It's come to this

After a lunch of Cajun chicken and shrimp, the participants returned to a classroom bursting with the energy of Kohut, Neffinger and Pendleton, the “KNP Boys” as Westen called them. The class leaders tossed markers and exclaimed, “Let’s diagram this!” They projected an image of a middle-aged woman — one of the instructor’s aunts, grinning in a kitchen — and then explained that the entire point of the course was to win over swing-voting aunts nationwide.

The key, they explained, was to ooze likability and reasonableness, and make their opponents seem otherwise. A talk-show host acts as a proxy for the viewer, they counseled, so it was critical to maintain a good rapport.

“Even if you are failing on a number of levels,” Pendleton said, all is not lost “if you have forward energy.”

Neffinger cautioned the class that Fox hosts would treat them as predictable liberals. “And so, as they say in the theater,” he said, “you are playing against type.”