"Weird," Or The Hit Dog Yelps

     In the latest round of playground-level political struggle, politicians from one party are calling politicians from another party "Weird," and the politicians being so labelled don't like it.

     Their party's been calling the other party's office-holders and candidates "Weird" for years now, so....

     So 'scuse me if I can't muster much sympathy either way.  Weirdness is in the eye of the beholder; an oddball notion in Duluth is plain horse sense in Manhattan, and vice versa.  What wise heads nod in agreement over in Chicago may be risible nonsense at a hog farm two hundred miles down the road.

     Single-issue and ideology-motivated people are often hard workers, who show up for their party, whichever one it is, and put in the long, low-paid or unpaid hours to get things done.  They're quite often weirdos.  So count on it: your party is weird, at least at at various times, in various places, and over various issues.

     If a politician gets slapped with "Weird" and it sticks, especially with the vast, barely involved middle of American politics?  Ooops.  They probably are, are least a little.

     The old observation was that candidates catered to their base in the primaries, and edged to the middle in the general election.  That model's broken these days, but to many people, not moving towards the center looks, well, weird.  With polls showing near-parity in the high forties-percent range for the Presidential race, engaging the moderate middle's going to tip the balance.  Not being perceived as weird is going to matter.

     Look for a slap-fight in soundbites over this, silly as it seems.