NR’s Robert Costa and Battle ‘10 have already weighed in on the crass outburst from Rep. Pat Murphy in remarks to union members in Pennsylvania’s southeastern 8th district.
But aside from the obviously distasteful manner of Murphy in voicing his frustration and discontent with a re-election effort that’s 14 points behind challenger Fitzpatrick, it’s worth comparing the two men’s styles directly.
Take a look at both men, one current congressman and one former congressman, and their two very different manners of speaking to their respective bases about one another, in twenty seconds each (language warning):
We know members of both parties, in their own ways, feel desperate about America, and for different reasons, both sides are angry, and both are frustrated, and yet there’s a tremendously different vernacular employed by each man.
And what’s significant is that in each clip above, each man is addressing his base, his core group of supporters.
Does that say anything fundamental about the parties, or about the state of political discourse of potential for reasonable disagreement? No, probably not, but it does tell voters something important about the temperament of the men who they would send on their behalf to the halls of power in Washington.