Johnathan Alter: How To Beat 'Cut And Run'

[Judi Lynn]

How To Beat 'Cut And Run'
If Rove can successfully con Democrats into ignoring Iraq and reciting their laundry list of other priorities, Republicans win.

By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek

July 3-10, 2006 issue - For more than a quarter century, Karl rove has employed a simple, brilliant, counterintuitive campaign tactic: instead of attacking his opponents at their weakest point, the con-ventional approach, he attacks their strength. He neutralizes that strength to the point that it begins to look like weakness. When John McCain was winning in 2000 because of his character, Rove attacked his character. When John Kerry was nominated in 2004 because of his Vietnam combat experience, the Republicans Swift-Boated him. This year's midterm elections will turn on whether Rove can somehow transform the Democrats' greatest political asset—the Iraq fiasco—into a liability.

After escaping indictment, Rove is focused again on what he does best: ginning up the slime machine. Anyone who dares criticize President Bush's Iraq policy is a "cut-and-run" Democrat. The White House's object here is not to engage in a real debate about an exit strategy from Iraq; that would require acknowledging some complications, like the fact that Gen. George Casey, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, believes it's time to start bringing some troops home. The object is instead to either get the Democrats tangled up in Kerryesque complexities on Iraq—or intimidate them into changing the subject to other, less-potent issues for fear of looking like unpatriotic pansies.

These are the stakes: if Rove can successfully con Democrats into ignoring Iraq and reciting their laundry list of other priorities, Republicans win. It's shameful that the minimum wage hasn't been raised in nine years and that thousands of ailing Americans will ultimately die because of Bush's position on stem-cell research. But those issues won't get the Congress back for Democrats. Iraq can.
(snip/...)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13531829/site/newsweek/

[MannyGoldstein]

1. K&R - But We'll Need Spine-Growing Pills

This article is spot on. The Dems need to grow a spine and start going after the Rethugs on their weaknesses, instead of trying to passively triangulate.

[NewJeffCT]

2. we will see how this plays out

4 1/2 months is still several political lifetimes.

[4dsc]

3. Put it to these repug's

I don't know why democrat's simply ask these rethugs what exactly do they mean by "cut and run"?? Make the rethug's explain their position then engage them. Let them know, after they've been made to explain "cut and run", that that's not the democratic position!!

[Totally Committed]

4. K & R

:kick:

TC

[Senator]

5. Iraq can't either. We must RAISE stakes. Impeach over Iraq...

...and over the spying; and over the terrorizing into war; and over signing statements; and over the election thefts; and over the economy; the evironment; the broken treaties; and, and, and...

That's how you call a bluff. By raising.

That's how you handle a bully. By challenging.

They must explicitly make the case that YOUR reason need not be THE REASON on the articles. That STEP 1 in any real solution to any real problem begins with the removal of OBSTACLE 1; the never-elected, never-legitimate regime. That's the "unified plan" -- the non-laundry-list that the public can easily understand.

It's the only "something else" they can offer. The rest is just drivel.

They've still got a month or two to figure out that impeachment is the ONLY option; morally AND strategically.

If they remain "beltway bound" in their decisions -- fearing non-existent "backlash" and compulsively chasing that last half percent of "swing voters" (even in red states) -- impeachment will continue to work against them (as is "why don't they have the courage to...?").

And we will continue our leaderless drift for at least another 2 years.

--

[Demeter]

7. That Would Be My First Choice, and Has Been These 6 Years!

But that's just too Real, too Scary, and incriminates too many foolish people, including the DLC.

[grasswire]

8. if only there were a strategist...

....worth a grain of salt in the Democratic Party, they would accept the logic of your premise. If only there were some Democrats in Washington who would accept the supreme challenge of the times -- are you willing to give your life, your fortune, your honor to preserve liberty? -- then we would begin to see the Bushies back down. Now is the hour for each citizen to choose whether to follow the path of liberty or the path of loyalism. Feingold has shown us his choice, and it is liberty. Where are the others? Where are the strategists who realize that in solidarity, freedom prevails?

[Demeter]

6. Why Not "Cut Our Losses?"

Or is the L word just too negatively connotated? Or too true?

What is it going to take to deprogram the fundies? If current Reality isn't impinging upon them, just how bad does it have to get? Can we see that the pressure increases only on those who eschew Reality, so the rest of us get a breather?

Too many questions, no good answers.

[Pierzin]

9. ask the chickenhawks to go over there and drive a convoy

on the Iraqi highway of death if they are so committed to giving Iraq democracy at the barrel of a gun.