Anti-Bush campaign planned

Source: Associated Press

Anti-Bush campaign planned
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer
39 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - A liberal advocacy group plans to spend $8.5 million in a drive to make sure President Bush's public approval doesn't improve as his days in the White House come to an end.

Americans United for Change plans to undertake a yearlong campaign, spending the bulk of the money on advertising, to keep public attention on what the group says are the failures of the Bush administration, including the war in Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the current mortgage crisis.

In selling the plan to fundraisers, the group has argued that support for President Reagan was at a low of 42 percent in 1987 but climbed to 63 percent before he left office. "All of a sudden he became a rallying cry for conservatives and their ideology," said Brad Woodhouse, president of the group. "Progressives are still living with that."

The group is a nonprofit corporation that made a splash by airing ads against Bush's plans to overhaul Social Security in 2005. The group has conducted polls and focus groups and is now raising money for their anti-Bush effort. It gave a Power Point presentation to representatives of about 30 liberal and labor organizations last week.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_el_pr/anti_bush_campaign

If they are visible enough, this could help elect Democrats, too.

Just wow.

They have their work cut out for them. Just listing the failures is already a monumental task.

:think: a side by side would lampoon both.

can i gank it for my blog?

Please do!

:hi:

How can telling the truth be "anti" anything? For once the entire truth about Little Boots' horrendous regime is told and it's billed as "anti-Bush". :wtf: HE created his miserable fucking legacy, it isn't a fabricated fairy tale. They're making it sound as if this is some witch hunt, that they're deliberately making things up to be "anti-Bush". Bullshit. Bush DID all of these things. :grr:

The facts speak for themselves. The main problem is that the folks with the microphone are all covering for his miserable ass.

Want Katrina victims to get their housing back? Left-wing. Want to stop spending $200B/yr occupying Iraq? Left-wing. Don't like having your e-mails read? Left-wing.

Damn liberal media.

bush's lies, un-American acts, and total failure at everything are already glaringly obvious to anyone with a brain. Over 50% of the public already strongly disapprove of the jerk. And over 75% say the country is on the wrong track.

I am wondering where bush's people get the wacky idea that his popularity will rise as his presidency blessedly approaches its long-awaited close. (Maybe it's more Karl Rove math.) Like all Republicans and Republican ideas, the more people hear about bush, the less they like him. It has been that way throughout his presidency. His worthless name will be a symbol of failure and criminality in office for many, many years to come.

It'll be totally subconscious, but there will doubtless be an effect. This group just doesn't want Dumbya to benefit.

While half my brain is howling at the waste of money, the other half is applauding the effort. As long as the lies, crimes and other horrors of the past seven years are kept alive in the minds of the citizens, the harder the enablers and apologists of the maladministration are going to have to work to rewrite history or further the neocon agenda.

in getting Dems elected in November? Maybe I'm missing something but it seems to me this money should be used to defeat the Pug nominee and elect the Dem nominee not worry about driving down a lame president's -30% approval rating. Furthermore if HRC is the nominee some of the key points to defaming him could be turned on our own candidate....Just seems like the money is being taken out of the available funds during an election year and it could be better spent...History will judge GW and 8.5 million isn't really going to change that IMHO.

that the goal simply is to keep Bush's popularity down. I sincerely doubt that there is much danger of it going up much anyway.

If Democrats are caught napping--as they often are--the Baby Bush's numbers may creep back up, drip by drip. A point here, another two points there, and next thing you know he's at 48%. Never underestimate the childlike gullibility of the stupid American voter. Part of the Democratic strategy this year should be to position the Republican nominee as Bush's heir apparent. That strategy cannot work if Baby Bush's ratings reach the threshold of respectability.

when the country completely disintegrates in 18-24 months, it is imperative that * gets the blame, and not Hil or Barrack or John. This kind of effort should make that happen.

but see my post #27.

This campaign would indirectly help toward those goals. The way we win, and discredit the Republicans for a generation, is to tie all Republicans to Bush and his policies. We need to be able, in two year's time, run campaign commercials that say: "The Bush administration lied over 900 times in order to justify their war of choice in Iraq. Where was Senator Dole? Did she ever question her leadership? Or did she follow Bush wherever he led, even if that meant going into Iraq with no discernible policy objectives and no real exit strategy? Bush claims that his party is the party of personal responsibility, but whenever anything goes wrong, they find a scapegoat to blame for their mistakes. Bush said he wasn't responsible for letting 9-11 happen on his watch, isn't responsible for saddling our grandkids with a $9 trillion debt, isn't responsible for his administration's ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, isn't responsible for shipping millions of American jobs overseas, isn't responsible for destroying the nation's economy. Time and time again, Senator Dole voted for the president's disastrous program, and whenever their policies have failed, Bush and Dole have claimed that they are not responsible. It's time to end the Bush Republicans' legacy of failure: vote Democratic on November 2."

If it does simply hit Bush over the head, it would be getting the truth out but in a rather unfocused way. However, if done as you described, then it could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I feel that Kerry lost in 2004 largely because his campaign was almost completely on why bush shouldn't be pres and nobody (outside of diehard political followers) knew what his plan was. I feel that this season isn't about bush, he is gone and isn't coming back and most of the pug candidates are already distancing themselves from him. If they can be tied to him fine but to spend money to conquer the conquered is a waste IMHO. Of coarse it isn't my money, I would just like to see this general election campaign stay on the message of what our candidate will do to fix the broken and not pointing fingers as to who did the breaking...I think that is a risky plan especially if HRC is the nominee...again just my $.02

The Republicans have been in power (more or less) since 1980, and during the last six years they have had all the chance in the world to enact their agenda. It's not that Bush will be back, just as it wasn't the case that Nixon would come back in 1974. Bush becomes a symbol for the whole thing, which is convenient, because The whole morass of failure that the republican agenda has been for this nation is complicated. Fortunately, George Bush is there to stand as a symbol for all that is wrong with the Republicans. The Republican mantra has been "stay the course," without regard for the fact that doing so leads the nation into the path of a racing locomotive.

Of course, the actual facts of the matter are a good deal more complicated, but this simple story seems true, and so as long as we stick to it and don't confuse people with nuance we should be good. We can be for something as well as against something, but the thing that we are for can be as vague as a city on a hill, a great society, a new deal or a thousand points of light. What matters is to relentlessly set the narrative.

And that's what I've learned from Carl Rove and Lee Atwater.

And that's how they must be framed.

But I think that is a waste of money. I see nothing in that mans performance that will improve his standings with the American people. Think the money would be better spent getting more Democrats elected to Congress or getting a Democrate elected President. Who gives a damned what his popularity rating is at the end of his tenure in office.

Give the money to charity.