TPM: Swift Boat Vet Operative Vows To "Attack Obama Viciously"

[sabra]

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05...

Check out this little nugget buried in today's Washington Post piece on the efforts by the Obama and McCain campaigns to steer donors away from third-party groups:

"We will attack Obama viciously on all fair issues, whether they are national security, whether they are taxes or the economy," promised Chris LaCivita, one of the Republican strategists behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that attacked Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry in 2004.

LaCivita added: "At the end of the day, every individual has a right to participate in the political process whether John McCain likes it or not. It's their constitutional right."

Hmmm -- "attack Obama viciously," huh? Don't say you weren't warned.

[flor de jasmim]

1. "attack VICIOUSLY on all FAIR issues"...me thinks he needs an English class!

[Deep13]

2. "...viciously on all fair issues...."

Vicious but fair. Sounds like an ad for a judicial candidate in Ohio.

[Justitia]

3. Meanwhile, he'll be too distracted trying to fend off Hillary Never-Say-Die Clinton to fight them.

[LSparkle]

4. Glad they're on the record ... the voters this cycle are SICK of these tactics

and hopefully won't fall for them again.

[cynatnite]

7. I think people got pretty sick of them last time...

I can't see folks being too tolerant of them or their tactics. Obama won't wait around to respond to them like Kerry did. As much as I like Kerry, I was disappointed in him over that.

[Warpy]

10. Obama hasn't been cursed by a DLC election team---yet

He's been great so far, answering all the mud slinging directly and fully and before consulting a bunch of silly focus groups in order to nuance his sentences. It's refreshing.

If he is able to maintain the team he's put together and has sense enough to rebuff help from Clinton's team or any of the other corporate lobbyists turned election wonks, he'll likely keep rising above all the shit.

May Clinton be the last candidate whose campaign is destroyed from within by a DLC election team!

[LSparkle]

12. Look at the results in Mississippi yesterday ...

The Rethugs tried to paint Childers with Obama's Rev. Wright problems
but the voters didn't buy it. I really think that the era of the
Swift Boat Vets has ended, and if these guys have even ADMITTED up
front that their plan is to "attack viciously," then that makes it
even easier for Obama to call voters' attention to how out of touch
they are.

[cynatnite]

14. Exactly. That was very telling, I thought...

Most people are more concerned about high gas prices and skyrocketing costs of feeding their families these days. That sort of polliticking isn't going stick as much as it would have a few years ago.

[Dhalgren]

15. You are right, the Obama smears failed with Childers.

But Childers is a pretty rabid right-wing goon. He ran as an anti-choice, anti-affirmative action, anti-immigrant, pro-Bible super conservative. The only way you would know he was a Democrat is if he told you.

So Obama didn't "stick" to Childers, but what about other Democratic candidates who aren't closet Nazis?

[LSparkle]

20. I think that voters are just plain tired of this kind of politics

which explains Obama's popularity. Certainly attacks will work
with some people (witness Ohio and PA), but generally I don't
think Swift-Boating will be as effective this cycle as it was
in '04. They will try it and we should expect it, but I don't
think we have to run quite so scared of it this time around.

[Dhalgren]

23. And, as I heard someone say a few minutes ago,

"There's nothing you can do about it, anyway." If they swift-boat Obama, they swift-boat Obama; you certainly can't stop them from doing it. An if everyone is already on Obama's side, the swift-boaters will have a hard time of it, to be sure...

[gratuitous]

17. The voters are indeed sick of these tactics

But the media talking chuckleheads? Boy oh boy, do they love fabricating issues out of the thinnest gossamer! It's up to us (as usual) to call the media on their preoccupation with nonsense like Rev. Wright and the Wal-Mart board of the 1980s. The issues we want to discuss here and now, today, are the endless quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan (hint: nobody is going to pull us out of these, we have to do it ourselves); the lousy state of the economy (guess what: giving all the country's money to a handful of overrich assholes isn't a good idea); and health care (making it optional is not an option).

[bowens43]

5. of course they would just let hillary slide by, right?

[Dhalgren]

19. It doesn't make any difference how they might

or might not treat Clinton, Obama is the nominee and it is his campaign that needs to be focused on. They did serious damage to Kerry in '04 and just dismissing it as Obama being "untouchable" is a pretty strange way of approaching the issue...

[BOSSHOG]

6. Swiftboaters have never done anything FOR our country

like people who support the likes of bush and get their "facts" from limbaugh. Viciously attacking other humans with lies, half truths and right wing slime is what they are best at. So wonderful hearing a facist ignorant worthless sack of shit talking about constitutional rights.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

8. For all the vitrol between Clinton and Obama supporters...

I have been guilty of ugliness as well, but I am praying that we all will come together to obliterate the SHITBOAT LIARS OF COWARDS this time around. Because that's exactly what they are: COWARDS!!!

[DJ13]

9. Well that tactic obviously worked well in yesterdays MS runoff

lol

[DinahMoeHum]

11. Neah neah-neah neah neah. . .booga booga booga!

Chris LaCivita - big mouth, tiny balls.

[kskiska]

13. I seem to remember the Swiftboaters saying

they weren't political - weren't affiliated with any party. It was just about John Kerry.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Like anyone expected differently?

Those clowns would go after whoever the Dem nominee is.

So what's new?

[T Monk]

18. as long as media is buying...

[JDPriestly]

21. I think the Swiftboaters will meet their Waterloo with Obama.

He is extremely likable, extremely personable and does not get caught up or become bitter and shaken by these things. McCain is seriously going to call off these dogs when he watches his polls go down due to their nastiness.

Obama is not interested in the politics of retribution. He represents the politics of healing. That's his shtick, and I think it is what Americans want.

Usually Americans love negative campaigning, but this year could be different because Americans view the Republicans as possibly sadistic liars. I don't think it is just me. I think this goes for some Republicans too.

[jmowreader]

22. I sense an oxyMORAN here...

One of the people behind the Swift Boat attacks says he's going to attack on "fair" issues?

[Winterblues]

24. What a shocker.... Republican operatives to attack a Democrat viciously..

"Who could have ever imagined"?..