This Makes for A Better Minnesota?

As the 2014 election campaign heats up, a drearily familiar pattern is repeating itself.  Flush with big dollars from out-of-state donors, Democrat-front group Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) is attacking Republican candidates under the theme Wrong for Minnesota.

Although stymied for the moment by the fact that Republicans have yet to choose candidates for the marquee races, ABM’s 2014 operation has been underway for more than a year.

Back in the dim mists of time—when dinosaurs still trod upon the earth—I was taught that arguing against the person (ad hominem) rather than what the person was saying, defied the laws of logic.

I was taught in classical Greek rhetoric that a message that relied exclusively on raw emotion (pathos)—rather than reason (logos) or an appeal to values (ethos)—was considered the lowest form of communication.

Ad hominem and pathos are the only form of expressions ABM is capable of.  The reason why ABM relies on these tactics is because they work.  The object is not to engage in debate, but to end debate by surpressing voter turnout.  ABM is not trying to convince you that you should vote for Democrats, they are trying to convince you that no Republican possesses the personal character worthy of your vote.

As a thought experiment, consider how ABM would have operated in past years.  Would we have seen Gandhi’s mug shots from his arrests by colonial authorities?  Would the business acumen of Mother Teresa been called into question?  You see, everyone is human and thus, flawed.  ABM’s poll-tested methodology involves exaggerating whatever flaws a Republican candidate may have, or, in a pinch, just make something up.

ABM serves as the shock troops for the state’s Democrat Party candidates:  doing the dirty work so that the candidates themselves can keep their hands clean.

[Update:  One of my Twitter compatriots points out that these tactics come straight out of Saul Alinksy's 1971 progressive playbook Rules for Radicals.  In fact, it's rule No. 13, "pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."  Progressives won't argue that a Republican has proposed a bad policy, they will argue he is a bad person.  It makes for effective politics, but has the side effect (not unintended) of destroying social cohesion.]

Should a Republican whisper about the health of our current governor or the temperament of our junior senator, they are immediately shouted down by local media.

Either because of personal relationships or broad sympathy with the aims of ABM, these tactics are never questioned by local media.  ABM’s increasingly fantastic and desperate claims against Republicans are never subjected to the “fact-check” apparatus.

The self-appointed guardians of our state’s political culture will praise ABM’s tactics as innovative and clever but will not permit those same tactics to be used on the right.  Over the next six months I plan on exposing some of this “game behind the game” and the local media that enables it.