Word: pinning
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...couple of hours, let us dream while we're awake. And it's not the worst idea to have stories that both address our intimate relationship with machines and allow us to feel good about the connection. In fact, it's downright American--not in the flag-lapel-pin sense but in the innocent summoning of the country's old virtues...
...Presidents and politicians of all stripes to pass the God and Country test; to sate the appetites of those in the public and press corps who want assurance that this person is a real, God-fearing American. It's the verbal equivalent of donning an American flag lapel pin: few notice if you do it, but many notice...
...other lately. There was his admittedly clumsy comments in a private fund raiser about "bitter" small-town voters who "cling" to religion and guns, questions about his association with a 1960s-era terrorist and nitpicking in a recent debate over why he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel...
...nobler reaches of your message. In his 1991 book, The Reasoning Voter, political scientist Samuel Popkin argued that most people make their choice on the basis of "low-information signaling" - that is, stupid things like whether you know how to roll a bowling ball or wear an American-flag pin. In the era of Republican dominance, the low-information signals were really low - how Michael Dukakis looked in a tanker's helmet, whether John Kerry's favorite sports were too precious (like wind-surfing), whether Al Gore's debate sighs over his opponent's simple obfuscations were patronizing. Bill Clinton...
...crippling his campaign. Obviously, this is strategy - his appeal has been the promise of a politics of civility (and as a black man, he wants to send low-information signals that he is neither angry nor threatening). But what if, after ABC had enabled the smarmy American-flag-pin question from an "average citizen," Obama had taken on George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson directly, "Why aren't you guys wearing pins? Why isn't Hillary?" Indeed, this was Clinton's strategy in an earlier debate, upbraiding her questioners from MSNBC - and it may have turned the tide in her favor...