The Silly season of politics

The Silly season of politics

Aug. 17, 2012                        Ken Bickers

Whether it’s the press reporting a gaffe by Vice President Joe Biden or President Obama demanding to see Mitt Romney’s tax returns or Mitt Romney claiming ObamaCare is being paid for at the expense of Medicare, most of the mud slinging between the presidential campaigns just a few weeks before the convention is meaningless, says Ken Bickers, CU-Boulder political analyst and professor. It’s a period he calls the silly season of politics.

CUT 1  “Right now we are kind of in a news quiet period. The Olympics have ended. There are not a lot of people that are not paying attention to politics. It’s one of the reasons we seem to be in the silly season of making a big deal about gaffes. Joe Biden making gaffes is not a new thing. (:19) The general pubic really is more interested in being on vacation and finding a cool place in the shade to have an ice-cold beer and read a novel or something.” (:28)

As for polls that show one candidate ahead of the other in this state or that state, Bickers says it’s too early for those polls to forecast the election.  He says the time to really take stock in polls is after the conventions when campaign strategies will be more defined.

CUT 2 “Right now what’s going on is the campaigns are fending off the goofy silly attacks, trying out the main lines of argument, trying to insulate themselves against later attacks. (:14) Once we get past Labor Day and the two conventions then people should start paying more attention to the horse race polls.” (:21)

But Bickers does find it interesting that the Romney camp is claiming that Obamacare is being paid for at the expense of Medicare. He says the reason for this is that it’s really hard for Mitt Romney to argue against ObamaCare when what he had pushed in Massachusetts some years ago ended up looking very much like a model for ObamaCare. But this way Romney can claim there is a difference between the plans.

CUT 3 “Now there’s a difference.  It’s that Medicare was used to fund ObamaCare by the current administration and the Romney people say that’s not how they would use the Medicare monies.(:13) So an argument about which team will better protect Medicare when Obama has already taken $700 billion out of Medicare really plays to the Romney-Ryan campaign strength.” (:29)

-CU-