The truth is, our electoral choices are frequently based on completely irrational feelings. No one understood this better than Newt Gingrich, who, just days before the 1994 election, sought to exploit the story of Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who drowned her young sons in the backseat of her car. Throwing logic to the wind, Gingrich called the crime “a sign of how sick the system is,” adding: “And I think people want to change. The only way you get change is to vote Republican.” Gingrich was roundly criticized for making this crude connection. But, on a gut level, he understood the impulse to lump all the bad things happening in our country together and seek a simple solution: vote for the party not in power. Twelve years later, the time-for-a-change shoe is on the other foot.
October 14, 2006 7:04 AM
