The Original Cyberpunk shares his wisdom with the liberal masses:
SEVEN LESSONS FROM LAST WEEK’S ELECTIONI meant to write a column about hunting, but when I came back from deer camp last night I found my inbox stuffed with anguish-filled wails from longtime liberal friends. In hopes of helping them on their journeys through anger and denial, then, I will defer my intended column and instead write a few carefully chosen and, I hope, healing words that will, God willing, help them to make some sense of the horror of it all.
Lesson 1. Senators don’t win the Presidency. Governors do. You have to go back to John F. Kennedy to find someone who made the leap directly from the Senate to the White House, and even “Doonesbury” now admits that the 1960 election was a squeaker that was stolen on behalf of Kennedy by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s Cook County Democratic machine. If you want to win the Presidency, stop nominating liberal senators, and instead, nominate moderate governors. If you can find any in your party.
Lesson 2. If your candidate is a lifelong wuss, don’t bother trying to pump him up with injected machismo and outdoorsy photo ops. It didn’t work for Carter, it didn’t work for Dukakis, and it still doesn’t work now. You’re not fooling anyone by putting your candidate in a Carhart’s jacket, so stop trying.
Good night, good luck, win awards. Whatever. Do what you do. Do it well.