Comment on The Belmont Club,"Gordon Brown on the ropes"

Americans should recognize the techniques in Labour's Alinskyite campaign to personalize and destroy David Cameron. For years now the British Left have imported American Left Wing media experts to work on their elections. Does anybody know what David Axelrod and Company are up to? The tired program of guilt by third degree association is no longer as effective as it was for two reasons.

1. Repetition has bred resistance in the target population. That is offset by the fact that some have been in fact trained to respond faster without even needing all the messy logical blanks filled in.

2. The looming crisis has focused the attention of the voters and made them less vulnerable to manipulation by distraction than they were in the boom years.

As a tactic we have seen the efforts to vilify by association with persons associated with offensive groups used in politics, internet blog wars and high profile divorces. One problem with the tactic is that it cheapens our sense of outrage and allows some manipulative threats to pass. There are real hate mongers and extremists out there but attempting to demonize the Leader of the Tory party because he associates with the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia demeans Labour and weakens the ability to confront genuine extremist threats.