Month: September 2008

Two Ground Games

by dday

I’ve written a fair bit about, and I still believe in, the Obama campaign’s leap forward in the ground game, and how this will eventually help them in the final analysis. The Seminal posted a long, link-heavy piece about this today, and Time did a feature as well.

For the next month, the Obama campaign’s ground focus is on finishing up the stunning gains in voter registration that it and the Democratic Party have made. Since January alone more than 3.5 million new voters have been registered in 17 of the 23 states tracked closely by the Obama campaign where information is available. Three states — Florida, Michigan and North Carolina — have seen increases of more than 400,000 new voters, and 10 more states have recorded new registrations of more than 100,000. Though these numbers include registrants to all parties, in 14 of the states at least half of the new voters are under 35, a key demographic for Obama.

“We’re on pace to hit goal,” says Jason Green, a 27-year-old Gaithersburg, Md., native who is Obama’s national voter registration director. “I would love to exceed goal.” Green, not surprisingly, isn’t in the mood to get specific about what that goal is, though he does say that it is “in the millions,” and that the bulk of the voters will be in the 18 battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado and New Mexico (though drives have been mounted in all 50 states). Green is also happy to share the news that they registered more than 100,000 people over Labor Day weekend, capitalizing on the wave of excitement coming out of the convention in Denver.

Harold Ickes, whose company essentially put together the voter list that Obama is currently using, is quoted in the article saying that “(The McCain campaign) should not pooh-pooh the ground game that Obama is mounting; it’s a formidable one. I don’t think in my experience in Democratic politics there’s ever been anything like it.” Of course it takes a lot of money and even more staff and volunteers to make sure this very new vote actually gets to the polls, but Obama has both.

All of that is great. But of course there are two ground games. I’m not talking about the Republican GOTV efforts; I frankly think they’ve misjudged how many new voters the Obama campaign has the potential to activate. I’m talking about the Republican ground game to suppress the vote, which is starting to take shape.

First there’s the campaign to delegitimize absentee balloting, headed by our old friend Hans Von Spakovsky. This is from an article he wrote for something called “Spero News,” asserting a stolen election in Alabama in the 1990s:

…The most important lesson of Greene County is that absentee ballots are extremely vulnerable to voter fraud. The case shows how absentee ballot fraud really works, and it is a reality very different from the claims of partisans and advocacy groups. More broadly, the case shows how voter fraud threatens the right to free and fair elections and how those most often harmed are poor and minorities. This directly rebuts the usual partisan conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

According to the self-appointed liberal guardians of the poor, practically every effort to legislate against or prosecute voter fraud is intended to keep minorities and the poor from voting at all. Concern over voter fraud, say some partisans, is simply Republicans’ cover to intimidate voters and raise obstacles to minority voting. Indeed, groups like the NAACP argue that racism and intimidation are the motivation for voter fraud prosecutions, and some prominent Democrats dismiss voter fraud as virtually nonexistent. As a result, prosecutors are intimidated from fighting vote fraud for fear of the political consequences, and elections continue to be stolen.

He’s tipping his hand here, that absentee ballots will be challenged by Republican officials wherever the vote is close.

Then there are the ongoing disputes over ballots and voter registration forms, which are occurring throughout the country right now. We learn in the article that Republicans are trying to keep Bob Barr off the ballot in Pennsylvania, trying to stop organizations like the League of Women Voters from registering voters in Florida, as well as trouble with de-certified and re-certified voting machines in Colorado. And then there’s this:

Virginia: Virginia is neck and neck this year, to the surprise of Democrats and Republicans alike. At this point, Democrats appear to have an advantage, thanks to an aggressive voter registration effort by the Obama campaign, which has been especially successful in registering young voters. Republicans have responded to the surge in voter registration by raising the tried-and-true boogeyman of voter fraud. In addition, some local registrars in Virginia have been incorrectly—though perhaps innocently—telling college students who legally register to vote in their college towns that by doing so they “could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax return … and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.” Which candidate wins Virginia could well depend on which campaign is able to turn out its voters.

