Alternative title: Why aren’t there any Indian-American politicos I can be proud of?
How does a brain-dead puppet like Ramesh Ponnuru get to write for the New York Times?
These issues are legitimate? Flag pins, 1960s radicals and the like? The maguffins of demagoguery? These are legitimate issues?
Idiot.
Go easy on Ponnuru. I expect he spent most of the last two and a half years in an institution following his savage beating from Jon Stewart. He may still be adjusting to life on the outside.
If a voter cares enough about an issue to vote on it, then it is a legitimate issue to him. Might not be to you, but that’s your business to mind. And if a candidate finds there is a mismatch between what he considers legitimate issues and what voters see as such, he’ll find himself in trouble.
He blogs on NRO Corner. What more do you need to know? They are a half-step above Freepers, openly gay-bashing and frequently racist (to say nothing of their general idiocy, tendentious arguments, and spirit of meanness). Barely five posts go by on that thing without someone writing something monumentally and demonstrably stupid.
Actually, if any significant number of my fellow citizens are actually submoronic enough to believe that issues like flag pins are relevant at all to *any *public matter whatsoever, then it is very much my business to mind, because I don’t want my life being affected by such idiocy influencing the public dialogue.
I do kind of see what he’s getting at here: the electorate is dumb, and they don’t understand how universal healthcare will work (or how the current system works); how the economy works, and what impact given policies will have (or what Marxism is); what the broader national security implications of invading sovereign states without provocation are, and so on.
They do understand whether or not candidates wear flag pin, and therefore, that is, in a sense, a much more legitimate issue than any of the largely abstract debates over whose economic plan will save the day, in that the electorate can make their own decision based on the facts rather than taking somebody else’s word for it.
What he’s calling for is a dumbing down of Republican Presidential campaign strategy.
Now, this change in strategy makes absolutely no sense given that Palin’s speeches were already carefully aimed at the lowest common denominator.
His general line of argument, though, makes a lot of sense if you’re concerned about the idea that the presidential election basically comes down to who’s got the best sales pitch, rather than the best ideas.
On the flag pin “issue” (among others), I like to believe there are three categories of people: a tiny minority who honestly believe it’s a valid issue, a much larger percentage who know it obviously isn’t, and a third category who struggle gamely to maintain a straight face while pretending it is, for political expediency. Like most of my assumptions it is probably wrong, but I cling to it anyway because perversely, I find it more comforting to live in a world filled with Machiavellian schemers than one filled with fools. Please don’t take that from me.
I got something totally different out of that article. He’s saying the Republican campaign needs to go beyond these inconsequential surface issues. In fact, he seems to be criticizing the McCain campaign precisely for pandering to the lowest common denominator.
His position is that Republicans should start gearing their policies toward the needs of the middle class, and that creating a solid economic plan that rivals the Democrats is going to be their only path to victory.
What he said about the flag pin being a ‘‘legitimate’’ issue is demonstrably stupid, but the overall message of the article makes an interesting point.
WTF? If they dumbed it down any more, they’d have to replace their teleprompters with alphabet blocks.
I’d no idea the standard was that low. So, in 2000, McCain’s imaginary illegitimate black child was a legitimate issue? Is any lie, slur, appeal to racism, or non sequitur a legitimate issue as long as there’s some slack-jawed yokel who’ll base his vote on it?
This is kind of funny. Does DeMint really think that’s what people were rejecting?
Does Fareed Zakaria count?
Whew. Thanks for that. I was getting panicked for a moment, what with Ponnurus and Jindals all over.
I’ll take Aasif Mandvi too. I’m desperate.
Zakaria has never run for office himself and is not otherwise active in party politics, so he’s a political commentator rather than a politico. We do like him, though.
How about Dalip Singh Saund? Without him, we’d still be barred from citizenship! Plus, he was the first non-Judeo-Christian to serve in Congress.
I don’t know if he’d technically be an Indian-American, since the village he was born in became part of Pakistan briefly after Partition.
Due credit to Saund, but he’s not actually an active participant in the political conversation at the moment.
I know this isn’t GD, but do you have a cite for the racist claim? You say it’s frequent, so it shouldn’t be hard to find an example.
Touche.
Um… Jindal’s pretty competent, so if you can overlook the exorcism thing and his policy positions…
I haven’t kept a running list of the ridiculous shit they said in the run-up to the election. Here are two relatively mild examples from the last two days:
I’m sure I read worse, but I’m not really interested in digging beyond the first 10 posts or so. Do you read The Corner regularly?
Oh, and if we go back less than a week, we get this gem:
I read it sometimes. I was just curious what you think is racist. Thanks.