We libs need OUR version of Rove

[liberaltrucker]

A political advisor not afraid to kick 'em in the balls. But without the scandal baggage. Any volunteers?

[flordehinojos]

1. and without the spin and the lies...a truth teller, kick'em in the balls

kind of guy (or girl?). someone who speaks truth to power!

[mzmolly]

2. Carville was good but he married the enemy. Begalia was also great.

Flavia Colgan kicks some butt. And, I hear Chris Lehane is a dirty mofo?

[liberaltrucker]

5. Hey, I resemble that remark

I married an Alabama fan.

[stepnw1f]

3. I'm Already There

At least on the internets.

[applegrove]

4. No. We aren't playing games. We are into the truth. Rove is for

adolescents who think it is all a game. We have nothing to learn from him or them.

[liberaltrucker]

6. True enough

But you gotta grudgingly admit, the guy's a political genious. Sometime you gotta give the devil his due.

[applegrove]

8. No. Ruining a country & creating tribal warfare is nothing to admire.

Absolutely nothing to admire.

[liberaltrucker]

13. See Post 11

[leftupnorth]

7. yes we do

we need to learn every single one of their dirty tricks, just so that we can defend against them. the fake, planted memos, the "accidental" faxes, convenient leaks, all this should be learned from, but not applied.

[applegrove]

9. Well we are getting wise to them. It happens.

[leftupnorth]

12. yep, rule #1 when working against Rove

ALWAYS look the gift horse in the mouth.

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. If you don't know what the enemy is doing, you're bound to lose.

Every time.

[liberaltrucker]

11. Maybe they should be applied

but to a lesser extent. If we don't want to get our hands dirty, we'll forever be the minority. Like it or not, politics is a dirty business.

[applegrove]

17. We fight with might. We fight with the truth. We fight like adults..with

compassion and strength & discernment.

[Boo_Radley]

32. Kind of like . . .

. . . hiring a hacker as a security consultant? Could make sense. I think people are going to get tired of the Rove tactics, sooner or later, though. Once the party becomes identified with deception and crime, it will hurt them in the long run.

I predict, in the not too distant future, the GOP spending several years trying to undo the damage that they're doing to themselves right now.

[0007]

49. The lost laptop, or brief case aways nails us.

[Lorien]

16. We don't need to lie to succeed; we need to make the truth understandable

to the masses. We need to frame the issues in ways that they can relate to.

Framing the issues and creating talking points may seem contrived and somehow underhanded to you, but the technique works with modern Americans because we're accustomed to a consumer driven society where advertising (themes and sound bites) play a huge role in our daily lives. Rove creates unified simple messages that are repeated again and again just as any corporation does when attempting to sell a product.Democrats need to organize and take on their own Rove to sell their Big Ideas because as things stand we're spending most of our time reacting to THEIR ideas. It's not just the fault of a media that blocks the message-it's the effectiveness and simplicity of that message, and how often it's delivered by any prominent democrats.

[liberaltrucker]

18. My point exactly

in OP. WITHOUT THE SCANDAL BAGGAGE. We don't have to lie to win, just FIGHT. If you're not willing to fight, you don't deserve to win.

[applegrove]

29. You fight like an adult with might, discernment & compassion. Which

means you do not target people for destruction and get caught up in "talking points". You use the truth. You speak to that.

[omega minimo]

42. You've got the schpiel down good, but it's still misguided & will backfire

This sort of attitude/technique depends on distancing oneself from "the masses" and assuming they are imbeciles who need the truth made "understandable." WE UNDERSTAND TRUTH-- WE'RE JUST NOT HEARING IT.

"We need to frame the issues in ways that they can relate to. Framing the issues and creating talking points may seem contrived and somehow underhanded to you..."

"The masses" don't relate to "framing." The people who think they KNOW BETTER than "the masses" relate to "framing." It's in the lingo-- it's in your statement. "Framing" "may seem contrived and somehow underhanded" because it IS contrived and somehow underhanded-- and the public recognizes that.

"...but the technique works with modern Americans because we're accustomed to a consumer driven society where advertising (themes and sound bites) play a huge role in our daily lives."

This is a fallacy based on the redundancy of people who are "accustomed to a consumer driven society" convincing others that we are "accustomed to a consumer driven society." AS IF the consumer driven society drives us. Do the people who advocate "framing" see themselves as driven by the consumer driven society-- or is that only true of "the masses"?

Marshall McLuhan

"All advertising advertises advertising." (All framing frames framing)

"Today the (framing) business of (framing) business is becoming the constant invention of new (framing) business."

"Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions."

"The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially."

"At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images."

"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside."

Thank you, johnaries, for the McLuhanisms.

