Sunday, November 4, 2018

Wholesale v Retail Politics

All politics is local, Tip O'Neill  told us.
Until it wasn't.

Today, all politics is Trump, for better or for worse.

Two, three times a week, from Montana, to Florida to Tennessee to Kentucky, to Georgia, you see throngs, people whose enthusiasm rivals those delirious crowds who adored Hitler.
Look at those arenas, tiers upon tiers of frenzied fans. 



And against that, we have small bands of mostly women, knocking on doors, where 30 out of 34 doors on the list go unopened. The canvassers leave behind fliers, paper, stickers: "Vote."

Or "Vote Democratic."

Our party leaders tell us this is the way elections are won.
This is the way they've done it in New Hampshire for generations.

But look at the Trump rallies. Look at the Trump twitters. 

Have we been left behind with 20th century tools in a 21st century political world?

He doesn't need an advertising budget.  He does his rallies, for the price of renting an arena and CSPAN and Twitter and Facebook do the rest.

And where is the charismatic Democrat to bring this demagogue down?

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