The energy of one’s deductions equals the mass of one’s convictions times the speed of induction squared
Sharron Angle, Mitch Fox and Harry Reid (K.M. Cannon)
Someday someone needs to set down the general theory of political relativity to explain why so many can observe the same event and see such vastly different things.
The event is what it is — such as the Reid-Angle debate. It is your frame of reference that determines what you see. None of the observers is stationary. All are themselves in motion at different velocities, in different directions along the political spectrum’s shift from red to blue and beyond.
It matters also which senses the observer is using. Those listening to Kennedy-Nixon on the radio thought Nixon won, while those watching on television thought Kennedy won. I’m not sure there was such a split on the Reid-Angle tussle, since neither had a 5 o’clock shadow.
Those who heard Reid describe the Keynesian attempts to stimulate the economy with massive government spending and were already traveling in that orbit at a similar velocity felt comfortable with the companion traveler. Those striking off along the path of von Mises and Hayek saw a vector shooting away from them in a dangerous direction. And vice versa when Angle described her stance on insurance mandates.
One person hears a resonating chord, the other dissonance.
The message has less to do with the messenger and most to do with the vector, velocity and mass (relative thickness) of the observer.
Those already aligned with either Reid or Angle were not bumped out of their orbits, the question is whether those traveling in orbits in between were gravitationally pulled one way or the other. Those are called undecideds, the political asteroids wandering aimlessly around the galaxy of ideas, occasionally bumping into things and causing the extinction of large lumbering beasts.
As for Harry Reid being quoted by the Sun saying he wasn’t aware of any journalists or pundits who declared Angle the winner in the debate, that’s what we call a black hole.
