Political Fall Guys

In this day and age of hypersensitivity (and I wish it weren't so, but that's where we are right now) time and time again we've seen people involved in this campaign or that one say something "terrible" and then resign from the campaign.

I just thought of this -- so I can't imagine the political machines haven't thought of it.

What you need to do these days to conduct a "negative" campaign is recruit a sufficiently large number of people who are willing to be "fall guys" for your campaign. It might even be their only contribution. You recruit them, they hang around for a while, and then one day they are told "we need somebody to say this."

Well, candidate X wears purple polka-dotted underwear.

The media gasps. The pundits pontificate. Your comment gets publicity. The fall guy resigns. The damage has been done. The candidate condemns the comment. Wink, wink; nod, nod. On the inside. But on the outside, it's solemn head wagging and lip biting.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Make sure you have enough fall guys to make all the charges you want to make, but not make.

Contribution in kind.

Or would that be contribution UN kind? ;-)