Just stop it
Democrats regularly say three things that set my teeth on edge. It’s an ingrained cultural tic, I guess, and they recite them like the catechism without thinking.
First, they complain that conservative voters, particularly rural ones, vote against their best interests. See “Thank you for not voting your best interests” for what I think about that.
Second, they insist that every election is the most important of our lifetime. They seem to think this alarmist message is somehow motivating for their base. But is it? Really? When every damned election is the most important election of our lifetime, what happens instead is Democrats go into a defensive crouch. Innovation is off the table. They take no chances. Find another gear? Hell, no. For most campaigns, their idea of finding another gear is to do what they’ve always done, the way they’ve always done it, just more of it. That’s a dinosaur’s recipe for losing.
Finally — and I heard this again at an event last night — Democrats of a certain age love to joke that you should vote early and vote often. IN THIS POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT, they still say that. It’s the tired (and tasteless) political equivalent of Henny Youngman’s “Take my wife — Please!” Said tongue-in-cheek, the expression is variously attributed to corrupt Chicago politicians from a hundred years ago, but likely dates from earlier. Just stop.
Friends may get tired of hearing me say it’s a challenge to teach yellow dogs new tricks, but it’s true.
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