Ditch the Surrogates
source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/09/ditch_the_surrogates.html
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- starr111
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I have a different reaction from Jonathan to Carly Fiorina, as much fun as she’s added to the campaign: Both candidates should declare a surrogate cease-fire. Surrogates are the loose nukes of political campaigns, except more likely to detonate. To be precise, more likely to detonate themselves. Campaigns are the collateral damage. The toxic fallout wafts over cable shows for days. Surrogates create an atmosphere of Mutually Assured Embarrassment -- without the deterrent effect.
Surrogates have always played a campaign role, but the 24/7 news cycle of cable TV amplified by the Internet has made them more ubiquitous, and therefore more dangerous, than ever. How many times during this race have candidates’ messages been forced off-track by a surrogate gone astray? As with weaponry, the question becomes: are they worth the risk? Can a rational campaign safely bet that its surrogates are more likely to hit the target than the other sides’?
The 2008 Surrogate Wars suggest not.
Surrogates have always played a campaign role, but the 24/7 news cycle of cable TV amplified by the Internet has made them more ubiquitous, and therefore more dangerous, than ever. How many times during this race have candidates’ messages been forced off-track by a surrogate gone astray? As with weaponry, the question becomes: are they worth the risk? Can a rational campaign safely bet that its surrogates are more likely to hit the target than the other sides’?
The 2008 Surrogate Wars suggest not.
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