Finally, there’s this major issue that I flagged a couple months ago, but now we’re seeing Republicans seek to use it as a strategy – taking the foreclosure crisis and connecting it to suppression operations:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed […]

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

As for the practice of challenging the right to vote of foreclosed property owners, Hebert called it, “mean-spirited.”

Well that’ll stop them. After all, they don’t want to be seen as “mean-spirited.” By the way, Michigan isn’t the only state talking about this; GOP officials in Ohio have the same idea. And remember, swing states like Nevada and Florida have among the highest concentration of foreclosures in the country.

I know that lots of people focus on e-voting machines and hacking, but the ground war is where votes are really stolen, through intimidation, suppression, bogus challenges and ruthlessness. And with Obama’s strategy relying heavily on new voters (and now, with little room for error), the battle over the vote becomes even more pronounced. Sunshine is obviously important; in fact, it has brought about small victories, like the VA relenting and allowing voter registration at stateside veteran’s facilities. But we need more than sunshine. We need an army of lawyers who are aggressive and unrelenting.

You can educate yourself about your voting rights at The Brennan Center or The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, as well as your local registrar. Know your rights, and know the rights of your friends and relatives, to boot.

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Another Word Bites The Dust

by digby

David Frum, revered right wing intellectual, accuses Democrats having no credibility of foreign policy. Whatever. It’s the usual pile of musty old tropes.

But this is positively brilliant:

Bob Shrum tells us that John McCain and Sarah Palin are falling short in their populism. Nobody has deployed the rhetoric of populism more ferociously and more often than Bob Shrum, so his assessment carries weight…

Now when Bob Shrum talks of “populism,” he has something very specific and highly ideological in mind. But most Americans—and most working politicians—use the word “populism” in a more general sense. They use it to mean, “doing what is popular.”

Really? Since when? Did he hear about that down to the monster truck rally or was he hanging with Brooks at Red Lobster for all-you-can-eat Popcorn Shrimp Friday?

And why is he being so coy? Frum is really making a case that “populism” means “flip-flopping.” And sadly, I won’t be surprised if within a couple of years those of a populist bent will be forced to stop using the word completely because it will have been bastardized into a badge of shameful hypocrisy.

Nobody can distort the plain meaning of language better than right wingers. At this point, I honestly think that joining their bizarroworld may be the only way to keep them from destroying the country with more wars and economic catastrophe. Might I suggest that we liberals just start fucking with their heads and calling ourselves conservatives?

Oh, and just as an aside, if populism means doing whatever is “popular” at the moment, then Frum must be a pitchfork wielding true believer. One day he was a much quoted Palin skeptic, and virtually the next a big fan. But in conservative bizarroworld that makes him a steadfast man of principle and intellectual integrity.

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Celebrity Much?

by digby

Gosh, it seems like only yesterday the McCain campaign was snorting and giggling like a bunch of juvenile delinquents over their oh-so-clever ad with Britney and Paris.

Charles Gibson’s interviews with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will form the basis of a special prime-time edition of “20/20” Friday, ABC said Wednesday.

Gibson is traveling to Fairbanks and Wasilla, Alaska, for the first TV interviews with Palin since she was selected as John McCain’s running mate. The first excerpts of the talks will be shown on “World News” Thursday.

Gibson is having three separate interviews with Palin, ABC said. Parts of the interviews will be spread around other ABC news programs, including “Nightline” and “Good Morning America.”

The prime-time special, at 10 p.m. EDT, will also include a bio of Palin by ABC’s Kate Snow and a round-table discussion on the presidential race moderated by George Stephanopoulos.

The Alaska Republican has proven to be a ratings-grabber during her short time on the national political scene. Her speech to the GOP national convention last week was seen by more than 40 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research.

A Fox News Channel documentary, “Governor Palin: An American Woman” last Saturday was the highest-rated prime-time documentary in the network’s history, with 2.7 million viewers.

CNN is also planning a Palin special this weekend.

By the way, apropos of nothing — Obama won the Alaskan primary caucus. And the Republican mayor of Fairbanks endorsed him. It isn’t a monolith.

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You Don’t Expect Us To Do Our Job, Do You?

by dday

It’s really quite an incredible statement.

