In the world of Republican math, you can come up with any figure that suits your needs, and if you're a respected Republican strategist like Frank Luntz, no one will question the authenticity of your statistics. You can also use an ill-received soundbite to sneak in some of the most psychotic people into Congress with only smoke and mirrors. Of course you never mention how utterly unfit they are to lead a troop of Cub Scouts, much less a nation. Luntz, the mastermind of the diabolical strategy to make President Obama a failure in 2009, issued what had to be the biggest lie of the year, next to all the Ebola hysteria.
First effective soundbite that worked for the GOP: Washington is broken. Who broke it? The 112th and 113th Congress, with more filibusters than ever before in Congress' history.
The next big thing in 2014 was the success of Joni Ernst. He praised the newly elected asylum patient and Senator Elect from Iowa for her squealing hog ad. He left out the fact that she didn't allow a single reputable source of journalism to conduct an interview. She won almost entirely because of one ad, and this might be true, sadly, as the Democrats weren't able to find a catchy enough slogan to beat her. She will easily supplant Michele Bachmann as the craziest woman in Congress.
She carries a gun—"a beautiful little Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter"—with her "virtually everywhere," just in case she needs to defend herself "from an intruder" or "from the government," of which she is now an elected member.
The piece de résistance had to be the next statistic Luntz pulled from his ample derrière. President Obama, in early October, said
Make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them.
Luntz believes this was far more effective than anything the Republican party could conjure up on their own. While discussing the monumental devastation President Obama's pronouncement (taken completely out of context), Frankie's math skills would make a third grade teacher cringe.
Barack Obama had a 40% approval rating on Election Day, that allowed
60% of Americans to say, 'enough is enough, I'm going to vote Republican.'
Only 36.4% of eligible voters participated in the midterms, which were the most poorly participated elections in SEVENTY years. Surprisingly, as you would never guess if your channel was stuck on Fox Infotainment News, some of the races were exceedingly close. So if you take, and I'm being generous, 52% of that 36.4%, you come up with, at best 19% of eligible voters, which is a tremendously lower figure than Luntz's 60%!
Lastly, the other "Ebola" the Republicans mercilessly exploited was the fact that ISIS (ISIL) "does not present an imminent threat to this nation," as Mark Udall, the outgoing Democratic Senator from Colorado unfortunately said. He mentioned the names of two of the beheaded Americans, James Foley and Steven Sotloff and later regretted that mistake. ISIL represents a threat to Americans, but not in THIS country. He was not specific enough, so the GOP capitalized on his mistake and elected Cory Gardner, another maniac.
2014, especially the midterms, was unpleasant enough, and we all can certainly do without Luntz's gloating. Here's to hoping I can write an article much to the contrary in two years time.
