The Ignorant Investor

Josh Marshal of the hugely popular blog Talking Points Memo posts a message from a reader named DB:

Based on what I was feeling, there were two turning points for Clinton in the past week. One was a report that people were chanting "Iron my shirt" at her during a rally. The other was John Edwards' idiotic statements about Clinton tearing up at an event. Mix that in with the subtle media digs at Clinton's gender in recent months (descrptions of what she's wearing, how she "emasculates" men, etc.), and I think you had a tremendous push back from women, and men, who are tired of the misogyny underlying this campaign. It swayed me toward Clinton the past few days, even as I cheered for an Obama coronation.

Now put aside the silliness of the idea that this person is, as he or she claims to be, an Obama supporter. One of the commonest rhetorical tricks in the comments section of political blogs is the claim that, "I actually am a supporter of X, but in this case Y is getting a raw deal" or "Up til now, I support X, but Y has really gotten my notice with this new [insert speech, talking point, crying jag here]. The point is to give the commenter the appearance of distance and impartiality. It's against my interest to admit this, the commenter appears to say, so you can't just dismiss my view as partisan. It's a tired old trick that I wish would go away.

DB claims to be pulling for Hillary here, in part because of a single guy yelling "iron my shirt" at a Clinton rally. Not her health care proposals. Not her record on Iraq. Just because one guy yells at Hillary during an event. Because John Edwards didn't react in the right way. Because the media was mean to her. Picking a president for the next four years, and the key details this person focuses on are trivialities.

That's the nature of the political market. The Hillary Brand has a lot of loyal customers. They love the emotional moment delivered with a big helping of hokum. They don't like the authenticity of such a moment to be questioned.