This from a post at fivethirtyeight.com:
Republicans were crowing about socialism and government takeovers way back in the summer of 2008, and opposing virtually every policy that the Democrats put forth from the first meeting of the 111th Congress last January — a time when Obama’s approval had been in the high 60s. At first, those messages weren’t working for them — they were particularly ineffectual, for instance, for the McCain campaign, and there were lots of stories in the spring about the number of people who identified as Republican slipping to all-time lows. But the GOP stuck by their messaging strategy, and it has allowed them to frame everything that has come thereafter in ways that are more resonant with the public.
This reminds me of the NFC Championship football game between the Saints and the Vikings. The Saints defensive game plan included an emphasis on hitting Bret Favre. They got several hits on him but failed to sack him. Still, they did not change the plan. Favre threw for 310 yards, but still the Saints worked to hit Favre. Sure enough, before the game was over, Favre rewarded them by throwing three interceptions (the stats say two because the Saints did not catch one of the balls thrown right to them).
And the Saint won.
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Force-fulfilling a paranoid prophecy.
There is nothing wrong with a strategy to throw off a good quarterback’s skill with pressure or even hits but the Saints went way beyond honorable strategy in trying to hurt Farve. There were late hits not called and many almost late hits performed with brutality. The Brady rule was put into place because Brady’s hit placed him on the sideline for a season; Farve didn’t miss a play but not because the Saints didn’t try. But, there is no doubt he was hurt due to the physical beating he took at the hands of the Saints. Before that game, I was a Saints fan but now they join the ranks of the Bears and the Raiders in my mind-no class or skill just brute force.
I think the Republicans are behaving as badly. They have no ideas, no vision. They just want to destroy the opposition which is a little easier than the Saints destroying the Vikings because the Democrats don’t have great vision either.