[Lorien]

43. Who is in power, us or them?

it wasn't voter fraud alone that put the repugs in office;the vote NEVER should have been so close. Until we find a way to deliver the message clearly and concisely our party will remain exactly where it is right now.

DUers may understand the truth, but a shocking number of Americans only buy the spin. Using "talking points" is merely a way of getting a group on message to advance an idea; IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE A FALSE IDEA. It can and should be an unassailable truth. It's an organized approach to getting an issue onto the table.

And yes, America IS a consumer driven society.It drives our economy, it drives most Americans to work more than nearly every other nation on earth. We are 4% of the planet's population and we consume 25% of the world's natural resources. Read "Affluenza"to learn just how consumer driven we truly are.

[omega minimo]

44. You did a great job of summing up the concept in the previous post

I don't agree and you are explaining as if I didn't understand.

"Until we find a way to deliver the message clearly and concisely our party will remain exactly where it is right now."

The Repugs don't dominate because they "deliver the message clearly and concisely" -- THEY LIE.

"DUers may understand the truth, but a shocking number of Americans only buy the spin."

Here's where "framers" set themselves up with that distancing that WILL backfire.

"Using "talking points" is merely a way of getting a group on message to advance an idea; IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE A FALSE IDEA."

This rebuttal misses the point and echoes the sameness of framing rhetoric (altho I appreciate you trying to discuss it without defensiveness). It's the DELIVERY that's false, contrived and manipulative (even if well-intentioned).

I did not say this is not a consumer driven society. Please read what I said.

[Lorien]

45. The intent of framing is inclusiveness

"issue A is important to me; and this is why issue A should be important to you, too" is basically what one does when one frames an issue, so I disagree with you on your assertion that framing crates distancing. Very bad framing, perhaps-but successful framing can only crate unity by providing a unified vision of an issue.

I was not being defensive, I was stressing a fact (and I don't have the HTML skills needed to create italics); there is no rule anywhere that states that a "talking point" needs to be a contrived falsehood (as so many here seem to believe). Democrats need only to USE the facts to advance our agenda, and the damnedest thing is that many seem to be skirting around them. The facts are on our side; let's present them clearly and effectively (and yes, talking points should be used to advance a message in today's media, otherwise the message gets drowned out and lost). The party is all over the place on pretty much every issue as it stands; we MUST find a way to deliver cohesive and unified messages, otherwise the perception that democrats "don't stand for anything" will persist.

[omega minimo]

48. Who are "the masses"? Are they at DU? Are they us?

It’s good to know that ”The intent of framing is inclusiveness”

In post #44 I thanked you:

"...echoes the sameness of framing rhetoric (altho I appreciate you trying to discuss it without defensiveness).”

And in #45 you misunderstood:

“I was not being defensive, I was stressing a fact.”

Funny that you would be defensive about being thanked for not being defensive....

The “sameness” that I mentioned is a similarity and repetitiveness in responses during discussions of “framing.” It creates the impression that there is already a template for what “framing” fans EXPECT to hear and they throw back canned responses. You are not hearing what I am saying, because of what you think the standard comments about framing are-- you are filtering my words through your expectations (bet Lakoff has something to say about that too ).

And I said “I appreciate” your lack of defensiveness because that is the other part of the “sameness” of “framing” discussions. So far as I have seen on DU, "framing" fans cannot convey to "framing" skeptics effectively enough to have an actual discussion. I am bowing out and thanking you FOR BEING THE CLEAREST OF THOSE FRAMING FANS I'VE MET HERE.

Did you see my PM before you posted #45? (follows):

Thank you Lorien. Thank you for engaging with me last night on "framing."

There seems to be an impasse b/w those (on DU) who see "framing" as a useful tool and those who see it as an unecessary gimmick.

To me, the hazard is in the abstracted and depersonalized view of the intended audience that comes across in the words of those who advocate "framing." Some of us see that as a trap for (unintentional) alienation of the audience.

You are a good spokesperson for it. Still, there is a gap-- I am curious enough to try to bridge it. But those attempts always come uncomfortably close to unintended antagonism.

Maybe it can't be discussed. If anyone could have communicated with me on "framing" and how it supposedly does NOT distance the "framers" from "the masses" and create more "Us vs. Them"-- it would have been you!

[johnaries]

14. NO WE DON'T! then we would be no better than them.

I agree that we need to learn to communicate our message better, but Rove was all about propaganda and media control. Truth was not an option.

We need to communicate the Truth better. We need to help them educate themselves. Not massage them.

