How we're going to win the next one (Elizabeth Edwards, please read)

(Note to Elizabeth Edwards: Do you know the names of any Democratic Party officials I can forward this to? Thanks.)

We can argue until the cows come home about BBV, exit polls not matching actual results and all the rest. Right now that's slightly immaterial. The Republicans beat us for one reason: they run a tighter ship than we do.

Here's how we're going to take 2008. Democratic Party, disregard at your peril.

1. We are going to back one candidate for president from the very beginning of the election cycle. I have discussed this before and it still holds: more than one candidate in the primaries is inviting disaster. Think back to the last time there was no incumbent--the year 2000. We had a number of candidates and finally came up with Al Gore. The Republicans walked into New Hampshire knowing they were going to run Bush in November.

We are going to choose this candidate in a smoke-filled room, no matter how loudly some of you may complain. We will do it this way if I have to buy the cigars myself. (Don't worry, I'll get some good ones.) Ever since we dispensed with the smoke-filled room, we've blown 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004. (1980 doesn't count; when you have an incumbent, you have to run him for reelection.) The last two times we put a Democrat in office, the Republican was so damaged we could have won with Adolf Hitler on the Democratic ticket.

2. We are going to develop a very simple-to-understand program. It will contain no more than six major initiatives. We will be able to describe these initiatives in less than fifteen seconds--not completely, mind you, but well enough that a person of average intelligence can understand them using only the information contained in those fifteen-second soundbites.

3. We are going to run a campaign that does not require a website. Obviously we will have one. You can't run for dogcatcher in America today without having a website. In 2004, John Kerry had some great plans--but because of their complexity, you had to go to Kerry's website to figure out what the hell he was going to do. Apparently, the only thing the average American can do on line is eBay and look at the website for their favorite sports team.

4. Negative campaigning: Folks, if the era of civilized campaigning ever existed, it's long gone now. One of my favorite political anecdotes comes from Hunter Thompson: he related the story of Lyndon B. Johnson running against a hog farmer. Johnson was losing, and he directed his minions to start spreading word that his opponent enjoyed frequent conjugal relations with his barnyard sows. One of his minions objected: "We can't call him a pigfucker!" LBJ grinned and said "no, but let's see the sumbitch deny it."

We are going to run a negative campaign. It has been proven to work. The electorate keeps saying it doesn't like negative campaigns. If this is true, then why in HELL do these people keep voting for the guy who runs the most-negative campaign?

In 2004, we didn't have to go far to run one. Bush, being quite possibly the biggest crook ever to live in the White House, gave us all the ammunition we needed. He outed a CIA agent. He did business with BCCI, the biggest supplier of terrorist funding in the entire banking industry. Half of his administration is complicit in either Iran-Contra, arming Saddam, arming Osama or all three. The other half is up to its ass in various domestic scandals. He's allied with Enron, a corporation that gives free sledgehammers and license-plate presses as Christmas bonuses. And let's not even go into the Ballpark at Arlington. The fact is that you could have started on New Year's Day 2004, publicized a new Bush scandal every single day until November 2, and still not have run out. We have argued about Bush's next job once he finally leaves office. He's going to go into show business, playing the lead role in monster movies. He's so covered in slime, he won't need any makeup.

What did we do with all this free help? Not a damn thing. People, when someone hands you a gift, accept it! And Bush's corruption was like manna from heaven! We didn't have to work hard on a negative campaign against George Bush; just telling the truth about him would have done it. Did we? No, we hailed him as a strong leader in the fight against terror. Wrong move: he's a very weak leader in the War Against Adjectives.

