Texas
Related: About this forumDan Patrick and Ken Paxton are Perfecting the Non-Campaign
In her 1988 campaign classic, Insider Baseball, Joan Didion wrote that political campaigns had little to do with democracy, and were not about affording the citizens of a state a voice in its affairs. Instead, the process was a mechanism seen as so specialized that access to it is correctly limited to its own professionalspolicy experts, reporters, pundits, pollsters, advisorsto that handful of insiders who invent, year in and year out, the narrative of public life.
In her essay, Didion coolly dissects the 1,001 bullshit ways Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush are manufactured as candidates, abetted by a media all too game to play along. But the meta-narrative she documents emerged from public performancesno one involved tried to hide what they were doing. (The title of the essay comes from an eerily contrived moment in which Dukakis tosses a baseball to his press secretary on an airport tarmac while reporters and camera crews diligently take notes for stories on Dukakis authenticity and toughness.)
This is simply how modern political campaignsat least high-level onesare conducted. Didions complaints now seem a tad antiquated, though still righteously spot-on.
But now comes a new twist: the art of the non-campaign. The candidate who doesnt even bother to put on a show, doesnt even pretend to reach the broad middle of the citizenry and instead appears behind closed doors to small groups of like-minded voters, if he or she appears in public at all.
Read more: http://www.texasobserver.org/dan-patrick-ken-paxton-art-non-campaign/
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)I should run for office. I know small groups of like-minded voters, and I'm pretty sure that I could master the art of "Non-Campaign".
I could just through my hat into the ring, say nothing, and everybody would be so intrigued, they would just have to vote for me.
What a freakin' concept. Ain't politics grand?
TexasTowelie
(112,167 posts)It's a shame that I can't have my name listed on the ballot under my nom de plume so that the opponents could dig up the dirt already filed under my actual name.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)my name is clear under whichever one I choose to run as.
Actually that is probably a detriment to win office in Texas.
Texas is a political mess.
Rest assured, you would have my vote. Be sure to PM me the name you will be running under. I will spread your credentials far and wide.
Take care darling.