Max Boot writes in the LA Times:

“How can you tell if a political party is brain-dead? Easy. It spends an entire campaign denouncing the incumbent as a smarmy, good-for-nothing liar, rather than outlining its own agenda. The Republicans tried it against Bill Clinton in 1996, the Democrats tried it against George W. Bush in 2004, and now in Britain the Conservatives (tried) it, with equal lack of success, against Tony Blair.

Such a tactic is beguiling because, to True Believers, the other side’s triumphs are never on the up and up; they must be the result of hoodwinking the hapless electorate. The problem with this approach was pointed out to me by a political strategist last week: “Voters think all politicians are liars. So telling them that someone is a particularly effective liar doesn’t work.”"

This sounds right — the “liar” strategy never works because people expect it and discount it. The problem for the opposition is that one person’s “smarmy, good-for-nothing liar” is another’s popular and effective politician. So 35% of voters are True Believers and will vote with the opposition no matter what, 35% will vote with the incumbent, and the remaining 30% don’t buy into the opposition’s “he’s a big liar” approach and are beguiled by incumbent’s skills.

(To play this thought out further, when the True Believers lose, they get angry and continue to make bad decisions — see: Republicans attempting the impeachment of a popular president, circa 1998, or Democratic party chairman Howard Dean, circa now)

(hat tip on the quote: Instapundit)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 6th, 2005 at 11:34 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Big Thoughts, Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.