1. If your bitterest ideological opponents in the other coalition are saying that you have to follow their advice and support their policy preferences in order to avoid your doom, then you know you are getting bad advice. So don’t do what they want. Figure out what works for you.
2. Imagine if a Republican member of Congress had called President Obama an Uncle Tom. Now imagine that this Republican congressman claimed not to know that Uncle Tom was a racial slur despite having a degree from Harvard in . . . history. I suspect we would be seeing that member of Congress getting the full Paula Deen treatment and an explanation about what this tells us about the general insensitivity of Republicans and their propensity to tolerate bigots. As always the point isn’t just to point out media (which is more than press) bias. What are the consequences of this bias? What can be done to mitigate its effects?
Correction: Patrick Winkler is a state legislator.
