PrintApril 25, 2011
Democrats' taste for (rhetorical) blood
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is under the new leadership of Sen. Patty Murray, but it appears that the same rabid copywriters kept their jobs. Apparently donors respond to hyperbole like the following from a recent email:
The GOP budget is a dagger in the heart of American families.
Under it, everyone would sacrifice - except billionaires and corporations. The social safety net working families rely upon would disappear. People remember life before Medicare. Many seniors' lives ended in abject, heartbreaking poverty...In states like Massachusetts, Nevada and Indiana, changing demographics and bloody Republican primaries offer opportunities to turn red Senate seats blue.
Describing Republican primaries as "bloody" obviously suggests that Republicans will be beating each other up. But don't Democrats recognize how foolish they look when they feign outrage at military metaphors like Sarah Palin's target, while they continue to invoke bloodshed, here and in Congressman Michael Capuano's recent comment, "every once in a while you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody"? To turn around the accusations aimed at Palin: what if this purple prose incites some Travis Bickel to free associate: sacrifice...old people dying in misery...a dagger in the heart of a Republican...bloody...red blood draining out turning seats blue.
Regarding the analysis of Massachusetts: it's unlikely that Scott Brown will face a bloody primary. (Brown's Democrat opponent may be none other than Michael "Bloody" Capuano.) In the House, Massachusetts demographics are unfavorable to Democrats; the state has lost population proportional to red states like Texas, and is losing one of its 10 Democrat Congress critters.
