There's little doubt that there's been a groundswell against the traditional leadership of the Republican party. Efforts by party insiders to anoint one of the "usual suspects" have fallen incredibly flat.
And there's plenty of reason to believe that the types of people motivated by the "tea party" movement against the Obama Administration are not going to be automatically enamored of the "Certified Pre-Owned candidates" the Beltway brain trust are eager to promote this cycle.
I note that James Carville, who may be as partisan as they come but surely not dumb, noticed how little respect the Republican voter base has for its elected leadership.
So what are the political insiders to do with a bunch of voters looking for something completely different? Well, it's simple. They have stolen a page from the world of product marketing.
Make something sold by Corporate America look like it's from some new fresh upstart business by putting a new, different label on the product.
I predict 2010 will be the year of the "Blue Moon" candidates. We will see many candidates who are products of the world of political insiders, but relabelled and rebranded as anti-establishment candidates expressing populist resentment.
Why "Blue Moon"?. Because that's exactly what we are dealing with
Seems one of the good ole macrobrews, Coors, wanted to start selling some different flavors of beer. But if they put the Coors label on it, people would think it wasn;t like those nice quaint microbrews and imports; it was just a spinoff from the billion or so cans of Silver Bullet quaffed every year by the masses. So guess what.: Coors decided to sell a beer that pretended to be new, quaint and from an independent brewery.
Coors does not actively advertise the fact that the brew is owned by Coors on the belief that being associated with a major national brewery would diminish its credibility among aficionados. Blue Moon is instead branded as being brewed by the "Blue Moon Brewing Company." [5]
My local example of a "Blue Moon" candidate is liberal wrestling tycoon Linda McMahon, who will probably do something useful for real conservatives a lot less often "than once in a blue moon"
There are some in the media who are going to be honest enough to see through the charade that people like the "Wild RINO" are trying to pull off. But in this economy, plenty more in the media will simply go along with the carnival as long as the well funded candidate buys print ads and air time from their employers. Take this example of circular reasoning.
Some Republicans wonder if McMahon’s message of an outsider is a mere contrivance. After all, she criticizes business as usual, but is often seen with veteran lobbyist Patrick Sullivan.
Nevertheless, McMahon showed she may indeed be something different when explaining at an event in Windsor that her generous campaign contributions to Democrats were “the cost of doing business.” It’s not a truth we like to hear, but it rings with authenticity.
Perhaps there's some form of "truth in advertising" herein. But I would submit that this makes Ms. McMahon's political compass much more closely aligned with that of Heidi Fleiss than that of Barry Goldwater.
Yep, we will see tycoons accustomed to buying favors from career politicians go and buy the allegiance of other career politicians. But they will try and insist with a straight face that they will be "A different kind of Senator" when all objective indicia suggests they will be a carbon copy of the Capitol Hill lifers they seek to replace. They'll just take their calls from Rahm Emanuel in the Republican cloakroon instead of the Democratic cloakroom.
Much as Blue Moon beer is really dressed-up Coors, all these various rebranded political insiders are ever going to be are the campaign version of trick-or-treaters, dressed up to play the role of angry commoners.
The worst aspect of all this is that we have a real opportunity to build a new Republican party that Middle America can once again have faith in. But that will require hard work finding and promoting new candidates for statewide office and congressional races.
What it appears much of the political establishment thinks it can do is simply play make-believe; instead of doing the work to win a worthwhile victory. This will fail for two reasons. First, the voters are probably going to figure this out long before the election. The resulting loss of volunteer energy and voter turnout is going to doom us. In a low turnout election, a true-believer lefty is likely to outpoll someone who appears only to give lip service to what he claims to be running on.
One thing the various poseurs also may underestimate that even if the media lets the party roll on, the Democrats will have a full dossier of every insider deal and favor these folks got before they put on populist airs, and will simply wait to drop the hammer after they get nominated. Oops!
And if the "Blue Moon" candidates do skate through to election then what are we left with? A bunch of personality cult officeholders with a cadre of paid retainers, committed to no political agenda more important that gaining re-election. Hmmm; isn't that why we got shown the door in 2006?
Douglas MacArthur said that in war, there is no substitute for victory. I believe in the election environment of 2010 there is no subsitute for authenticity. Either you have it- or you don't.
Republican candidates in 2010 who think they can excuse away their phoniness by massive media blitzes or slick PR tactics will find out that there is a subsitute for victory: defeat.
