"The Failure of Normality"
A thought-provoking article by Andrew Ferguson for The Weekly Standard, about the highly abnormal process of running for President.
Fred Thompson's only problem, Ferguson says, is that he's a normal human being who finds "meeting" hundreds of people per day as a requirement to be President a pointless exercise.
I have a lot of sympathy with Thompson's point of view. As I've written here before, I find the current system of campaigning for President antiquated. This is a huge country, yet the candidates pay special attention to a few small geographic areas for months, while ignoring the rest of us.
Harnessing technology in order to communicate with voters nationwide, rather than pretending that a few thousand Iowans are all a candidate's best friends, makes a lot more sense to me. Thompson tried to do this new kind of campaigning, making excellent use of the Internet to spread his message; it didn't work for him, but I suspect he has laid the groundwork for future candidates.
posted by Laura @ 1:06 PM
2 Comments:
I agree with you- it is ridiculous. It's especially bad how the national media keeps declaring that "so and so has to win X state to stay in" or "if so and so wins that's it"- after just a few states. That is just 21st century yellow journalism , hype, bluster and emotion with no substance or very little truth.
On another topic, I find it facinating that Obama stomped Hillary in our state today. Especially after Bill practically canvased the entire state this past week. I have to wonder- are Democrats finally seeing what Conservatives have seen for years. Are the finally getting fed up. It's funny to see all of the liberal spinmeisters trying to defend the Clintons against other liberal spinmeisters.
Excellent points, Laura. Its to our collective shame that Fred perhaps is too enlightened and reasonable for our times.
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