Lotsa stuff flying around these days in the various Minnesota political campaigns. What is remarkable is the amount of vitriol and hatred that's in the air. If you want a look at the mood, I'd suggest you go over to the Star Tribune website (www.startribune.com) and look at the blogs, especially the blog by political writer Eric Black, and the one by metro columnist Katherine Kersten. Blog sites can be a wide-ranging place and the internet generally has been a free-fire zone, but it is simply amazing to see the raw anger and invective that's on display there. Kersten's new blog is especially amazing - her blog has been in business for about a week now and every time she posts a thing, a coterie of lefties immediately swarm to the post and post ad hominem comments. Kersten is an odd columnist - she's essentially a movement conservative who has spent a lot of time in the the world of think tanks, but she really engenders a lot of rage for some reason.
And I think that's really the story of this election cycle - people talk about passion and motivation for voters, but what I'm seeing is rage. There are really a lot of very angry people right now. The ads that the candidates have been running, especially in the Wetterling/Bachmann and Klobuchar/Kennedy races, have been just vicious. The Hatch/Pawlenty race is getting nasty, too. It's difficult to say what's going to happen, although I suspect that the winners will be Bachmann, Klobuchar and Pawlenty. I've always thought the concept of Minnesota Nice was somewhat specious, but it's pretty much gone, now.
No comments:
Post a Comment