Tulsi Gabbard For President

Tulsi Gabbard for President

The recent "Tulsi works for Putin" schtick can be understood best as a fight between old media and new media.  A classic power fight between wheezing old talking heads, their younger clones, and new media power brokers will show where the new election lines are drawn.  Newsflash: Tulsi will win.

Hillary Clinton is running a '90s media smear campaign that really worked for her and her husband in the past - the way past.  Clinton whispers her vengeful stories to stooges on cable tv and foolish New York Time op ed writers.  Feeling safe, they repeat them without fearing real consequences.

Old Media and The Clinton Playbook

Why not?  It is the same playbook Clinton used in her failed 2016 election campaign:

1. court mass media, 
2. take voters for granted, 
3. rely on proxies to say nasty things for you, 
4. insult and dismiss half of the electorate. 

It didn't work last time, but as Clinton apparently never took responsibility for her role in her own defeat, she blindly uses the same approach again.

Court Mass Media

The '90s media landscape was exclusively mass media, so a strategy targeting those influencers was smart.  Prescient was Bill Clinton's focus on alternate paths to voter attention, like talk shows. It was how he got around the universal dismissal of him as a serious candidate by the "serious" political press after his sex scandals.  

But this approach is outdated.  There are thousands of information sources for voters now.  The personal relationship approach will not control political watchers because there are simply too many thinkers in the political space.  The rah-rah for the "weapons of mass destruction" leading to the Gulf War and Russiagate undermined credibility for mass media outlets anyway, and people look to other voices to trust.

Take Voters for Granted

Hillary Clinton neglected Michigan and other rust belt states during the 2016 Presidential election.  She dismissed HALF OF AMERICA as "deplorables."  Not very persuasive.  Clinton took the voters of the rust belt for granted because of their union affiliation, not learning the lesson that Reagan taught:  people make up their own minds.

In the frame of this Tulsi Gabbard dialogue, Clinton assumes that the support of the media "elites" will lead to the sheeplike support of Americans.

Rely on Proxies To Say Nasty Things For You

Bakari Sellers accused Tulsi Gabbard of treason on CNN.  This charge has been supported by Hillary Clinton by getting other people to repeat the accusation.

Tulsi Gabbard shows her understanding of modern media when she pins the "Russian asset" smear directly on Hillary Clinton.  Clinton is used to dodging the stench of a shit show by getting others to say her insults.  Part of that tactic was the pretense of cable t.v. hosts that she didn't really say it at all, but that somebody else did.  Now, Tulsi Gabbard's voice can appeal directly to voters, much like Bill Clinton did in playing the saxophone on late night television.

Insult and Dismiss Half of the Electorate

"Deplorables."  

Clinton also insults everyone in the military by implying that one of them would betray their country with treason.

In this message struggle with Tulsi Gabbard, Clinton is dismissing anyone under the age of 50.  Younger voters don't believe that the New York Times is always right.  They don't have t.v.'s or watch cable "news."

The Tulsi Gabbard Winning Strategy

Tulsi Gabbard takes a sniper shot approach to a crowded Presidential candidate field.  One by one, she takes out a frontrunner.  It worked for Trump, and it is working for her.  

Tusli Gabbard is an underestimated candidate.  She won't be the Democratic nominee, but she will beat out almost everybody else that is running.  Her best weapon are her deadly barbs that really stick.  Ask Kamala "I put people in prison for doing what I did" Harris.  Gabbard is better at this tactic than even Trump.  

Tulsi Gabbard knows how the current information ecosystem works. When she hits something, it reverberates.  All the Clinton machine can do is get their flying monkeys on cable television and op-ed pages to repeat what she tells them to say.  Too bad they are no longer influencers like in the '90s.  

Tulsi Gabbard will beat the Democratic Party machine because its relevance and power are sliding out from under them.  They are using a playbook of a bygone day.  What is supposed to be a kill shot will only show everybody their irrelevance.

The Democratic Party relies on big donors, reporter relationships and endorsements.  Stronger tools have been forged, and they are about to find out the hard way.

As I like to say to people I hate:  "I wish you the best of luck."

Michael Hayden, Former CIA Director, Tells a Whopper

The former director of the CIA, Michael V. Hayden, reveals that the purpose of keeping the CIA interrogation memos secret was to preserve the right to torture people in the future.

He writes on CNN.com that releasing the CIA interrogation memos was a "mistake" and claimed "to reveal the details of this technique would tie the hands of a president in a future emergency -- since, after all, laws and policies and presidents could always change"

He means the policy about torturing people. He means "tie the hands" of any President who wants to torture people.

Michael Hayden: "Based on a declaration I signed, the judge had agreed in 2008 to allow us to continue to protect -- on the grounds of national security -- the specifics of waterboarding, a technique that had not actually been used since March 2003 and one the agency had not even authorized for use in years."

If what you are saying is the truth, why would it have been necessary to fire me for saying that "waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong" on my classified blog? Something doesn't add up. If the practice had discontinued, and there were no plans for its revival, then I would have merely been reprimanded and my blog taken away.

Instead, I was fired and put under investigation for my clearance. I was followed everywhere I went for a week and a half. I am blackballed from my former profession. That's fine. I took the risk and will accept the consequences. However, do not pretend that exactly how you torture people is itself classified. The only classification is that it happened at all, and you wanted to be able to do it again. That information is not critical to national security, it is political.

Michael Hayden claims that the choice to release the CIA interrogation memos was political. It was. So was your desire to keep them secret. By exposing the illegal practices the CIA was engaged in under the previous Administration, President Obama let everyone know that waterboarding and torture were not acceptable practices. He further let them know that breaking the law and violating human rights will eventually be exposed. Good for him.

Glenn Beck and the Right-Wing Idea Machine Respond to Financial Crisis Blame

You're not going to believe this. This one will go down in history.

Glenn Beck calls for cutting money for the poor, elderly and the disabled, during this financial crisis, to get a hold on U.S. Government debts. When he calls for reduced government spending, it's the elderly and disabled that need to be cut. Yes, indeed. Let's throw our elderly and disabled citizens into the jaws of the marketplace. How clever! Maybe we can roast them and feed them to each other as well. Think of the cost efficiency! Great timing.

Not the thieves of Wall Street. Not the Republican "the marketplace can do it better" types. Not the lying mortgage holders. Not the "get rid of regulation" fiends. He blames the elderly, poor and disabled for our government debt.

Underlying these distinctly Republican arguments is the belief that none of these guys will ever need help one day themselves.

Hey! I've got an even better idea! Let's make it so. Let's not cap the income of incompetent CEOs to that of the U.S. President. Let's take everything they own. And let's include every talking head jerk who has called for reduced government regulations, too. And let's go back in history to include previous CEOs and Board members.

Or maybe we should just shoot them.