I don't want to be led by Bush's sleazefest. We need a focus on issues

[bigtree]

The polls are wrong. Whether Bush got a bump or not it will soon evaporate back to even. I don't think we should be panicked into a vapid issueless campaign that rehashes distorted votes and old service records. We need a focus on our ecomomy, our jobs, our wages, our health care, our prescription drugs, our social security, our children's education, our environment.

We need to have our candidates focusing 'like a laser beam' on the issues and concerns that most affect us. We don't need to start acting like republicans because some media hyped polls show Bush ahead. We need to stay on our message of hope and opportunity and not be diverted by every mudball thrown to distract us.

[liveoaktx]

1. On the other hand, whether sleazy or not, Kerry needs to very publicly and

actively dispute every single smear coming his way. I think we HAVE to, at this point, see him on top of this garbage, answering with some push-back. Not unusual, Clinton did it, it merely truly has to be an immediate rapid-response.

For example, I want to see him say or do something about this Pentagon inquiry. He might be telling people on the stump, but I won't know about it-ever-since I live in Texas and not a swing state.

[sangh0]

2. Bush* would love that

Bush* would like nothing more to set the debate by constantly making accusations which Kerry has to spend time refuting.

[sendero]

3. Yes but...

... after refuting Bush*s's allegations Kerry could make allegations of his own which are quite true and thus cannot be refuted :)

[sangh0]

5. Now you're talking

and I think you're going to see Kerry doing that. But it won't be negative campaigning. It will be focused on the issues and Bush*'s record, and won't be mud slinging.

[sendero]

10. When I say "fight"...

... I'm not talking about doing it the way Reps do, making shit up out of whole cloth. Bush* has so many absolutely true problems we don't have to do that to hurt him.

But I will say this - when allegations are made (about truthful errors, actions, etc) they have to be 'dramatized' for television. I don't mean fictionalized, I mean played up, heightened, stated forcefully with appropriate outrage and passion.

This is what gets TV time, not bland, measured pronouncements. Run the risk of getting Deaned? Perhaps. But it won't make any difference what Kerry says if nobody hears his message, and if he doesn't spice it up, nobody will.

[John_H]

4. Yet another strawman post.

Yet another post equating running a toughminded, hard hitting campaign with "being just like those assholes. If you play the bloodsport of presidential politics for keeps, you're slime.

The trouble is no serious, experienced Dem who is advocating lying or even breaking any ethical standards at all.

I can't believe that some DUers can't understand that hitting hard and highlighting the issues can't be reconciled. It looks like some for either careerist, or perhaps just personal reasons, are married to a strategy that, thankfully, looks like it's on the way out.

My apologies if I'm wrong and you really are unable to reconcile "tough" and "issue driven." In fact, perhaps that inability explains the limitations of some involved with the Kerry campaign.

If I can speak for my fellow "armchair henny pennies" for a minute, what Clinton, Carville, Kennedy and lots of DUErs are saying is that you can hit hard and hit the high road at the same time. You can play it tough and play it smart simultaneously.

[sangh0]

6. I'm not sure what you mean by "serious, experienced Dem"

but there are DUers who are calling for Kerry to roll in the mud. If you want to limit this discussion to the serious and experienced, then I could see why you would call this a straw man, because a serious and experienced Dem wouldn't advise Kerry to roll in the mud.

But the OP was referring to some DUer, who have called for exactly that.

I can't believe that some DUers can't understand that hitting hard and highlighting the issues can't be reconciled.

And I can't believe that you can distinguish between hard hitting attacks and sleaze, but still agree with those who say Kerry should issue the same sort of sleaze. I have no problem with direct attacks on the issues and Bush*'s records and the OP talks about sleaze. Why are you defending sleaze?

It looks like some for either careerist, or perhaps just personal reasons, are married to a strategy that, thankfully, looks like it's on the way out.

And it looks like you are wedded to your preconceptions about what the OP says. It says the author doesn't want to engage in sleaze.

If I can speak for my fellow "armchair henny pennies" for a minute, what Clinton, Carville, Kennedy and lots of DUErs are saying is that you can hit hard and hit the high road at the same time. You can play it tough and play it smart simultaneously.

I agree, but what you don't seem to understand is that there are people who are calling for the low road.

