The RNC Tests The Politics Of The New

Since the November presidential election, the Republican National Committee has been entombed in a bit of psychological stasis. First, everyone there had to take a vacation, which slowed down the metabolism. Then, RNC chairman Mike Duncan decided to run for re-election, which complicates what the party can and cannot do, lest Duncan look like he's using the levers of power to help his campaign.

Most importantly, though: Republicans really had no idea whether the timeworn techniques that so quickly, in past years, would win them an audience with the media, well, whether they worked anymore, or whether the country's election of Barack Obama turned the traditional political games played by both party committes into relics of a past age. The stasis is reflect on the RNC's website, which still contains a campaign-era ACORN Tree" game designed to mock Obama's community organizing past and put the screws to ACORN.  Aside from a statement or two, the RNC's done nothing to assert its place in this new universe. Until this weekend, that is, when they released a new web video with the vague title "Questions Remain" about Obama's ties to the Blagojevich scandal. 

As with most web videos produced by party committees, the narrative is a tad intellectually dishonest: Obama endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 = --> Obama's knee deep in the current scandal.  But videolets like these aren't supposed to be honest; they're not supposed to reflect proudly on their creators; they're designed to get the press to run them for free, and designed to force the press to elevate the importance, relevance and salience of the loyal opposition here.  This process, whereby Obama's opponents are emboldened by transference, then creates a permission structure for other elements of the Republican base to ask these questions and get covered by the press when they do.

Now, this may accrue to Obama's benefit because in this new age (supposedly), nothing ruins a real scandal like old-style, easily-dissmissable partisan politics.

Or, if it works -- if the press uses the foothold provided by the RNC to ask these questions over and over -- maybe old habits die hard.

None of this is to say that the Republican National Committee has no right to ask questions about transparency; of course they do. It's just that their tactics seem very rusty, as if they're trying to catch a motorcycle with a Schwinn.