Point Coulter

This blog doesn't often find itself in agreement with Ann Coulter. But yesterday's Coulter column does make a good point about liberals.

Liberals believe, often accurately, that if they say the same thing over and over again 1 billion times, people will believe it: "Bush lied, kids died," "We've lost in Iraq," "Reagan is stupid," "Bush is stupid," "Republicans are stupid," "Global warming is destroying the planet," "Gloria Steinem is good-looking" and -- their most provably false assertion -- "Bill Clinton is the most talented politician of his generation."

For some reason, Democratic politicians and consultants believe that saying the same thing "over and over again 1 billion times" is the route to political success. During the 2006 campaign, Nancy Pelosi said "Republican culture of corruption" so many times I got blue in the face. Likewise, Obama has two words--"change" and "hope"--that he and his supporters repeat over and over again zillions of times. But Hillary Clinton's campaign has to be the worst. Her senior campaign staff spent more than $100 million dollars while debating between "strength" and "warmth" before finally stumbling last week into a combination of strength, warmth, media criticism, and taking on Obama. Stunned by her new versatility, Ohio voters gave her a ten-point victory.

In the days leading up to the Ohio and Texas contests, Clinton presented herself as the victim of media bias and displayed a sense of humor on "Saturday Night Live" at the same time her staff was holding daily conference calls attacking Obama on his trade record and for his ties to an indicted real estate developer. The yin-yang approach -- going positive and negative at the same time -- may not have been deliberate, but it seemed to work.

"There has been a long-term disagreement on strategy over whether to focus on character . . . or raising questions about Senator Obama," said one top Clinton aide who was at the core of the fight. "What's happened over the last two weeks is we've done both."

The main reason for the endless repetition of catch phrases is the assumption by Democratic candidates and consultants that their constituencies are an electoral minority. Paralyzed by fear that the Republicans will be able to mobilize their "natural majority," Democratic candidates ride any kind of Democratic-favorable catch-phrase or slogan into the ground. But voters take this kind of rigidity as a sign of weakness in the same way that they view the Democratic leadership as weak because of its endless surrenders on Iraq war funding, warrantless wiretapping, telecom immunity, and other issues. Democrats are now a majority by almost every measure. The Democratic leadership should start feeling their strength and hitting the Republicans from several angles at the same time.