Political Cliches Are Dead in the Water

Mike Murphy puts a few old political saws to rest on today's New York Times op-ed page. The best one:

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL Tip O'Neill's observation is no longer true. Safe one-party Congressional seats in Boston 50 years ago were local, but only because a few thousand Democratic primary voters chose the winner.

In this election, all politics was global. The voters of Mishawaka and La Porte, Ind., were more influenced by the sectarian politics of Baghdad than by the election-eve announcement by their Republican congressman, Chris Chocola, that he'd gotten $1.4 million in federal money for a local mental health center. He lost.

Chris Matthews is weeping in the men's room right now--no longer sure about his admonitions to "dance with the one that brung ya" or if it's best to "only talk when it improves the silence." In other news, this is not the most negative campaign ever, nor did it all come down to turnout.

---