Modern political sickness: gaffephobia
Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 10:52AM On Morning Joe this morning the pundits were criticizing empty, stale political talk coming from the candidates, with neither candidate taking a risk to be real and soar rhetorically. It's no wonder that politicians at this high level of scrutiny are super-careful regarding what they say. Media has made it a full time sport to catch sentences in isolation and display them 24/7 as gaffes. The media source who catches the biggest gaffe wins, but the candidate who creates the biggest gaffe loses. Obama and Romney have a psychological illness we'll call gaffephobia -- the fear of a gaffe being caught by media that is so big the election is lost.
The only way to prevent this game from causing inane political chatter from monopolizing the campaigns is to not play the game. The way to win an election in the future might be through risk-taking -- just let it rip and let the public know that you are speaking honestly, and if you make a mistake, you'll admit it and move on, but you won't play gotcha-gaffe with the media. The voters who count and can make a difference in who wins or loses, mainly thoughtful voters, will understand and respect the person who's first to be real. But then I'm not a political operative, so what do I know?