The White House said Wednesday that the failure to capture Osama bin Laden in the seven years since the Sept. 11 attacks shows the limitations of military and intelligence power.

“This is not the movies. We don’t have super powers,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino. “But what we do have is very dedicated people who are working with our allies and trying to bring (al-Qaida leaders) to justice.”

First of all, this is the BUSH White House saying that there are limits to military power, the guys who unleashed Shock and Awe, the guys who invaded unilterally, the belligerent, arrogant hotheads who are always willing to threaten force against anyone at any time. There are apparently limits to intelligence, too, this coming from the ones who would toss aside privacy, civil liberties protections, the Fourth Amendment and both domestic and international laws and treaties against torture, in the name of gathering intelligence.

Then they claim it’s not the movies. They can’t just stride in like cowboys and say “Wanted, Dead or Alive” and dress up in a fighting costume and take out the bad guys, you know?

Finally, they say they don’t have super powers, they can’t snap their fingers to bring bin Laden to justice, it’s a long slog that requires lots of effort.

This is of course why all the effort put into going into Afghanistan and trapping bin Laden and his counterparts in the Tora Bore Mountains was called off, because it was going too well, I guess, and everyone knows these things take time:

When [did you become] … aware that Iraq was topic A or B inside the foreign policy side of this administration?

I became aware of the significance of Iraq in February of 2002, when I was told that this administration had made the decision to begin to de-emphasize Afghanistan in order to get ready for Iraq, and that it wasn’t just a theoretical decision; it was an operational decision that resulted in personnel and assets which had been important in the early phases of the Afghanistan war being redeployed to the disadvantage of victory in Afghanistan. …

They must have known at that time that both philosophically and at a personal level, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were adversaries. The idea that they had collaborated in 9/11 was absurd.

How did you hear about it, that they were headed in this direction in February of 2002?

Well, I heard about it during a briefing at Central Command [CENTCOM], which is located in Tampa, Fla., on the Afghanistan war. The briefing was very positive. Things were going well; victory appeared to be close at hand. Then I was told in a private meeting that no, that wasn’t the case; that in fact, we were beginning to recede from the war in Afghanistan precisely to get ready for Iraq.

Who told you?

Gen. Tommy Franks.

Take me into the meeting. What’s happening? …

The general said, “Senator, I would like to speak with you privately.” We went into his room, and he proceeded to tell me that they weren’t fighting a war in Afghanistan; that they were, in fact, beginning to redeploy assets. He particularly mentioned special operations personnel and the Predator unmanned aircraft as examples of assets that were being redeployed from Afghanistan to get ready for Iraq.

He then laid out what he thought the strategy should be for victory in the war on terror: Finish the job in Afghanistan; move to other areas that had large numbers of cells of Al Qaeda — Somalia, Yemen being number one and number two. He went on to say that Iraq was a special case, that our intelligence there was very poor, and that the Europeans knew more about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction than we did.

But they don’t have super-powers, OK?

Now, in recent weeks the commando raids and drone attacks at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have increased, and clearly there’s an effort to make an October Surprise out of this very issue. So all this could be an expectations game. But Perino is right, in one respect. It IS very hard to capture Al Qaeda leaders when you de-emphasize their capture for 6 years to go on a happy hunting trip in Iraq. So reversing that all in a matter of a couple months is not entirely likely.

See also the fact that we are a rapidly deteriorating state with reduced influence in the world as our bloated military becomes increasingly irrelevant. The problem is that Republicans and neocons associate weapons with super powers, and their ineffectiveness at targeting terrorists with them is becoming clear. Perino didn’t know how much truth she was offering.

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Where Art Thou?

by digby

I find it interesting that after years of overt religion hustling that the GOP is dog whistling so cautiously all of a sudden. They have a true blue social conservative Christian on their ticket and they aren’t advertising it at all. All their culture war stuff is class and region based (with a little bit of disingenuous feminism thrown in to ride the current wave.)

