Why do smart people like George Stephanopoulos (Ron Paul can’t win), Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer (drivers licenses for illegal aliens) make boneheaded plays?

George’s response to Ron Paul’s statement that his goal is to win–“That’s not going to happen.”–may end up as the first line of George obituary.

I have a stock analysis that I’ve trotted out to explain why the politicians in Buffalo do incredibly stupid things:

This applies, mutatis mutandis to the above:

The machine is out of touch with reality. Why? Several reasons. First, they have power over us, by definition. They’re bureaucrats and politicians. When you can force your will on others by means of political and legal power, you don’t need to know what those people might think and you therefore lose a critical element of feedback.

Second, the political class is shielded from the trials and tribulations of the daily struggle to survive economically in an economy they have destroyed. Getting a steady paycheck for thirty straight years with bennies puts you out of touch with how real people live and what they think, particularly what they think of you.

Third and last, but related to the first two points, though the political class talks to people constantly–on cell phones and at their lunch hours, they always talk to each other. They never talk to real people. Further, when soldiers talk to the higher-ups, the substance of the talk is usually boot-licking and so on.

In sum, one of the intangible advantages we have is that the political class around here is totally out of touch with reality which means they will continue to make boneheaded plays much to our advantage.

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