It makes a big difference. Do you hear the Left making a big deal about P.J. O'Rourke (as far as I can tell, the only bona fide conservative satirist worthy of the name)? No. That's because the Left understands satire.

Also, as I had pointed out to me in a personal matter, once you step out voluntarily onto the civic stage, you make yourself a public figure, and after that, all kinds of scrutiny can be given to your personal life by the press, both large and small. In my case, it was a man with a camera who kept snapping my picture to put in his privately circulated anti-abortion newsletter. We solved the problem by taking his picture every time he put his camera to his face. Obviously, a major player like your governor can't do that.

Doonesbury is a comic. Every one of its characters, with the exception of Mike Doonesbury, is over the top. The funniest thing about this is, some newspapers took Doonesbury out of the funny pages because it has an openly gay couple, and so forth and so on, and is therefore considered unsuitable for children. Never mind that the kids didn't get it. Where did they put it? The opinion page. Now a bunch of people who don't (apparently) understand what satire is believe this is "news" because it's on a news page. It isn't. You'd think that grown-ups would know the difference.

Of course, Voltaire was a satirist, too, and he outraged many entrenched aristocrats. Their outrage contributed to his popularity. Think about that for a while.

Regards--
Mary Anne