The above ad (ironically entitled "Trust") by the McDonnell campaign in many ways epitomizes this entire gubernatorial campaign. It also leaves me almost gasping in admiration at McDonnell's sheer chutzpah. I use the word "chutzpah" on purpose, by the way, because I think it perfectly captures what's going on here. First, courtesy of Wikipedia, here's what "chutzpah" means (bolding added by me for emphasis):
Chutzpah...is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The word derives from the Hebrew word ḥuṣpâ (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence", "audacity", and "impertinence." The modern English usage of the word has taken on a wider spectrum of meaning, however, having been popularized through vernacular use, film, literature, and television.And all that is what we've got here, and in the McDonnell campaign as a whole. Thus, we've got:
In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behavior with no shame. But in Yiddish and English, chutzpah has developed ambivalent and even positive connotations. Chutzpah can be used to express admiration for non-conformist but gutsy audacity. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to." In this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and a grudging admiration.
*A Washington Post article on Bob McDonnell's thesis, one that he wrote, one that he himself raised in an interview with Post reporter Amy Gardner, and one that he worked to implement during his years in the General Assembly. Yet somehow it's an "attack" on McDonnell for the Deeds campaign to let voters know what Bob McDonnell's own views are! Now THAT is chutzpah!
*In the ad itself, I'd give McDonnell extra credit chutzpah points for not only using women to counter his own assertions - sorry, "attacks" from the Deeds campaign - that working women are a "detriment" to the family, but using a series of working women to do so.
*Even more chutzpah points: not only does McDonnell have seven working women in this ad rebutting the supposedly "false" and "dishonest" "attacks" on him for his own words, he's got two African American women and even one woman identified as a "victims advocate" (subliminal messaging: Bob McDonnell is a "victim" of Creigh Deeds' "attacks?").
*Finally, overall chutzpah points go to McDonnell for the latest ad in a long, disciplined campaign to convince the people of Virginia that he's not a Pat Robertson radical but a "moderate."
If all this doesn't qualify Bob McDonnell for "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance" (in a word, "chutzpah"), I don't know what possibly could. Unfortunately, chutzpah is often effective. Let's hope it isn't in Virginia 2009.
UPDATE: Great Blue Heron has more on how this ad is "false" and "dishonest."
