The Casey | Santorum Debate Gambit

The Santorum campaign was hastily thumbing through "Campaigns For Dummies" recently and happened upon the "When all else fails, demand debates!" section. They actually challenged the Casey camp to 10 debates! Ten! As if this is a heavyweight title bout. Tell you what. No one would be left standing after the 4th round. And the spectators would be streaming for the exits hoping the bars were still open!

The entire debate gambit is nothing more than an attempt to get Casey on the record and to generate headlines. I'm not talking about "headlines" in the general sense. I'm referring to actual, printed-in-ink-and-splashed-on-the-front-pages type headlines. Headines above the fold in the Inky or the Morning Call or the P-G. Santorum and his media mokes want something, anything, which they can then excerpt and make a campaign commercial out of.

Let's say the P-G were to say, "Santorum Strong In First Debate." In ten minutes, BrabenderCox would be hacking together an ad that shares that headline with every voter in every media market in PA....even if it referred to Rick's body odor.

You get the point. Headlines make good commericals, because they appear to be unbiased and they carry a certain gravitas. Print may be dead, but we all know it's still the closest thing we have to real journalism! So those headlines are a prized trophy. Forget what was actually said in the debate. Forget the issues. Gimme a ripping good headline! Let's show 'em we've got the big mo going for us!

Well, here's my hope that the headline editors of this state's fine broadsheets and tabloids ("He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids") don't give either candidate an edge when it comes to headlines. I'm hopeful we'll see forty point type that says, "Casey and Santorum Debate," or perhaps even, "Santorum and Casey Debate." If so, I'll feel ducky. I will not, however, lower myself to actually wearing a duck costume.

However, I know this as well. Even if the headline doesn't make it into an ad, the body copy, carefully parsed and littered with ellipses, will.