Newark Mayor Cory Booker, on why "I get very upset when I see such a level of dialogue that calls us to our lowest common denominators and ... the kind of campaigning which I think is becoming too much of the norm in our nation."
Because "This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides."
That may be true, all too true, Mayor, even if every time I listen to you I am reminded of former congressman Harold Ford, Jr., whose similarly overwrought centrism and "even-handed" assaults on both political parties vividly advertise an opportunistic man on the higher-office make.
But back to the other truth of that other nausea. This sort of advertising is indeed "very upsetting," as you say. Yet even more upsetting is the unavoidable need for being momentarily upset. And by that, I mean this: The swing-voting American electorate is so weak-minded and ill informed and easily led astray by the fancy baubles and shiny beads of any shameless, Romney-like campaign, only a brick-bat counter-offensive can be up to the challenge of cutting it down to proper size.
[Romney's] whole candidacy is based on the claim that his experience at extracting money from troubled businesses means that he’ll know how to run the economy — yet whenever he talks about economic policy, he comes across as completely clueless.
To Paul Krugman, he does. To you and me, he does. To virtually anyone who is even the least bit familiar with responsible fiscal policy, he does. But somehow, more than a few swing-voting independents--left to their own, independent devices--miss the inescapable reality that Mitt Romney is uttering absolute gibberish.
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