Getting Personal

I used to think that the tendency of liberals to vilify their enemies with such ferocity, was due to the threat that person posed to them. So for instance, Sarah Pailin represented a threat because she was a conservative woman. Worse, was that she was on the Republican running against an all male ticket of Democrats. They had to take her down HARD. Ted Cruz is Hispanic with better academic credentials than Obama. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law, clerked at the Supreme Court and was an international debate champion. So naturally he is a crazy radical.

But now, I'm starting to think that it's all because they need to personalize it. They have a hard time defeating ideas. They are not very good at fighting an idea. You have explain yourself, you have to use facts. They are much better at provoking emotions. And it is much easier to manipulate one's feeling about another person, than it is to manipulate their feelings about a concept.