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Opinion: Finally, D.C. change to believe in: DNC’s mop stunt really shows Republicans

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Those millions of Americans who sincerely voted last year for real change in Washington, to elect Barack Obama and Democratic legislators to end the kind of silly partisan pet tricks that both sides have been doing to get attention there for many years, will be delighted to learn that the Democratic National Committee has come up with a really clever strategy. And all apparently without adult supervision.

The committee’s PR folks sent out chortling news releases for nearly 24 hours Monday detailing what some activists -- they called them ‘concerned Americans’ -- would do and then did do in front of the RNC headquarters on Capitol Hill.

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The goal, of course, was to ensure that some TV cameras got there. Because if a political activity like this happens and no camera is there to record it, did it really make a sound?

Here’s what the new administration’s supporters did to help change the perennial partisan tone in the nation’s capitol and bring all sides together for a clean break with the past silliness, while delivering on the eloquent Illinoisan’s campaign vows of real change. Si se puede. They delivered a trio of mops to the Republicans so the now minority party responsible for the last eight years of mess can help clean it up.

Get it? Clean up the Capitol’s mess with mops. Wow, what a nifty visual! And on RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s 51st birthday too. What an original and refreshing break from the comedic playground acts of political operatives there in recent years.

Nevermind that Democrats have controlled Congress for the last three years. We’re still bashing President Bush, who’s so very gone that he’s off making a fortune talking to eager audiences around the world about his experiences.

See, the cleverness of this Democratic strategy is that it keeps the focus on the past. That way no one is talking about why the unemployment numbers are so stunningly high despite $787 billion in spending that Vice President Joe Biden has talked about so often to so many people.

Or what do we seriously need to do about the deteriorating mess in Afghanistan where one American soldier is now dying every 14 hours to no apparent political or strategic gain, while, in between multimillion-dollar fundraisers across the country, the well-paid suits safely in D.C. spend weeks talking in very secure rooms?

Or how come with the same Democratic Party today controlling every corner of the entire powerful White House apparatus, holding a whopping majority in the House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof 60-votes in the United States Senate, those same majority folks still can’t seem to get a viable, affordable healthcare reform bill passed?

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So, obviously today’s inaction and legislative logjam must be the fault of the country-club crowd that got tossed out on its collective, but well-clad keister 50 weeks ago. So, to some DNC staffers, the mop idea, apparently inspired by a recent....

...Obama speech reference (see video above), seems like a perfect symbol of change. How ridiculous that anyone ever worried that the wondrous ways of Washington would remain impervious to the 2007-08 campaign rhetoric about changing the tone of that one-time swamp, that a political city’s culture of symbolic stupidity couldn’t be changed by a simple election. Talk about silly, eh?

Next week perhaps the Democrats’ secret plan could involve egging the GOP parking lot and kidnapping the Republican mascot before the big Homecoming game.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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