We need to learn the lessons of Marshall McLuhan, not Rove:

http://www.marshallmcluhan.com /

edit to add a snip:
McLuhan wrote with no knowledge of galvanic skin response technology, terminal node controllers, or the Apple Newton. He might not have been able even to imagine what a biomouse is. But he pointed the way to understanding all of these, not in themselves, but in their relation to each other, to older technologies, and above all in relation to ourselves—our bodies, our physical senses, our psychic balance. When he published Understanding Media in 1964, he was disturbed about mankind’s shuffling toward the twenty-first century in the shackles of nineteenth century perceptions. He might be no less disturbed today. And he would continue to issue the challenge that confronts the reader at every page of his writings to cast off those shackles.

OK, last edit I will make, but these quotes are just SO GOOD! I'd almost forgotten:
IF IT WORKS,
IT’S
OBSOLETE
Marshall McLuhanisms



The story of modern America begins With the discovery of the white man by
The Indians.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public
incredulity.

Whereas convictions depend on speed-ups, justice requires delay.

The nature of people demands that most of them be engaged in the most
frivolous possible activities—like making money.

With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is
“sent.”

Money is the poor man’s credit card.

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into
the future.

Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors, just as NASA is
managed by men with Newtonian goals.

Invention is the mother of necessities.

You mean my whole fallacy’s wrong?

Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth.

The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.

Why is it so easy to acquire the solutions of past problems and so difficult to solve current ones?

The trouble with a cheap, specialized education is that you never stop paying for it.

People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.

The road is our major architectural form.

Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.

Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business.

The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.

News, far more than art, is artifact.

When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.

Tomorrow is our permanent address.

All advertising advertises advertising.

The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.

“Camp” is popular because it gives people a sense of reality to see a replay of their lives.

This information is top security. When you have read it, destroy yourself.

The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy.

One of the nicest things about being big is the luxury of thinking little.

Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s questions.

The missing link created far more interest than all the chains and explanations of being.

In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.

When a thing is current, it creates currency.

Food for the mind is like food for the body: the inputs are never the same as the outputs.

Men on frontiers, whether of time or space, abandon their previous identities. Neighborhood gives identity. Frontiers snatch it away.

The future of the book is the blurb.

The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.

A road is a flattened-out wheel, rolled up in the belly of an airplane.

At the speed of light, policies and political parties yield place to charismatic images.

“I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.”

[liberaltrucker]

15. And how are we supposed to do that?

Yes, we have blogs and DU, but not the MSM. THEY have those. This is the 21st century. Grassroots politics doesn't work as well anymore.

[johnaries]

19. On the Contrary, we have the best Grass Roots tools that were

EVER available. DU is just one of them.

Seriously, study Marshall McLuhan.

The answers are all there....

[liberaltrucker]

20. I stand corrected

In my passion to defend my position, I forgot about Dr Dean raising all that $ on the Net in 02. I promise to do my homework.

[johnaries]

21. You did make a good point. We need a RESPONSE to Rove,

which we could do IF we took advantage of the grass roots tools that are available to us now.

So, don't beat on yourself. We need to get the TRUTH out there, but we haven't been very good at it so far.

It would be nice if we had someone with with good media skills.

Rove doesn't fall into that category because he only knows how to manipulate the media, not encourage them. Of course, if he dealt with more Truth, it would be easier to have the media fulfill their social responsibilities.

But this is a topic that needs more discussion on every level! We are having problems communicating our message.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

22. Jon Stewart.

Lots of balls, no scandal, no baggage. Oh, wait. I think honesty and ethics would disqualify him if we're looking for a rove-alike.

[The Wielding Truth]

23. It looks like we don't need another Rove. His lies unmasked will do.

Everyone will know soon the low and illegal things he has done in the honor of The Crazy NeoCon Movement.We are picking up the rock he lives under. We all most open the windows of government so they can be blown out. These small minded controllers can't stop all of us.We have the power of their poor performances.I can't get past the biggest lie that lead us to war and death to many innocents. Deceit and stupidity can't be hidden any longer.

[Lecky]

24. No thanks...

I would never want our party to mimic that bastard.

[patomime]

25. Our first message should be....

"Republicans have done it to themselves." Repeat it over and over again on tv, and all sorts of media.

We would be just like Rove, only in reverse --- on our side, we're actually repeating the truth!!!

[WildEyedLiberal]

26. NO, we don't. n/t

[clarknyc]

28. I agree.

No, we don't. Fuck Rove. We're better than that. Way better.

[ncteechur]

27. I agree that we don't. Rove is not smart--he is just crooked.

There is a HUGE difference. If he had to win on principle and with a candidate without cheating--he doesn't win. He only controls the message by lying. Am I naive? Yes, maybe. I do not want our side of the aisle or the issues to be like them. In many ways, we already are and it is disgusting. Rove is shit.

[liberalitch]

30. Someone truly unscrupulous.....

[DeepModem Mom]

31. I always like to say that Satan made only one Karl Rove...

and assigned him to George W. Bush.

