That One Thing

[viktor_haag]

It looks to me like it's possible that McCain's "That One" gaffe may just turn out to be one of those memes that will seal up his electoral doom. I'm sure that someone has talked about how things like this work (for another political example, the PC attack ads depicting Chretien's "crooked smile"), but it seems to me that this might be a sort of strange example of the tipping point at work: a teeny tiny, perhaps off-hand comment that acquires larger-than-life significance and acts a sort of memic or discursive fulcrum around which public opinion decisively shifts.

Can anyone point me towards any theory that examines this phenomenon?

Comments

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I groaned inside when I heard this too.

It seemed so much like a code word for something else a bigot would say.

::B::

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose it could have been a "sekret message" to some minority base of Republican support, but I wonder at the utility of that sort of rhetorical flummery. Not being in the club it only seemed to me like a pre-prepared witticism gone awry. Along with the "still don't have a dollar value on that fine!" quip.