5. On the other hand, we know the Republicans will do anything to run a negative campaign against us. They will make shit up if they have to. We simply must have a staff on standby monitoring at least the national news channels for any hint of negative advertising, and we must IMMEDIATELY slap it down. Immediately means "before the big hand is pointing straight up." When they impugn the war record of our candidate, we must do two things: prove it wrong and hit them harder--and on an unrelated subject. "Dr. Louis Letson, while he may be a beloved family physician, is also a damn liar. There is no way he could clearly remember Senator Kerry's wounds because he never treated Senator Kerry's wounds. But backstabbing is nothing new to President Bush; he stabbed Mr. and Mrs. John Jones of Arlington, Texas in the back when he seized their land under the principle of eminent domain to construct the Ballpark at Arlington, paying them far less than its market value. The Bush team then discovered they didn't need the Jones' land and sold it at a healthy profit." I tried to work in that Bush also raised the taxes of the citizens of Arlington to build the park, but it didn't work in that context.

6. We are going to dress our candidates and their families in tasteful, attractive yet reasonably-priced clothes, hair, accessories and makeup. A recurring theme on DU is the disaster that exists in Laura Bush's closet and on her dressing table. Serious people present themselves professionally and attractively but don't look like they fuss over themselves for hours on end. We are going to run serious people.

7. We are going to target the "flyover states." We are better for the heartland than the Republicans are. We value labor, not old money; lifetime commitment, not "trophy wives"; living within your means, not maxing out the nation's credit card on unwise purchases like preemptive wars. We are going to do this by sending popular Democratic leaders--not entertainers, but elder statesmen--into the big red blotch dividing the country and convincing the people who live there that we want better for their states than the Republicans do. Remember, there is not one "red state" that went totally for Bush this election. Also remember that Bush won this election by one of the thinnest popular-vote margins in history. The red states are not a lost cause, and by properly managing the message, we will reign supreme.

8. We are going to follow the Republicans' lead and change the subject any time someone asks a question we don't want to answer. It's evasive as hell, but it works. If Tom Brokaw would have asked Bush when he stopped beating his wife, Bush would have started talking about Saddam Hussein and how the world was better off now that he's in jail. No one seems to mind. Since it works, we're going to do it too. And when the reporter chimes in with the question we've longed to ask, "Sir, would you please answer the question I asked?" we get the ultimate retort: "George Bush did this exact thing for eight years. Now it's a problem? What's your problem? Why do you hate America?"

9. Please understand that this is in no way a repudiation of our core principles. It is how we will campaign. We will run left and govern left and bring people who claim to be on the right with us because we are correct and the right is not and we will make people understand this. (I can put more instances of "and" in a sentence but not tonight.)

10. We are going to attack the right's main campaign point: "traditional" marriage. Everyone on the right thinks gay marriage threatens traditional marriage. People on the left think divorce and infidelity threaten traditional marriage in a way gay marriage never could. Because of this, we will come up with ways to preserve traditional marriages. (Besides "not allowing Republicans to get married," that is...but do this: Think of five couples you know who have been married ten years. Think of five who have been married 25 years. And now five who have been married 50 years. Of these fifteen couples, how many are Republicans? In my case, it's only one--and both husband and wife are on their second marriages.)

If we do all of these things, no Republican will ever darken the doors of the White House again.

The reversal of Roe v. Wade by Bush's Supreme Court picks will be the leading issue in 2008, and WE WILL WIN!

I just came back from a local dem meeting where a guest speaker presented an argument that in order to win elections the dem groups in red states must ignore the national message and instead create ads and catch phrases that will work with a rural constituency. I was sitting here pondering if he was right because he made a good argument, but I didn't like having to weaken our message in order to mollycoddle a bunch of fundie goofballs.

I like your ideas better and I think they will work everywhere.

unless we have CONVICTIONS and NOT by appealing to their BASE - hello

we need to STAND UP and be PROUD about who we are, what we do and what we BELIEVE IN.

it's gotta be the PEOPLE. who gives a fly'n fuck what bill o'really and the rest say... the people AIN'T that frigging stupid and if they are they will still admire us for our convictions :evilgrin:

peace

.

Here is my open letter to the Democratic Party, that spells out a blueprint for what we need to do in the future.

