The New Political Catchphrase: "Unqualified"

With unsavory organizations like the Municipal League of King County weighing in on candidates, and trying to justify their stated purpose by making, at times, questionable examples out of the handiest people's candidates (read non-Establishment) that they can find, and other instances, like Hillary Clinton's campaign calling out a decades long professional politician, like Bernie Sanders, with this epithet, "unqualified" is the handy new catchphrase for oppositional politics, rather than just saying that you don't like a certain candidate because of his or her political philosophy/background, or that you simply want the office for yourself or your candidate.  You hear it all the time, now, whereas in past years, not so much. 

This is merely a new tactic where people think they can gain an advantage by effectively saying that the candidate they don't support is too stupid for whatever office is being voted on.  In past years, people used to have too much ethics or class to stoop to that level, unless they really believed it was true.  Nowadays, hollering "unqualified" is just another ploy that politicos sell; and the sad part is, they seem to be making headway with it, especially when this negative outlier is used against a candidate that's never held office before (I think it was P.T. Barnum who said there's a sucker born every minute).  We, as voters, however, can be smarter than to fall for this relatively new bag of tricks.

-- Mark Greene (F.W. Exploratory Mayoral Committee)

Related post: Unholy Alliance: the Mirror and the Municipal League of King County

[Revised on 10/27/16.]

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