[blm]

33. That would be ME. I know lots of callgirls.

heh

[Savannah Progressive]

34. Why not call James Carville back?

James Carville has done us so pround in the past, beating back the Starr witchhunt is just his greatest so far, but he can be so much better.

Hire him, give him his staff, and turn him loose on the Repugniks and watch the Fascists start leaving Washington in droves.

[blm]

36. Carville won't acknowledge the GOP control of media. He thinks it's

still the same media as 92.

The only thing the Dems need to do is expose the GOP control of the corporate media.

Every other issue will be resolved once the media is dealt with and exposed.

[Awsi Dooger]

35. We should steal one thing from Karl Rove

I've posted this plea many times: we desperately need an all-powerful party chief who handicaps the country and virtually dictates to the states who their nominee will be in critical races like senate and gov. Rove has done this brilliantly since taking over.

Hardly a coincidence the GOP lost 5 senate seats in 2000, then has picked up ground ever since. Even nominees who look incompetent to us seem to strike the perfect priorities and themes for the individual states and races, and kick our ass. Virtually the only times the GOP has failed is when they're caught off guard by a late retirement such as Nighthorse-Campbell in Colorado, or when the California state GOP leadership rejected Rove's recommendation that Riordan, not Simon, be the 2002 gov nominee. Now you've got Rove correctly advising Florida not to nominate Katherine Harris, similar to when he rebuked her 2004 ambitions in favor of Martinez. In our case, we'd probably just sit back and let the masochism play itself out.

Bill Clinton has tremendous political instincts. I wish he'd agree to step on some toes and conventional wisdom, and dictate who we nominate. Presidential nominees excluded, of course.

[napi21]

37. I think Howard Dean is doing pretty well.

He's also getting better all the time. He's sure not afraid to smack the Pubs with the truth, and every comment he's been criticized for in the past is coming true!

He slammed the war in Iraq as being unnecessary and imoral, and now most Americans agree with him.

He said DeLay should spend his time behind bars, and now he's indicted.

He said the Pubs are lead by old rich white men who never worked at an honest job, and when you look closely, that's exactly true!

He's also not willing to back down from his comments because he knows he's right.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cosmocat]

39. I agree with those ...

Who say that the Democrates don't need a Rove, and I agree with the person who said he is no genius, he is just crooked ... I would say he simply lacks ANY morals or integrity, and while that is the hallmark of the republican party right now, the democratic party has to be the polar opposite ...

Also, Rove isn't the man who laid it out ... Rove made Bush, but Newt Gingrich is the man who laid the groundwork for where the Republicans are now ... Rove had it handed to him, and had the lack of character to play outside the rules ...

Again ... I think the Democratic party already has three leaders who are better than anyone the Republicans have going - Dean, Clinton and Clark ... All different, and all serving different functions ...

Right now, the republican party is its own worst enemy ... It's base philosophies are horrifically harmful to the country, and it's party is on a power grab that has mesmorized it's leaders and base on a path of corruption and civic mismanagement that already has been exposed and is going to just keep unraveling ...

AS MANY NOTE, it is not enough just to let them do themselves in, or to continue to hammer on the greed, corruption and incompetence ... BUT, their arrogance will continue to lead them to continue doing what they do regardless of how bad it is, and the mindless masses can only sleep through so much ...

At the same time, the Ds have to counter with strong messages ...

1) A call to a higher standard of ethics from our leaders and rebalancing the arms of our government in a manner more in line with what our forefathers intended ... A call to increase the confidence of our people in our voting procedures ...

2) Secure those functions of government that are in place to maintain a high standard of living for our people ... IE, protect SS and develop a nationalized health care initiative ...

3) SECURE OUR FRIGGEN BOARDERS and actually invest in homeland security ...

4) BALANCE THE GOVERNMENTAL BUDGET ... This means because the Rs have acted like children a rollback of tax cuts and a rebalancing of tax cuts to the upper 10%, and it means steamlining the government again ...

5) Focus our national security on imminent threats ... Move away from militaristic occupations of other countries and hard target those who are a true threat ...

[win_in_06]

40. Carville wrote the book on this type of stuff.

[omega minimo]

41. My initial response was "Bullshit" but waited to see how you made the case

and then you didn't.

Except your point seems to rest on testicles.

So, BULLSHIT

[Pepperbelly]

46. No, not at all.

What we need to do is fire every professional political operative in DC and get a whole new crew from labor, environmental, populist groups who will ALL kick them in the nuts and beat them over the head with the TRUTH.

[Lorien]

47. I think what you intended to say is that we need someone in a leadership

role who helps the party define and promote our positions on the issues. That doesn't need to be done in an underhanded manner, especially since we have the truth on our side. I agree that we need a party adviser, similar to what Carville was to Clinton. Carville was once a "take no prisoners" kinda guy himself, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.