Pete Kaliner is the host of a daily radio talk show on Asheville’s WWNC (570-AM) that airs from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. This column features posts from his daily blog.

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The following was posted on Feb. 1:

I’m old enough to remember when leftists were worried about old people winning the U.S. presidency. 

But now... their top two candidates are Hillary Clinton — who would be 69 on Inauguration Day — and Bernie Sanders - who would be 75.

John McCain was 71.

So, while we were told by the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) that this was a legitimate issue in 2008, it is not in 2016.

Why?

Because it’s the message that matters here. Not the vessel.

Stephen Miller takes this up in a great piece at The Wilderness. (Or, is it “in The Wilderness”?)

It’s definitely worth your time to read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:

And the cavalry isn’t coming anytime soon for the Democrats: their most exciting fresh face just got elected to the Senate from Massachusetts at the dewy young age of 64.

But a culture-driven media knows that while they are unable to sell a candidate, they can still sell the message…no matter how unelectable, deranged, geriatric or preposterous the person they attach that branding to might be.

The only way to sell a radical ideology to an engaged youth electorate is to change the narrative as best they can without engaging more culturally relevant candidates like a Marco Rubio or Rand Paul, who are just as comfortable talking Public Enemy and Pink Floyd as they are foreign policy, and appeal on a personal level as a human being, not just a preachy elder.

My wife is a fan of the Ellen Degeneres show. And I must admit — some of the games she plays with the audience and her celebrity guests are very funny.

But Ellen has a bad habit of using her entertainment show to advance political messages.

And when she brings on politicians (for some reason, only Democratic ones), I notice exactly what Miller describes in his excellent analysis: 

If a suitable ambassador for that message won’t present themselves, culture media will create one. Sanders doesn’t know his Reddit from his Snapchat but he doesn’t need to.

As Bernie Sanders waited backstage of the Ellen show, a program producer was seen doing everything in her power stopping short of using a cattle prod to get Bernie to lighten up and dance (this was Ellen DeGeneres’ ongoing schtick for guests). He clearly wasn’t having any of it, and after he was introduced, he managed a few side steps and hand waves before reverting immediately back into “NO TOUCH” mode.

These tiny moments are parlayed into memes and gifs of “Bernie as old-man-hippie hipster” that thrive on social media, and are then picked up by a sympathetic cultural mainstream media desperately trying to either relive or re-engineer the 1960s.

The axiom is: “Politics is downstream of the culture.” And it’s why I believe the fights, memes, and narratives on social media matter. 

Pushing back matters.

And conservatives needs to be better at creating these types of “moments” for their candidates, too.

The following was posted on Jan. 21:

 Could Trump lose worse than Carter in election?

First, let me state up front that I know this information will not sway Trump supporters from their belief that the long-time donor to Democrats and the “GOP Establishment” billionaire developer will single-handedly save America from the Democrats and the Establishment GOP.

At this point, I am merely laying down my markers so I can come back later and say “This is what I warned you about.”

That being said....

Over at Right Wing News, John Hawkins makes the data-driven case that Donald Trump would almost certainly be wiped out in a general election worse than Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan:

 Despite the fact that Donald Trump talks about his poll numbers incessantly, nobody seems to be pointing out the fact that his favorability/unfavorability poll numbers with the general public are cataclysmically bad. If the fact that a poll shows that Donald Trump is ahead in some certain state is relevant, then the fact that other polls show he’s completely unelectable would seem to be relevant as well.

How bad are Donald Trump’s numbers with the general public? This bad.

Donald Trump has the same numbers that Jimmy Carter did early on in 1980. As you can see from the chart, Carter did improve his numbers a bit by election time, but he still lost in one of the biggest landslides in American history; 489-49.