I thought evangelical Christianity especially had been thoroughly mainstreamed and that understanding and tolerance of its tenets was considered a necessity if you wanted to win the presidency. In fact, it was only a month or so ago that the two candidates for president had to submit themselves to an inquisition by evangelical preacher, Rick Warren, at Saddleback Church. Today we have a lifelong member of the Assembly of God Church (and an offshoot) as a nominee for Vice President who is, by all accounts, a devout believer — and she didn’t even mention it in her famous speech or at any time afterwards. I find that a little bit curious.

I’d like to see Palin and Biden participate in one of these Warren-fests and have Warren ask them — in church, in front of his flock — to lay out her religious beliefs the way he demanded of Obama and McCain. Surely he believes that the voters will be even more enthusiastic about her once they know exactly what it is she believes in. After all, it’s pretty close to what he believes in too. Shouldn’t he want to help her make her case?

Of course, it’s always possible that all this pressure to “talk the talk” is only a cynical political ploy to make Democrats look like they have no morals or principles if they don’t adhere to social conservatism. When push comes to shove, it would seem they know that people outside their own belief system will likely not be quite as eager to sign on to some of the wilder aspects of their theology. Or at least that’s how it looks.

I certainly would have thought that the entire bipartisan religion industrial complex would have wanted Palin to talk about her religion. They’ve certainly been telling everyone else to blab about it non-stop for the past decade or so. How odd that they’ve been silent for the past two weeks.

H/t to BB

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Governance, GOP Style

by digby

Gov’t Officials Probed About Illicit Sex, Gifts

Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday. The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with _ and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from _ oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department’s inspector general. The investigations reveal a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” by a small group of individuals “wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards,” wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.

Sounds like a perfect illustration of Republicanism to me. Drill, drill, drill.

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Kissing The Pigs

by digby

Speaking of Village Laws, here’s a perfect example of Cokie’s Law:

The hubbub created by Barack Obama’s comment yesterday a lipsticked pig reveal the acute understanding John McCain’s campaign has for the importance of the politics of perception in this campaign.

It seems hard — if not impossible — to believe that Obama intended to equate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and a pig. As has been noted many times over the past 24 hours, the phrase “lipstick on a pig” is one that the Illinois senator used on the stump before Palin was even in consideration as vice president.

Also, Obama is a savvy politician who has been at this for 20 straight months. It’s hard to believe he would purposely make a comparison between the Republican vice presidential candidate and a barnyard animal — knowing full well the frenzy that would ensue.

That said, it may not matter what Obama meant (or, in this case, didn’t mean) to say as, in politics, perception matters more than reality

Sensing an opportunity, the McCain campaign launched a “truth squad”
headed by former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift designed to highlight
the comment by Obama…This morning the McCain campaign — seeking to keep “pig-gate” (or maybe “lipstick-gate”) on the front political burner — released a Web video entitled “lipstick” that accuses Obama of smearing the Alaska governor.

[…]

In this modern world of politics — the 24 hour cable news channels combined with the power and the reach of the Drudge Report, which is heavily promoting the lipstick story — perception often matters more than reality.

The McCain campaign has demonstrated over the past few months that they understand this “freak show” (as John Harris and Mark Halperin coined it in their book “The Way to Win”) politics acutely.

From turning Obama’s celebrity against him to this latest episode of taking a seemingly innocuous comment and transforming it into a national news story, the McCain campaign is effectively using the politics of perception against Obama.

Very interesting. But he doesn’t exactly explain the mechanism by which the Republicans make this “freak show” work, does he? Maybe this will help:

During questions at the event, one attendee asked Obama how he could beat Republican lies while prioritizing integrity within his campaign — citing the 2004 defeat of Sen. John Kerry as a cautionary tale.

Obama conceded that it was a challenge to “fight nonsense” about taxes from the McCain campaign. For example, it falsely claims that the Democratic nominee would raise taxes when, in fact, he would cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

“I still have faith that the truth will out, in the end,” Obama said, to a smattering of applause. “This whole thing about lipstick, nobody actually believes that these folks are offended,” he added, tweaking the party for PC hypocrisy.

“Everyone knows it’s insincere,” he added, “the media knows it! It’s a game; it’s a sport. Maybe if this wasn’t such a serious time that would be OK. But this is serious,” he stressed, reiterating his differences with McCain on education reform and Iraq.

