When Republicans make campaign announcements, the press usually grab their pitchforks, light their torches, and proceed to run them down. Such was the case with Mika Brzezinski, who typified the Morning Joe crew’s response to Rand Paul’s announcement trailer with the question, "Isn't that kind of setting yourself up to fail?"
Brzezinski complained, "I just think these grandiose announcements with, you know, football fields full of people and a circle and the round or whatever Ted Cruz did and this, it's like where are you going to go from there? Down....Just because you can does not mean you should."
Politico's Mike Allen thought the Rand Paul slogan collapsed upon itself: "Rand Paul is going to unveil with his announcement tomorrow. 'Defeat the Washington machine, unleash the American dream'....There's just one problem with this, of course. Rand Paul last time I checked is a United States Senator and they actually work in Washington, D.C."
Brzezinski restarted the mockery: "Oh, so he's defeating his own machine. I'm confused."
Earlier in the show, MSNBC's Donny Deutsch also lamented the over-the-top rhetoric of the Paul trailer: " I wish there could be a candidates that would figure out the age of communications we live in, when you look at, you know just how smart, intelligent -- just [a] different tone, as opposed to this mindless 1950s ‘time for a new America’."
Scarborough agreed, "I like Rand. I like Ted Cruz....But...Ted Cruz had the, you know, trumpets blaring...I'm not knocking him and what we said, but it was like ‘we need a new America, an America that's as big as the open skies.’...But you had the same trumpets blaring...With Rand you had the same thing."
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post added his hopeful aspirations for a presidential candidate who abandons style for substance, "I think it’ll be fun to see a candidate try to do sort of the authenticity path to the White House, not go pomp and circumstance and just be straightforward and say ‘you know, I'm not going to over promise, I'm not going to under deliver. This is what you're going to get. And see if that works.’"
Nick Confessore of the New York Times compared contemporary campaign announcements to “an arms race, like how many American flags can you put behind you, you know, when you're announcing.”
These pleas for a substantive candidate might be taken more seriously were it not for the fact that MSNBC personalities heavily romanticized President Obama’s 2008 Convention in Invesco Field in Denver, Colorado, which featured at least twenty four large American flags, dual TV screens, as well as columns resembling ancient architecture...as in:
Instead of seeing MSNBC lament the larger-than-life spectacle, viewers were forced to watch anchors like Chris Matthews invoke tortured Biblical imagery to praise Obama’s political anointing, "You know, I’ve been criticized for saying he inspires me, and to Hell with my critics!...In the Bible, they talk about Jesus serving the good wine last. I think the Democrats did the same." Matthews went on to say that Obama’s convention was "an iconic night in history: we'll all remember this night as long as we live."
Keith Olbermann was little better in restraining MSNBC’s gushing adoration of the hyper stylized rock star of a presidential candidate, "For 42 minutes, not a sour note and spellbinding throughout in a way usually reserved for the creations of fiction. An extraordinary political statement."
To be fair to MSNBC, it is possible that nearly eight years of empty style has caused them to genuinely hunger for substance, causing them to react with fatigue.
Of course it’s also possible that Rand Paul provoked this reaction by having the "R" in front of his name and not tilting far enough to the left to get their blessing.