Fellow Democrats: it is gut check time. Sure, I know we are all saddened, angry, and disgusted by the outcome of the election. I can think of a few more adjectives too! But anger alone has never gotten the job done. Not in the civil rights movement, or any other critical moment in our nation's history. What we need to engage in now is course correction. In order to move our Party into the future, we need to understand the mistakes of the past.

1. One of the most aggregious errors I believe the Democratic Party has made is the failure to learn how to get its message out, even when it doesn't have the White House. The Republican Party learned this lesson well during the 1990s. Take for example, the Republican's 1994 Contract With America. From a policy perspective, you can argue that the Contract With America was actually a hit on America, and it was. However, strategically, it was brilliant, because it allowed the Republicans to say in a single document what they stood for. It allowed them to say to America "If you give us the Congress, this is what we will do." Sadly, during these past few years of George W. Bush's failed administration, I have not seen the equivalent of the Contract With America from the Democratic Party. I believe the Democrats need to devise a strategy to get its message out, when it does not have the advantage of the White House Rose Garden as its backdrop.

2. The Democratic Party needs a more effective Rapid Response team and strategy. I do not understand how the Democratic Party and Kerry campaign could have let the entire month of August go by, without forcefully responding to the lies put forth by the Swift Boat Veterans. I understand that Sen. Kerry was intent on running a positive campaign, and I believe he did. His campaign was one of hope for a brighter tomorrow. However, that does not mean that he should have let a month go by before responding to the lies of people like John O'Neill. Most Americans believe that 1) If a politican doesn't respond to charges against them, then those charges must be true and 2) If a Presidential candidate won't defend themselves, how will they defend America?

3. The Democratic Party needs a strategy to start winning the South. According to the 2000 US Census Bureau statistics, the majority (approximately 54%) of the African-American population resides in the South. The Democratic Party continues to lose the South, despite the heavy concentration of its most loyal constituencies. In other words, many people in the South continue to vote against their own best interests, and we need to explain that to them.

4. The Democratic Party needs a more effective strategy to respond to "the culture wars." I believe in my heart that Karl Rove's strategy for this election was to have a war on cultural values (abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage/civil unions, etc) to keep the focus off of unemployment, the economy, the debt, the war in Iraq, etc. Recent reports have surfaced that after the 2000 election, Karl Rove studied why George W. Bush did not win the popular vote, and he determined that Bush did not win the popular vote because many Christian conservatives stayed home. So I believe his strategy this time was to have a war on cultural issues, in order to get Christians out. Yet somehow, we as Democrats cannot seem to forcefully get the message out that it is not a Christian value to kick children out of after-school programs, to pay for a tax cut for the rich. It not a Christian value to lie about the need to take the United States to war in a country that has never attacked or threatened to attack us. We need to say this, and say it often.

5. The Democratic Party needs to work tirelessly to end the Right's control on the media. It is a sad statement of facts that many Americans who listen to talk radio get their information (based on lies) from people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, etc. And they do not take the time to research and see if what they are being told by Sean Hannity is the truth. They just take it as the gospel; no questions asked. I am thankful for the birth of Air America Radio, but they cannot do it alone. The Democratic Party, and others who are left-of-center, need to take responsibility for getting our voice and our values heard in various media outlets (print and broadcast).

6. As Democrats, we need to learn to call a lie a lie. If anything has become apparent to me during this campaign, it's that the Republicans will do and say anything to hold on to power, especially when they feel that power slipping away. And they have lied repeatedly during this campaign. For example, on October 14, CNN held a town hall meeting with undecided voters in Pennsylvania. Kiki McClean was there to represent the Democratic point of view, and Liz Cheney was there for the Republican side. When the subject of the economy came up, Liz Cheney said "We've been through as a nation -- this president came into office, he inherited a recession." I was incredulous that all Kiki McClean could do was shake her head, and let Paula Zahn move on to the next question. Liz Cheney was allowed to tell a lie to American voters, and advance the theory that George W. Bush inherited a recession from President Clinton. Our Democratic operative should not have allowed Paula Zahn to move on to the next question. She should have turned to Liz Cheney and said "There you go, lying to and misleading the American public again." She should have stated that the Bureau of Economic Research determined the last recession began in March 2001, on George Bush's watch. Since the Republicans don't respect the truth, we have got to call them on it, and call a lie a lie.

