Then when you get the same government you had last year, ask yourself why nothing ever changes.