Well, the impeachment was an exciting overture. Next, the curtain will go up on the biggest show on earth. I am talking about the campaign for the November election, of course.
This will be a peculiar show. The performers will ignore two-thirds of the audience. Without appearing to.
Imagine a big musical on Broadway. Before the curtain goes up, the director asks audience members what they believe about certain subjects. Maybe 40 percent believe thus. He moves them to the seats on the left. Another 40 percent believe such. He moves them to the seats on the right.
“We hope you enjoy the show,” he tells the folks he moved left and right. “But our performers are going to ignore your reactions. They will aim the rest of the show at these wonderful folks in the middle seats. In other words, this show is for them.”
Back to our election. Maybe you are a member of the hardened core, left or right. You know today how you will vote come November.
On the left, you don’t care if the nominee is a walrus. It’s got your vote. On the right, you don’t care if Trump machine-guns kittens on the White House lawn. He’s locked in your vote.
If you are hard-core you can fantasize all you want. You can convince yourself the election campaigns really are aimed at you. They are not. No more than Mormon missionary messages are aimed at their converted.
The political show from here to November is aimed at only the swing voters. The persuadables. It is only their applause that will count. Their votes.
Each party employs armies of advisors to write their scripts. They will insert scenes and scrub songs. They will run lines on focus groups. Trying to test how the audience will react. They will line up critics to praise their part of the show. Or to pan their opponents’ part. So long as everything targets the swing voters.
This ain’t easy. Because our swing voters are all over the place. You cannot corral them.
Some are simply open-minded. They want to see the show play out before they will decide.
Some are so poorly informed they don’t know who is running. Some are indecisive types. They need ten minutes to choose if they want fries with that.
Some could give a damn. Some are secretive. They would not tell Gallup how they will vote if they faced a firing squad.
Meanwhile, the show will plod on. The actors, the politicians, will screech and weep, gnash and plead according to the scripts they are given. The party advisors and strategists will breakfast on the latest internal polls. They will write and re-write those scripts accordingly.
And all the while they will seek the answer to the almighty question: What argument works on the swing voters? What turns their kettles on?
Let us switch to another analogy. A military one. The parties bring big guns to the battle, of course. The Democrats deploy massive weapons. The firepower of Big Media.
They own the major networks. As well as the likes of the Washington Post, New York Times. They run the news services that feed papers across the country. They have Google and Facebook on their firing line too. And Hollywood-type celebs.
When you count major tv networks, the Republicans own only Fox News. They are certainly outgunned. Ahh, but they also deploy a swarm of guerillas. In the form of stealthy websites, talk radio and social media.
Do we have any indications of how our swing voters are moving at this stage? Maybe. The impeachment circus seems to have pushed more swing voters toward Trump.
But these are truly early days. The impeachment was only the overture.
Now for the rest of the show. Sit back and enjoy it. Even though it won’t be created and performed for you. Not if you count yourself among the hard-core.
You can still get a kick out of it. And you can hardly ignore it.
From Tom…as in Morgan.
Find Tom at tomasinmorgan.com. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com.