As Obama voiced his optimism, however, the traveling press corps tapped away at a filing station in a small classroom here, churning out more headlines about a non-story created largely by the media, and repeatedly airing the McCain campaign’s false distortion of Obama’s remark.

This has been the pattern for many, many years. Watch this documentary on the 2000 race, or this article about the 2004 race if you don’t believe me. Read any Howler column for the past eight years. There is no mystery as to why this works or what the enabling mechanism is. (Cilizza tries to make it “non-partisan” by citing the similar hissy fit over Clinton’s RFK comment, but it proves nothing. The press is always willing to take the pre-masticated GOP Clinton narrative off the shelf.)

The GOP manufactures a juicy tidbit designed to get the sophomoric kewl kidz excited — something sexy or silly and always stupid and distracting — and they don’t have to think about all that icky, boring wonky crap that actually affects people’s lives.

But that isn’t the end of it. Today, people like Chuck Todd and Mark Halperin are “calling out” the McCain campaign for manufacturing the scandal. Indeed, they are calling them out and calling them out and calling them out, showing the footage, discussing the “controversy” all day and basically doing exactly what the GOP wants them to do — get it out there.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again — they don’t care if the press likes them. Indeed, they prefer it if they don’t so they can use the “liberal media” theme to ignite tribal grudges and stoke conservative feelings of victimization. (Think Balkans…) They are happy to have the media screaming about how “wrong” their claims are because in the conservative mind that makes them right. As long as it’s “out there” they’ve succeeded.

Here’s an example of the press corps having a meta discussion of this situation in which they fail to take any responsibility for the “freak show” they’ve helped create:

CARNEY: Well, this is the cynical brilliance of the McCain campaign strategy. They’re throwing this stuff out there. It’s false. It’s ridiculous. It’s a common phrase, but they know they’ve got Obama trapped. He’ll get righteously indignant and respond, which means then the discussion is all about whether or not Obama is calling a female —

SCARBOROUGH: Whether he’s sexist or not? Right.

CARNEY: — candidate a pig and whether he’s sexist or not. It’s not about issues. It’s not about other things. They’ve done the same thing with this education ad they’ve put out, which is, you know, essentially calling him — you know, that he wants to teach kindergarteners sex education before they learn how to read. Again, a complete —

SCARBOROUGH: OK. Yeah, teach them sex before they teach reading.

CARNEY: — a complete — I mean, it’s just — it’s false, and it’s fake, but it’s designed to throw Gorilla dust up in the air and force the public to focus on these issues and wonder whether or not —

MITCHELL: But isn’t it working for them?

CARNEY: — Barack Obama is acceptable as president.

SCARBOROUGH: It’s working. It’s working —

CARNEY: Of course it’s working. We’re talking about it. And the ref — you know, we’re supposed to be the referees, but they already — and one part of their storyline is that the referees are in the tank already. So —

SCARBOROUGH: Right.

CARNEY: — they want us to talk about —

MITCHELL: Well, they played the ref early.

CARNEY: They played the ref, and they say the ref is biased.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, and Andrea, of course, the Obama campaign would like to talk about today Sarah Palin getting money from the state of Alaska and I just — I saw somewhere, like $50 a night, from the state of Alaska for staying at her house. But nobody’s going to be talking about that today ’cause they’re talking about sex education for 5-year-olds and whether Barack Obama is a sexist or not.

MITCHELL: Well, The Washington Post actually broke that story yesterday. The Anchorage papers picked it up today — the whole question of the per diem here. She’s, you know, advertising herself as a budget-cutter, and I got rid of the plane, and I got rid of the chef and all of this stuff, when, you know, some of these questions have to be looked into and —

CARNEY: Well, the problem with that story is that it’s fact-based, and fact-based is clearly not as interesting as fiction-based.

I wonder if those marionette strings are tight at all.

Right now I’m listening some gasbag on MSNBC saying that this is really an important test of the two candidates. “If Obama can’t ‘take a punch’ how can he be president?”

Andrea Mitchell just threw out that the press corps immediately thought this was Dukakis in the tank.

