GOP Messaging Trips Up Cory – Public Says ‘Meh?’

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker was inelegant on NBC’s Meet the Press last Sunday. The GOP SPIN Machine wasted no time creating a duplicitous and devious “I stand with Cory” fund raiser, collecting e-mails and thinking voters are stupid enough to believe Mayor Booker was abandoning the so-called ‘anti-capitalist President’ to support job creator Mitt Romney and the GOP.

With still almost 4,000 hours of cable news to fill before the election, get used to it folks.

This will be the nastiest, ugliest, most costly and negative election in our history. $7 billion dollars, the entire budget of NASA, will be spent on television adverts as each candidate tries to destroy the other. Thanks to the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling, shadowy SuperPACS bent on vilifying the character of President Obama will revive Kenyan birtherism, call him a shadow Muslim and paint him as too dangerous saying he went completely unvetted into the Office of the President in 2008.

Bullpucky! But the right will believe it. And if they head down this path, outside of their party’s control, they are headed for an electoral loss margin surpassed only by George McGovern (vs. Richard Nixon) and Walter Mondale (vs. Ronald Reagan) in their 2nd term victories. Back then, people cared about messaging and it as much less deceit based. Today, people tune it out and say ‘meh? I can’t be bothered.’ Sadly though, they can only repeat these repeated talking points because they cannot avoid them.

American voters though will once again get the government they deserve, polarised and unable to function because voters will willingly buy into 5-word catchphrase slogans repeated over and over again on telly adverts and via the FOX propaganda network often enough it will become truth. Compromise will remain a dirty word and unless the President also gets a sizeable number of new Congressmen and women to help move things forward, gridlock will continue.

A Reagan 2nd landslide defeat for the GOP would be poetic justice for a party that shape-shifts itself via deceptive messaging as taught by their Dark Arts wordsmith masters because the biggest casualty in this election will continue to be ‘truth.’ It needs to become harder because the media stands up and calls both sides on their behaviour rather than letting it slide.

Yet election regulators and the FCC are fearful of calling out lies and misinformation because all speech, no matter how trivial or nonsensical, is protected under the 1st Amendment and in this Orwellian campaign world in which we live… corporations are people. Since the US Mainstream Media (MSM) is controlled by five corporate entities forget real investigative journalism a la Woodward and Bernstein (the reporters who chased the Watergate story that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency). Get ready for more mindless news and miles of anchor smiles and bad jokes.

Indeed, there will never be any tough question asked by blow-dried news anchors. Instead each side gets 90-seconds to state their case without challenge and will run over any host that tries to ask a serious question without breaking for a breath. I will personally vote for the beatification of any news person who consistently calls out parties for obfuscation and deception.

Instead of allowing the GOP in public memos to rewrite the record and change terminology (indeed vocabulary) to fit their terms, when will any anchor or interviewer just throw their slop back at them? When will we stop letting them substitute pabulum phraseology and communication ladder building and instead challenge the very words they use?

Government spending = Waste,
Capitalist = Job Creators,
Tax the rich = Takes from the rich,
Logging = Healthy forests,
Drilling for oil = Responsible exploration for energy,
Middle class = Hard working taxpayers,
Climate change = Global Warming (less frightening),
The environment = a cleaner, safer healthier America, and
Never, ever ask anyone to sacrifice while always blaming Washington

Progressives are good at rooting out lies and demanding truth. The MSM should join them in asking tough questions instead of serving up big softballs for them to hit out of the ballpark.

We all whistle past the graveyard . The US (and therefore the world) is headed towards a 1929-like crash as the rich get richer and no one in government has a problem with that because the 99% cannot fund their campaign and therefore are represented by no one.

And we will deserve it all for allowing people to fall for their lies and distortions in the name of winning elections. Remember, if it’s true, you don’t need to embellish. Only a lie needs linguistic gymnastics repeated ceaselessly so it ‘seems true’ and stands the test of time – until the election is over.

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Denis G Campbell is the author of 6 books including 'Billionaire Boys Election Freak Show,' 'The Vagina Wars' & 'Egypt Unsh@ckled.' He is the editor of UK Progressive Magazine and provides commentary to the BBC, itv Al Jazeera English, CNN, MSNBC and others. His weekly 'World View with Denis Campbell' segment can be heard every Thursday on the globally syndicated The David Pakman Show. You can follow him on Twitter via @UKProgressive and on Facebook.
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