Not That Funny, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #168

February 21, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Dear Art,

This week I announced a political campaign, Operation Hilarity, aimed at elongating the Republican primary campaign.  The idea is to get Democrats to vote for Rick Santorum in upcoming open primaries.  This will make Mitt Romney spend more time and money securing the nomination and should make him weaker in the general election against President Obama.  I have been widely criticized for this even on my own site.  What gives?  Why aren’t more progressives getting behind this?  Shouldn’t the ends (reelecting Obama) justify the means?

-Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos

Kos,

There are a number of reasons this is a stupid idea.  First and foremost, this is exactly what Rush Limbaugh tried to do, under the moniker Operation Chaos, during the 2008 Democratic primary.  He thought having people vote for Hilary Clinton would draw out and weaken Obama.  Even setting aside the notion that as a prominent liberal blogger you should want nothing to do with the tactics of an ass like Limbaugh there’s the fact that it completely failed.  I have seen no evidence that the drawn out primary hurt Obama in the general and even if it did he still won handily.  What if the longer primary lets one of these losers find a message that connects and leads them to victory?  Won’t you feel like an asshole?

The really dangerous thing you’re playing with here is the media narrative.  What happens if you actually accomplish enough that Santorum starts looking like he could win this thing?  Doesn’t that make his insane political views more mainstream?  If he wins the nomination we’ll spend the rest of the year hearing a 50/50 split on “controversial” issues like should contraceptives be a thing and are gay people an abomination.  Hell, if you look at the polls now Santorum could be getting real momentum even now.  It’s probably downright evil for someone on the left to push that disgusting man anywhere further towards the spotlight.

I get why you’re really doing this.  It’s a lot of publicity.  You got to make the media rounds with Operation Hilarity and I’m sure that it makes a demonstrable impact on your site traffic.  The cynic in me thinks that you saw all the attention Limbaugh got for this exact move in 2008 and have been biding your time to try the same stunt.  More importantly, this is not the point of open primaries.  I don’t know that I do understand the point of open primaries but it isn’t all about people from one party trying to force unelectable trash on the members of the other party.  Elections should be won on the merits of the respective candidates and not on stupid tricks.  I understand that you probably don’t think the other party plays by these rules but that doesn’t make it ok for you to do the same underhanded shit.  Make the world a better place even if it keeps you off TV for a couple news cycles.