How to Run a Puritanical Election Campaign

Adapted from the Twitter feed. February 8, 2016.

Step 1: Treat the election as a moral rather than political question; demand same of others.

Step 2: Establish criteria for what's the moral position on every issue based on your own self-interested political goals.

Step 3: Pretend those self-interested political goals are neither political nor self-interested.

Step 4: Proclaim to all the world that your candidate and only your candidate meets every criteria.

Step 5: Nitpick your candidate's opponents' records for any failure to meet any of your criteria in any way.

Step 6: Ignore or be prepared to explain away inconsistencies in your candidate's record and campaign promises.

Step 7: Meet every argument against your candidate by begging the question or questioning the morality of the person you're arguing with.

Step 8: Always deny you're doing what you're doing and then do it louder, more forcefully, and with more smugness and self-congratulation.

Step 9: Take satisfaction in knowing you win even by losing.

Comments

[Winnie]

I especially enjoy how you don't name names yet I knew EXACTLY who you were talking about.