[bigtree]

7. The strawman is the notion that I don't want Kerry to hit back

on the issues. I don't see much value though in the endless tit for tat about service in Vietnam, at least not by Kerry himself. He can use his campaign and its surrogates to do the attacking, if necessary, but he should not allow his positive message of hope and opportunity to be diverted into a mudfest. He should stay focused on the issues and concerns that most affect Americans and leave the muckraking to others.

BTW, I am one who doesn't accept the grousing that Kerry hasn't been tough. He hasn't managed to get all of the instances that he has shown backbone reported on and repeated like the media does every dribble from the lips of Busco, but he has been hitting back hard. If you follow my posts, I have repeatedly produced hundreds of instances where he has hit the Bush administration hard and even more from his campaign and surrogates. I don't agree with the notion that his efforts have been weak and ineffective. To poll even with an incumbent 'wartime' president up to the convention, as he will shortly after the buzz dies down, is a remarkable achievement for a new face, notwithstanding the intense dislike for Bush out there.

We will see the campaign gaining ground as more voters tune in and register their opinions after Labor Day. Up until now the only ones watching the race this closely are DUers and political junkies like me. I see no reason to get panicked into a campaign of dirt thrown. I don't care who throws first. We need an adult in the White House who won't be diverted from our needs and concerns everytime someone is critical of him. If he does find himself responding to every dribble then he will show Bush and others that he can be easily diverted. That is a position of weakness that I am concerned about.

[depakid]

8. I guess it comes down to whether you want to win or

do you want to be right.

Ignoring what is proven to work in the vain hope that you can change human nature is a prescription for another disaster. All these stupid metaphors like "rolling in the mud" are simply avoidance mechanisms for the what has to be done.

It isn't pretty- but like many things one has to do, it's required.

[bigtree]

9. I think we can win with the campaign we have been running

If Kerry gets back to the issues. Clinton stayed focused on the issues and didn't speak personally to every 'bimbo eruption'. Kerry can do the same. The amount of material that has reached the media from his campaign is impressive. I don't remember the same type of effort from the Clinton campaign. Kerry's staff has been riding hard herd over the media with responses coming sometimes within minutes of the attack. There may be some new dynamics and the media may be more compromised, but I don't feel that Kerry should abandon his positive campaign and resign himself and us to Bush's agenda of sleaze which diverts him from spending his time defining his candidacy and his positions. His message has carried him this far and I believe he will pull ahead when the buzz from the hatefest in New York dies down and voters are more focused on the race after Labor Day.

[roseBudd]

11. Why that will not work

Its Attack of the Nerds.

It's just like high schiool. They have decided they are the popular kids and we are the nerds. That is why the RNC mockfest was as Maureen Dowd pointed out flawless. When they use mockery they appeal to the limbic brain.

Cheney Speaks to the Reptile Brain
by Thom Hartmann
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0817-13.htm

We humans, being the product of a long evolutionary process, really have three brains. And, as the Bush psy-ops folks know, politicians who win campaigns do so because they speak to all three of those brains. (snip)

Only ridicule with a subtext of fear has this power.

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive," Cheney said, firing first the thinking brain ("too many wars") and then the limbic brain ("for our wishes"). And then he went for the reptile brain: "...but not one of them was won by being sensitive."

The comment brought an instant response of laughter - an emotional and involuntary response, as Freud pointed out, that's the result of the neocortex thinking it's moving logically along in one direction (a discussion of too many wars) and then suddenly getting derailed ("but not one of them was won by being sensitive") from that thought. This sudden derailment - known among comedians as the "punch line" - causes the thinking brain to be momentarily confused and triggers a response known as laughter that comes involuntarily from the limbic mammalian brain. (This is why comedy almost always involves misdirection, like in the old Red Skelton classic, "I just flew in from Chicago...and, boy, are my arms tired!")
(snip)

The Bush campaign makes extensive use - as conservatives have for decades (remember Newt's "word list") - of NLP, framing, and other sophisticated psychological techniques to take control of issues and influence the electorate. They've been known and used in advertising for a half century, and were first used in a big way in politics in the campaigns of Reagan and Bush the Elder.

If the Kerry campaign doesn't quickly figure out how to use ridicule to make these sorts of essential framing and piercing issues work properly, we may be in for a replay of the Bush/Dukakis meltdown. Which would terrify our reptilian brains, sadden our limbic brains, and short-circuit our neocortexes.

[gulliver]

12. You need more than issues, even when they are all on your side.

People don't know the issues, and they won't be educated about them unless you grab their attention.

No one wants a sleazefest (on our side). We just need some fire. We need to reach people's cerebellums and cerebrums.