Blanche Wins, And It's Our Fault

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for June 9th, 2010


Observations:


1) My candidate failed in Arkansas. I had jumped for joy when it looked like Blanche Lincoln would be primaried in Arkansas a few months back. I am on the side that was still cautiously optimistic even yesterday that it would happen. It did not.


The analysis on the Morning Joe show was astute but incomplete. Clinton was Blanche Lincoln’s endorsement, national labor was Halter’s. Wait, Arkansas is 49th in the United States in union coverage. Clinton is Little Rock’s favorite son. In a word, strategy.


Our candidates pitch must’ve sounded like this:


“We have not done anything to represent your workforce in 100 years, choosing to fight battles elsewhere and writing you off, but today, we ask a favor of you, to fight our Washington DC battle on our behalf”


Their candidates strategy must’ve sounded like this:


"Arkansan”


Where is Darwin when you need him? In Arkansas relieving the ill witted of their out-sized ambitions.


Silver lining? Morning Joe has correctly prognosticated that this is like racing to a red light and wasting gas, that the winner is going to be mowed down in the general. Silver lining #2 is that lame duck candidate Lincoln might as well try a little harder to convince America of her slogans by keeping the Lincoln-authored teeth in the financial reform bill when the conference bribery swap meet commences.


I know, what was incomplete about the Morning Joe coverage? You think that they covered every single point covered above. Give it a second. It’s not that it happened, it’s not that the White House was mad about it, that it was union leader Trumka’s first election to influence, it's that a 5 year old could’ve told you 12 weeks ago that Clinton trumps unions in Arkansas, and 12 weeks ago, you had only spent $650,000 on the election. Strategy, Darwin, missing over 3 hours.


2) Meg Whitman is Arizona redux. In a girl’s night party gala that lasted an entire show, little more than headline treatment was given to Meg Whitman’s victory over Steve Poizner. Engineered by Mike Murphy, a friend of the Morning Joe show, it seemed like Poizner was outmatched.


But on Monday on election eve, as I watched the Padres break up a no hitter that Willie covered on the show, there was an ad that the show should’ve paid attention to. It was Meg Whitman playing the euro card.


“I will control our borders”

“No Amnesty”

“No Drivers Licenses”


If you will recall the ugliness of California’s dark Proposition 187 chapter, you will come down on one side or the other of the statement that 'what the state needs now is an anti-latino candidate like it needs the San Andreas fault to divide the state in two'.


Strategy, Darwin, umm, you’re killing Poizner, you got Murphy, McCain just said on the same day that alienating the Latino population is a bad idea for your party, and you unnecessarily play the Californians of European descent should vote for me before the state gets any more overrun by the other people card?


Joe Scarborough made a statement today that the country is looking for solutions to its problems, that Washington has proven incapable of problem solving and that candidates like Fiorina and Whitman appeal for their ability to not make the simple mistakes that continually trip up our leaders in DC.


The simple mistakes of not voting until you’re 48 years old, of running unnecessary xenophobic ads in the 11th hour? Make that case again friend, one more time with feeling.


3) When Joe Scarborough let Peter King off the hook it was a lesson that many people could learn from. King is the worst kind of convenience fighter. Whatever fact is on George W. Bush’s old message agenda is King’s talking point, and up is only up if the book says it’s up.


That kind of convenience logic is just unbearable to listen to, but if you want a candidate that is loyal and resolute he is your guy. Scarborough found the hole in King’s logic and accurately derailed any momentum the congressmen thought he might garner. Then Scarborough caught himself, and stopped short of permanent damage.


The reason this is so important, is that King will live to deliver logic of convenience another day, like Giuliani, like Rove, like Fleischer, like, to be fair, Dick Gephardt or Blanche Lincoln. These people are the enemy, for their doublespeak.


Scarborough knows that one day he may need a flank defense, and King will be there. Politicians never know when the logic will run out and you will need an ace double-spokesman to keep you afloat.


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.