One of the things that Campaign Managers dread is that that moment when their candidate opens his or her mouth and says something that will divert the entire arc of the campaign. We are witnessing such a moment with Sue Lowden in Nevada. By now you have seen the video of her insisting that she did not misspeak when she said that patients should barter with their doctors instead of just paying or providing their insurance.

This insane proposition has been dissected and derided all over the Web and some on cable news shows. One point I haven’t seen is that while Ms. Lowden is right that farmers and ranchers used to trade live-stock for care, the level of care they were trading for was far less sophisticated than it is today. When you could bring a chicken to a doctor, there were no antibiotics, no MRI, anesthetic was Ether for the Flying Spaghetti Monsters sake!