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Atrios’s Law

by tristero

UPDATE:

Digby yesterday repeated an aphorism so true I believe it should be called Atrios’s Law:

Even Republicans all know it’s full of shit, but they don’t care. It pisses off liberals! And that’s really all they care about.

Here’s a another example of Atrios’s Law:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Rick Goddard, a retired Air Force major general running against conservative Dem Congressman Jim Marshall, referred in a radio appearance to “a very uppity newscaster” who had a testy TV exchange with Newt Gingrich at the Republican Convention. This appeared to be a reference to MSNBC reporter Ron Allen, who is black.

The Goddard campaign didn’t deny that he was discussing Ron Allen, telling the Journal-Constitution that Goddard “simply evoked a word — that by definition — described the reporter’s demeanor as being superior, arrogant and presumptuous.”

This comes after Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) told The Hill that he believed both Barack and Michelle Obama were “uppity,” then denied that there was any racial connotation to the word.

There is more to this than simply pissing off liberals and reminding African Americans that Strange Fruit awaits those get too uppity.

The effect is to simultaneously expand the language the right can use while shutting up those who oppose the right. A Republican called Clinton a “bitch” and John McCain snickered. A Republican called herself a violent bitch and an entire convention roared in approval. Imagine the uproar if the situation was reversed. Imagine if I had written that Secretary State Rice was getting uppity in an interview. Imagine the press frenzy if I asked Obama or Biden, “how can we get that nasty bitch?” at a campaign rally.

Republicans feel no compunction about using racist language – no, not racist code words, racist language – while objecting furiously if Barack Obama warns his audience that they will be doing just that.

Because of the way conservatives constructed the playing field, and no one jumped all over them in time to stop it, liberals aren’t allowed even to use common phrases like “lipstick on a pig” to describe an opponent’s plans. But describing blacks as “uppity” is fair fame.

At the risk of losing my temper at some decent, honest commenters, this is the reason why Democrats should have jumped all over the convention the Friday afterwards and said loudly and clearly that they were perfectly happy to have Sarah Palin call herself a violent bitch and would honor her self-description by repeating it again and again and showing how, in oh so many ways, she was telling the truth. This is why you never, ever, let a Republican dominate a news cycle or set the terms of a rhetorical encounter. This is why every lie and distortion must be treated to a loud howl especially when our side misses the point or an opportunity to attack. This is why the race is a nailbiter.

Folks, we are way beyond the gentle wordplay of Alice and her Humpty Dumpty, despite his obvious visual likeness to so many GOP delegates. This is a war in which one side, ours, is being deliberately and systematically disarmed. How many times does this exact same scenario have to play out, before Democrats get it?

UPDATE: Josh sees the racebaiting, finally:

…today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison. (And remember, President George H.W. Bush never ran the Willie Horton ad himself. It was an outside group. He wasn’t willing to degrade himself that far.) As TPM Reader JM said below, at least Horton actually was released on a furlough. This is ugly stuff. And this is an ugly person. There’s clearly no level of sleaze this guy won’t stoop to to win this election.

And let’s be frank. He might win it. This is clearly a testing time for Obama supporters.

Indeed it is. And staying above the fray fails the test. It is time for donkeys to kick ass. Hard.

Cheap And Tawdry Political Trick

by digby

Following up on dday’s post below about the impending Pig ‘n Lipstick hissy fit, I thought this was an interesting column about the newfound Republican commitment to feminism. They are obviously sleazy, dishonest hypocrites who have no principles whatsoever. But we knew that. Double standards are the only standards they have.

I can’t help but be reminded of this gambit from 2004. John Kerry was asked this question at the debate:

Both of you are opposed to gay marriage. But to understand how you have come to that conclusion, I want to ask you a more basic question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?

Kerry answered this way:

“We’re all God’s children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as.”

Now, Mary Cheney was an out lesbian in a long term relationship, which Dick had acknowledged in the debate in 2000. It was not a secret. But a royal hissy fit ensued, led by Lynn Cheney the next day on the campaign trail:

“The only thing I could conclude is that this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And, of course, I’m speaking as a mom. And a pretty indignant one. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick.”

