Here we are, about 11 seconds into the General Election Campaign!!!! (TM), and we already have a delightful little scandal for each and every media personality to inspect and nibble on. The Hilary Rosen/Ann Romney kerfuffle is but a mildly tasty amuse bouche for the feast of gaffes, misspeaks and narrative-losing stumbles that will flash across our screens and news pages until November. With the current tempest, every news personality can sit in their respective teapots and ask: Does raising 5 seemingly normal, generally happy kids mean you've "worked a day in your life"? They'll ask Obama's campaign, since Obama is now responsible for all things Democrats say on the record; Obama 2012 will say, "Yes! Raising 5 kids is a lot of work! Good for Ann! Hilary Rosen is wrong!" The news personalities will ask Romney's campaign too, and they'll say, "Yes! Raising 5 kids is a lot of work! Shame on Obama for sending Hilary Rosen to insult Ann Romney!" Then the news personalities will go on-air, or to their blogs or what have you, and ask the $1 billion question: WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION!!!! (TM)?????
Here's the answer: it means nothing.
This scandal, and the vast majority of those to come between now and November, doesn't matter. They don't matter to me, or to stay-at-home moms who raise 5 kids, or to "job creators" in their myriad forms, or to our military brothers and sisters. The car elevator in Romney's new beach mansion doesn't matter. The president's daughter going to Mexico while another part of Mexico is under a State Department travel advisory doesn't matter. Romney's preference for particular dressage horses doesn't matter. Obama hugging a Harvard professor with controversial political views 21 years ago doesn't matter. Romney's failure to look and sound like a normal human being? Funny, but mostly irrelevant. Obama's ability to sing a lovely Al Green falsetto? Impressive, but really, who cares? They're all distractions from things that do matter.
I don't care if a politician can field dress an elk on-camera. Can they sit down at my kitchen table, go through my bills, and explain to me how their policy prescriptions will make those bills smaller?
You're running a Democrat running for office and your opponent's had 7 million affairs while railing against LGBT people ruining the sanctity of marriage? Fine, point out the hypocrisy, then tell me what you're going to do to bring equality under the law to same-sex unions of all types.
You're a Republican running for office, and you got rich in legal ways? Great! I don't give a shit if you have a trillion dollars and a solid gold house. Explain to me whether you think income inequality is a pressing issue in America, and what you think would fix it, and then let's have a debate on the merits of our arguments.
Look, I'm not naive. I get that politics is a game and a contact sport. I am a partisan. I just don't think that Mitt Romney's number of millions compared to Barack Obama's number of millions is as strong an argument against Mitt Romney for president as the regulations in place that allow him to accrue money at such an absurd tax rate. I don't think Mitt Romney's car elevator resonates with voters as much as his suggesting that the U.S. should have let Detroit go bankrupt. And I don't think that what some loudmouth on TV thinks about Anne Romney's choice of life's work can define the war on women as well as Mitt Romney's advocating the Blunt Amendment and the rollback of reproductive rights. When we snicker at whatever meme of the day caricatures Romney as out of touch, but don't point out what he's done as a politician, businessman or person to reflect his out-of-touchness, we are missing a big opportunity. When we reflexively dismiss a stupid, hysterical news story that makes Obama look bad and don't defend the president with real evidence of his and his opponent's true views on a subject, we're effectively walking into the boxing ring and setting our gloves down, hoping our sparring partner will get the hint to not punch.
So, fellow progressives, liberals, Democrats and sympathizers of all stripes: let's paint Republicans as out-of-touch, mean-spirited, hypocritical, lying, insensitive, misogynist, prejudiced, war-mongering zealots who hate government too much to run it; who are willfully ignorant of accepted arguments and evidence of spurring economic growth; who believe that America's most pressing issues lie in women's wombs and gay people's bedrooms; who think that expanding health insurance coverage is socialism but expanding unfunded tax cuts is patriotism; and who thought killing Osama bin Laden was a big deal until a Democrat did it.
Let's do it with their words, their actions, and their legislation. Who knows? If we do, the story might last longer than a single news cycle.