The etiquette police report for duty
by digby
Ah decleah Miss Mellie, quick go fetch the smellin’ salts! Young Master Chris Cilizza is like to faint dead away:
Mitch McConnell, political arsonist? In Alison Lundergan Grimes’ first ad in the Kentucky Senate race, a narrator accuses Mitch McConnell of “light[ing] the house on fire and then claim[ing] credit for putting it out”. As those words are said, there is a house on screen being incinerated. Literally.
Excuse me while I loosen mah corset! I can hardly breathe …
Yes, it begins already. Democrats are being “nasty.”
But you have to just love this observation from inside the DC bubble:
This is a very process-y ad. Aside from the arresting visual, the script focuses on procedural matters — noting that McConnell has called himself a “proud guardian of gridlock” and adding that he has “blocked” the Senate over 400 times. Count us as generally skeptical that these sorts of process arguments work. Yes, people in Kentucky likely know that McConnell is the top Republican in the Senate but are they engaged enough to grasp the filibuster/hold rules? And given the conservative nature of the electorate in Kentucky, is being seen as a blockade for President Obama’s legislative priorities all that bad a thing? (To return to point #1, it’s uniquely possible that this ad was made and aired with a focus on the national Democratic donor base.)
Yeah, pay no attention to the fact that virtually everyone but the hardcore Tea Partiers are disgusted with Republican tactics (er… “processes”) even, I’d guess, Kentuckians. And I would guess that if there is any population in the country that knows Mitch McConnell is one of the big boys in charge of that disgusting behavior it’s his own constituents. No, they may not know all those important details about “holds” and “cloture” that inside-the-beltway wags do, but they know damned well that McConnell is an important member of the Republican leadership and they know that the Republican leadership has been acting like asses.
Also too: pay no attention to the fact that Kentucky has a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Attorney General and that it’s one of the only red states that’s successfully implementing Obamacare. Who knows, Kentuckians might be getting health insurance and think that shutting down the government so they can rest on their conservative principles wasn’t such a hot idea.
But never let that stand in the way of scolding a Democrat for being too harsh (and in this case accusing them of doing it to get the rabid dog Democrats to give her money.) The Village etiquette police in the political press never fail to rap a Democrat’s knuckles for being too rude. And unfortunately, the Democratic leadership usually panics and follows suit. I hope Grimes doesn’t listen. This is a good ad.
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