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The Republicans and the corporate media focus in marginalia because they don't want the public thinking about substantive issues. Why? Because conservatives flatly can not win that discussion--the Republican Party in its current incarnation is bankrupt of ideas. Its answer to economic times both threadbare and flush is tax cuts. Its answer to foreign policy questions both nuanced and urgent is force. When someone supplies the same answer to any condition, they have no answer at all.
It's an insult to the public intellect that conservatives focus on trivialities, and both Clinton and Obama should attack that. The implication is that Americans are too stupid to understand complex policy questions, and thus must focus on the trite and meaningless.
