A guy campainging for Lyndon LaRouche (whose motto could be, "I don't know if I'm leftist or rightist, but I support evil for sure!") handed me a flier with the exhortation:

"Kick out the Leo Straussian Nazis in the administration!"

Now look, guy, I know you're handing out fliers in front of Barnes & Noble and all, but I just don't think a lot of people are particularly familiar with Leo Strauss. Certainly no one knew about him in a third-year class at a hot stuff liberal arts college until our professor explained him, and our reactions were generally along the lines of "Really? People think that?" (Briefly: Straussians are this weird group of academics who are basically anti-enlightenment and think that only a select group of people are predestined to find the hidden meaning of pre-modern philosophy, which they consider the pinnacle of human acheivement, and apply that to modern politics.)

Much as I would like to see "Straussian" become a popular insult, and as good of a peg as it is of the current administration, when your campaign posters claim that you "ARE ELECTABLE!" it may be time to turn to a electoral strategy more closely resembling prayer.
posted by Mike B. at 2:57 PM 0 comments