What Rick Thompson's TV Ad Says About The Effectiveness Of West Virginia's Liberal Elite

Rick Thompson's first TV ad of his gubernatorial campaign is a testament to the utter failure of West Virginia's liberals and progressives to influence Democratic politics in any way. So indifferent is Thompson to what Howard Dean called "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" that Thompson feels free to skip the primaries altogether and just go ahead and run a general election campaign now.


For the sake of West Virginia's liberal enclave on Charleston's East End, I'll describe Thompson's TV ad so they won't have to admit that they watch TV to know what's in it. Thompson's ad opens with him clawing at a red acoustic guitar singing "I Saw The Light" while a narrator tells us that Thompson was raised by his grandparents in a house without running water. Later, the narrator tells us, Thompson used his first Army paycheck to buy his grandparents their first telephone. The Thompson ad is all conservative dog whistles. Perhaps for his follow up ad he'll hire Delaware's unsuccessful Tea Party Senate candidate, Christine O'Donnell, to look into the camera and say "Rick Thompson's not one of those East End Unitarians, atheists or Chris Hedges Protestants, he's you."


If Rick Thompson had already won the Democratic nomination and were running against liberals in the general election, nobody would think much of it, but the fact that Thompson is running against us in April and that none of the so-called Democrats are courting us means only one thing: it means that what West Virginia's liberal elite have been doing isn't working. Yeah, it turns out that just as a "network marketing" company doesn't make money unless somebody actually meets a customer and sells some soap, liberals can't win any elections by adding other liberals to their "downline". 


West Virginia liberals aren't even very good at inviting other lefties to their "rallies", "protests" and boring meetings. West Virginia liberals are good at starting "organizations" that don't actually do anything but nobody's selling any soap. 


When Dr. Clotaire Rapaille (The Culture Code) wants to "decode" a culture, he imagines what an impartial "little green man" might conclude about Earthlings from the rites, ceremonies and customs of human beings. What conclusions would an impartial little green man draw about the effectiveness of West Virginia's liberal leadership and liberal organizations when he sees Democratic candidates running general election campaigns in April?