BELTWAY CONVENTIONAL WISDOM-- IS IT EVER RIGHT?

A friend of mine, Matt Browner-Hamlin did a great piece on DC Insider conventional wisdom today. His conclusion is that even if Inside-the-Beltway CW is demonstrably wrong, that's no impediment from the talking heads-- especially for the really dumb ones on the networks with low-information/low end newsrooms like CNN-- to go right on and repeat it ad nauseum. Looks at Matt's examples:


• Democrats will lose when they talk about Iraq;
• Democrats will lose if they challenge Bush on security issues;
• Democrats need to win in the South to have a shot at the majority;
• Economically liberal candidates cannot win in socially conservative districts;
• If a Democrat is socially conservative, they are a "conservative";
• Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer have flawless candidate selection skills;
• The 50 State Strategy cannot succeed (in the short term);
• The Netroots cannot pick a winning candidate;
• Karl Rove is the smartest man to ever engage in electioneering;
• Rove's 72 Hour Strategy is unbeatable;
• Democrats can't get out the vote;
• The voting public can't tell the difference between spin and performance;
• Only lefty extremists support Ned Lamont.


The first, of course, was Emanuel's premise for sabotaging the primary campaigns of countless grassroots Democrats everywhere. He and his machine used it to destroy the campaigns of progressive and populist candidates across the country who were anti-war-- from Christine Jennings to Dave Lutrin. They attempted to sabotage Jerry McNerney, John Hall, Larry Kissell, John Yarmuth, Carol Shea-Porter and several others using this "CW." They managed to place their own Republican-lite candidates into several races, most of whom were defeated, in part because they offered no real choice on the war.

Actually, the more I look at these premises, the more I see they are nearly all the Emanuel hymnal that has been shown to have been wrong. The mass media, of course, is still singing these tunes.