Pirate's Cove

 

That’s Blogapathy. Cute little critter, eh? And, I gotta admit, Blogapathy has shown up for me regarding these primaries. At this point, I’m just not in to posts about the elections. How does one sustain the emotion throughout two years of election campaigning?

If anyone asks me what is the biggest difference between Liberals and Conservatives, my answer is not that one party wants to surrender, and the other doesn’t. It is not that one believes in the destruction of human life at conception, while the other believes in the sanctity of life. Nor that one party believes that government should control us and take all our money, while the other stands for limited government and letting people keep the money they worked for.

No, the biggest difference is emotion.

Conservatives tend to base their politics primarily on thought. They are interested in policy positions and what they will mean. They are interested in what a candidate not only says he/she will do, but what their actual record was in the past. Conservatives want to know the details, and will call mule fritters on their own politicians when the need arises. Sure, now and then, we really let loose with the emotion, but, I’d say, when it comes to politics, 70% is based on rational thought.

Liberals, on the other hand, invest about 80% emotion into their politics. They get all weak-knee’d and hysterical at the drop of a hat. Give them a soundbite, and their emotions get all churned up, for good or bad. “We’re going to raise taxes on the rich!” Yay, woo, we love you (insert Dem politician here). Rarely does any Liberal actually take the time to consider what their politicians are saying. That is not part of what is important to them. They love to be patronized.

Liberals, since they thrive on emotion, are able to sustain that political emotion much longer then Conservatives. Why let pesky facts get in the way of a good contact high? This is what leads to Bush Derangement Syndrome. This is what leads to their Blame America First attitude. This is what leads to believing that Blacks were eating Blacks in New Orleans after Katrina. This is what leads folks like Howie Dean to say “I hate Repulicans and everthing they stand for.” Because not all emotion is positive.

Even the Ron Paul rEVILution (yeah, I meant to spell it that way) folks are loosing their emotional interest. The joke in the right-o-sphere was that all one had to do was right a negative post about Paul to get some quick traffic from the Ronulans. That has slowed down quite a bit.

Fortunately, Conservatives did not have to deal with that need to sustain emotion during the 2004 elections. We knew who our guy was. Can we ramp up the emotion once the primaries are done with, and it is still months and months till the general election?

Personally, I cannot get much emotion going. I know that I am going to vote for whoever the GOP puts up in 2008, because, no matter what their faults, we would at least get something out of them, as opposed to Democrats, who would give us only things we hate.

The interesting counterpoint is, can Liberals sustain their emotion through till November 2008? Particularly if Hillary is the candidate. So many have invested so much emotion into the B. Hussein and Silk Pony candidacies, can they do the same with Hillary? In 2004, they were able to sustain the emotion because they were campaigning against W, not because they were for Senator Bunny Suit. No matter how they try to amp themselves up, sooner or later they will get that Bush is not running, and they will have to focus on their candidate versus the GOP candidate. And, most likely, that they have a candidate that quite a few of them do not like, and a good chunk of America does not like, either.

They could end up with B. Hussein, of course, and then they would have sustain their emotion to support someone whose biggest accomplishment in government is…….what the hell has he done in government, anyhow?

Silk Pony? Not going to happen.

Anyhow, 5 random thoughts

1. a minivan is not a Corvette. Give it up. Even those stickers the Manning not in the Playoffs recommends won’t help.
2. speaking of that Manning, you think Colts fans are going to be pleased with that new Mastercard commercial where he says he is bummed about blowing the Playoffs?
3. that’s not a parking place
4. Is Michelob Ultra even really beer?
5. Why haven’t you seen Cloverfield yet? (I’ll vote for any candidate that has)

Go Giants!

Cross posted at Right Wing News