Marketing Propaganda to the Brainwashed in the Midterms

Patty Murray has been a senator for thirty years. I wish she would retire, but, since she didn't and is running for her sixth term, I hope she wins the election. Her opponent, Tiffany Smiley, is running a highly effective campaign by marketing propaganda to lure those who can be brainwashed into voting for her to do so. Much of her marketing is devoted to associating Murray with Pelosi and Biden, which is true. They are all Democrats, so they all likely vote for the party platform when things come up for votes.

What would also be true, then, is that instead of aligning with Pelosi and Biden, she would align with Boebert and Greene, and would join others like Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz in bringing back Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader. Like Boebert and Greene, Smiley is a relatively young mother who touts her family values. Like Walker, you don't learn anything when she speaks. Like Dr. Oz, she is relying on a gullible audience that she can peddle her snake oil to. However, that is how marketing works. It is also how propaganda and brainwashing work.

What we have here, folks, is a failure to communicate, which is part of her strategy.

Washington state is a stronghold for the Democratic party. The marketing team behind Smiley knows she is swimming upstream just because she is a Republican. The last Republican to be elected to the Senate from Washington was Slade Gorton in 1994. He had previously been elected twice to the statewide office of Attorney General. This is the first time that Smiley has run for any elected office. She has no track record, so she can be whoever the marketing people can convince us that she is, which they do by not telling us who she is.

There is an effective marketing strategy that people who study communication call lying by omission. Smiley uses this by never saying that she is a Republican in any of her advertising. Being Republican doesn't sell in Washington state, nor does aligning oneself with the likes of McConnell and Trump. She isn't lying by saying she is against the radical faction of the GOP when she is truly supportive of it. She says nothing about her affiliation to the party or her support of the party's platform. She only says that her opponent votes with Pelosi and Biden, which, if Smiley wouldn't, means she would vote with McConnell.

There is nothing about Tiffany Smiley's reputation as a veteran's advocate and caregiver to her husband who served as the first blind officer in the US military to attack. Her story is phenomenal. It is wonderful for marketing purposes, provided they do not talk about how important Murray was to Smiley's advocacy for caregiving funding for veterans in 2018.  It was a bipartisan bill that Murray voted for. We can't draw a conclusion as to how she would vote on a bill affecting veterans based on that bill.

There was a bill in the last Congress, though, that did have a partisan reaction to a partisan action. The bill was designed to include care for those whose ailments are likely caused by toxins they were exposed to from open burning pits, Agent Orange, and a few other things. It was passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and sent to the House. The House made one significant change. Instead of designating the money to fund the bill as "discretionary spending," they returned the bill to the Senate with the funding designated "mandatory spending." Every Republican senator voted against the bill with that change.

Would Smiley have voted for veterans or with Republicans? This is an important question for her to answer because the Republicans would prefer to privatize the VA. There would be a lot of money in it for their sponsors. One of the ways to make it appear that programs aren't working is to approve them and then not fund them. 

Now, I don't want to accuse Smiley of saying one thing but meaning something else because that is really the work of her marketing people. I don't doubt for a minute that Smiley is a likeable person who is devoted to her husband and children. However, I do doubt that she will be an independently thinking Republican. I think she will be a Republican and will vote in line with McConnell's directives as she will be expected to do with all the money the party spent marketing her. She would have voted with the party instead of with veterans because, otherwise, she would be voting with Pelosi and Biden.

Though I hate to admit to voting for an establishment Democrat, my vote in this election goes to Patty Murray. It is important for her to hold the seat for the Democrats so that they can get a majority sufficient to override the power trips of Manchin and Sinema by winning a couple of seats away from Republicans. If the Democrats can gain two seats in the Senate and hold the House, Biden promised they would codify Roe to uphold women's medical rights. Though it isn't the only issue at stake in the midterm elections, it is the most important issue that will be decided on election day. If Roe cannot be codified, abortion restrictions become state-to-state issues. 

Smiley has said before that she is against a national abortion ban. Again, though, she would either vote for the ban, or she would align herself with Pelosi and Biden and against her party. Being against a ban on abortions, and voting against a ban on abortions, are two different things. She places much more emphasis on voting against Pelosi and Biden, which is much closer to her saying that she would vote for the abortion ban since both Pelosi and Biden oppose it.

Patty Murray is not personally responsible for the condition of the world any more than are McConnell, Grassley, or any other individual, long-serving senator. Blaming Murray for everything while offering marketing slogans instead of solutions has been Smiley's marketing strategy. 

Well, that and not saying that she is Republican and would align herself with McConnell, because, as I said before, those things don't sell well in Washington state.