Recipe for a hissy: You have an openly gay daughter who, by all accounts, you love and have accepted without judgment. But when someone asks your political opponent if he believes people like her are born the way they are and he mentions her as someone who would back up his contention that they are, you rend your garments and shriek that he is “not a good man!” Your hypocritical followers, most of whom ostensibly believe homosexuality is a sin and want to force people like your daughter to live a lie, cheer wildly, not even questioning why you aren’t denying what he said. And that is because they know the truth, or if they don’t, they prefer to stay in the dark so they can keep their tribal solidarity undisturbed. Talk about a cheap and tawdry political trick.

This is how these things go and they are very difficult to counter once they get going. (The General Betrayus ad was a more recent example.)They’re tough to counter, even though they make no sense and are often just purely silly. The press loves them and they end up becoming such a distraction that the Dems finally conclude that it’s not worth it to fight them. So they concede. And then they look like weenies.

Update: via Julia, here’s some of that principled GOP feminism in action:

Today:

As the culture war surrounding Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin escalates, a group of leading Republican women accused the media Wednesday of sexist “smears” against John McCain’s running mate.

“The Republican Party will not stand by while Gov. Palin is subjected to sexist attacks,” said Carly Fiorina, a McCain aide who formerly headed Hewlett-Packard. “I don’t believe American women are going to stand for it either.”

Asked why they didn’t stand up in defense of Clinton during the primary campaign, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), turned the question back on the media. “Had we been more vocal, you all would have chosen not to report it,” she said.

A few months ago:

As a trailblazer in her own right, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) was not impressed with Hillary Clinton’s crybaby performance following the most recent Democratic presidential debates.

Blackburn, the first woman to represent Tennessee’s 23rd Senate district — and since
2002 holder of Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District seat — knows well the self-restraint and stamina required for a woman to run a successful campaign amidst a male-dominated profession.

Blackburn said she was surprised by Clinton’s negative response to heavy criticism from opponents and noted that “part of the discretion of serving in leadership is knowing when to bite your tongue.”

[…]

Blackburn, communications chairman for the Republican Study Committee, recognizes that, while gender is a factor due to public perception, it’s not something to focus on.

“For women to achieve as men achieve, we have to realize we have to be smarter, think faster, work harder,” said Blackburn. “A term that I use a lot is — leadership is not as it appears, but as it performs.”

She said that while leadership can be assigned, the action required to lead is earned — and when it comes to “piling on” — she said, “sometimes you have to hold your tongue and work your way through it.”

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If Only

by tristero

So far, I haven’t read anyone who’s noticed that McCain played the race card in his filthy lying ad about Obama and sex education. But he most certainly did. Anyway…

Of course it isn’t true that Obama wants to teach kids about sex before they learn to read. This country should be so lucky. But then, Obama’s a moderate.

We liberals welcome early education on human sexuality. My daughter could barely read when they started sex education in her school. Fine with me. And her parents have also had many conversations with her to explain things that were confusing. By the time she’s sexually active, she will be very familiar with important information about contraception. This is in sharp contrast to the teen daughters of christianist parents who, having been taught abstinence-only and receiving no organized, accurate information about condoms, pills, diaphragms, and so on, find themselves, much to their dismay, pregnant. And are then coerced into giving birth before they are mature enough to raise a child.

Liberals believe in contraception for teenagers. Moderates don’t want to discuss it. Conservatives, fearfully clutching their pearls when the word “sex” is pronounced, are disgusted by the entire subject.

Sure enough, since this country is ruled by a conservative and is scared stiff of dealing with sexual topics in anything resembling a responsible manner, the US has one of the highest, if not the highest, rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world. And despite the unique exceptions in our own lives we celebrate, conservatives, moderates and liberals all agree that pregnancy by immature teenagers is a serious problem (even if conservatives conveniently forget that it is when it becomes politically expedient to do so).

In truth, we pay an enormous price, both in terms of human potential and in real dollars, because conservatives like McCain, Bush, and Palin won’t support comprehensive sex education. I’ll leave you with the Obama campaign’s superb response to McCain’s sick ad:

“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why.”