In what likely will be my only decent piece of political prognostication this electoral cycle, back in November 2006 I predicted that John McCain would be undone by YouTube, saying “it's interesting to see just how out of touch with modern realities the increasingly aging McCain seems to be. Pre-YouTube it might have been possible to campaign out of both sides of one's mouth, but that approach is in the dustbin of history now.”
The media will let you run away from what you say in the primaries. YouTube will not. Yesterday I posted a masterly example of what McCain is in for. Here's another, hot on its heels, that's almost as good, YouTube – John McCain: No, You Can't.
In the competition between the YouTube generation and a 71-year-old with a penchant for gaffes and the occasional doubletalk, don't bet on the get-off-my-lawn guy.
Ehhh … Ronald Reagan did much worse, and it didn’t matter.
This is stuff for the hipsters. But they’re a very small portion of the population.
Remember, hard as it might be to comprehend, the “bomb, bomb Iran” bit is viewed as a POSITIVE by the Republican base!
It’s funny you know. If you tape poliical speeches by every politician and compare them, you will see that ALL OF THEM “doubletalk”. It’s the nature of the beast. To have any shot, they have to tell everyone what they want to hear. We should focus a lo of the blame for that on ourselves. Any politician that just says what he believes, without adapting it to fit the crowd, is run out of town.