CT Blue

Things not to do:

When you are campaigning as an anti-big government candidate, never, never actually get specific about what you intend to do. Certainly never let the victims beneficiaries of your anti-government zeal know how your policies are going to affect them.

Case in point, Minnesota Republican Gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who recently proposed that big government should lighten up on small restauranteurs by reducing the minimum wage for tipped employees, many of whom, according to him, were pulling in a 100 grand or more a year while their employers were inches from bankruptcy.

Poor Emmer may never get to be governor now, because for reasons only he can’t figure out, those waiters and waitresses (hereafter, sporadically, “waiters”, sorry but there’s no good non-sexist term) aren’t willing to believe his protestations that he didn’t mean what he said, particularly because if you listen to the protestations, he still really means it.

If the man were a pro, he would have railed against big government, maybe even posed with one of those waiters, and promised, with the bemused or smiling (depending) waiter beside him, that he would free that person’s employer from the dead hand of big government that was preventing the business from thriving. Then, a good half, more or less, of those waiters and waitresses would have voted for him, along with half of those waiters and waitresses close friends and relatives. Once in office, he could have stuck it right to those folks and they would never know what hit them.

Now, poor guy, he may never get the chance.

I’ve always thought the flaw in Honest Abe’s formula is that, in a democracy, you only have to fool most of the people most of the time. But you have to put at least a little effort into fooling the people, even American people. Emmer has failed on that score, and, especially for a Republican, that is a mortal sin.