In short, I believe we are in a fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, and the heart and soul of this country. We need to ask the tough questions of our Party. Who will speak for us in the next four years? Who will be our standard-bearer?

If we continue to fail to get our message out, then we have essentially failed America, because we will have continued to allow the Republicans to misrepresent what we stand for as a Party. We MUST NOT allow the Republicans to define who we are. We must define that ourselves, and spell it out clearly.

welcome to DU! There are so many new names here at DU, and it gives me hope. We may have lost the election, but I'm thinking the experience has solidified a Democrat party that was already beginning to come together fairly well. We're going to be invincible soon.

Thanks for the compliment on my letter, and your warm welcome to DU.

I believe you are right about our Party.

Obviously, I think we could have done better in this election. But we are not some lost party. And when you look at issues like education, social security, the economy, etc..I think most Americans agree with us.

I agree 100% with everything you said. Now all we need are some charismatic southern, midwestern, or western candidates to put it behind.

People need to keep in mind around here that the candidate we run is only a vessel to accomplish our agenda. It's just our vehicle to get into power with the least resistance possible. Trust me, the Republicans already think this way.

It's changing the focus somewhat.

Wyoming has a Democratic governor. Montana has followed its lead and elected a Democratic governor last week (and have elected a Democratic Senate and have a one seat minority in the Assembly).

Do you want to know WHY these inpenitrable red states have Dems in charge? Not because Freudenthal and Schweitzer had a weak Dem message, it's because they changed the focus to more rural oriented issues where we always win big.

JOBS

JOBS!

JOBS!!!

I'm not sure if any of you are aware, but Montana never recovered from the 1991 recession. There was no tech boom, there was no 1990s prosperity in Montana. This was laid at the feet of the Republicans in the governor's mansion and the GOP led house and senate for good reason.

Couple this with a strong pro-hunting message, and a very strong environmental message and we'll win every time.

People will always vote to reduce their bills and Schweitzer's message of 1) building LOTS of electric windmills in the windiest state in the country and 2) getting Canadian drugs resonated.

Montana can be a blue state in 2008, believe it or not. The message has to be focussed to rural voters, not weakened, just focussed differently.

http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/airAmericaRadio.com/unfiltered/verifiedvoting.org/dr._david_dill.mp3

peace

The pugs are good at this and we need to be too.

They went from anti-abortions to pro-life, we need to turn it into anti-choice.
They say SS reform and we say SS deconstruction
They call us tax and spend liberals. We call them credit card conservatives.

There must be hundreds of ways to put negative connotations on their policies. That's how they managed to make us look bad. Newt had an approved word list for them and us. To hear them talk, it worked really well for them because they are still using the same words.
Everybody has to use the same words each and every time!

#2 is especially important. George Lakoff discusses message and framing, which are critical. He's the author of "Don't Think of an Elephant" and "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think."

"A message is only as effective as the frame in which it is delivered. Linguist George Lakoff explains what this means in terms of current political discourse."

...snip...
Lakoff: A lot of liberals believe that the facts will set you free. It's in our inheritance from the enlightenment. Where, in the enlightenment that everybody is a rational person, all you have to do is just tell them the facts, they'll reason to the right conclusion. It's false.

And the Republicans have learned that it's false. They've set up a frame, they set up a narrative, and they set it up in terms of their values. And they get it as part of normal, everyday language and normal everyday thought.

Once they've done that, the facts are irrelevant unless the Democrats can learn to re-frame the issues from their point of view, and then make the facts fit other frames.


...snip...

Now the person who I think taught me most about this is one of your former guests, Frank Luntz.

Brancaccio: Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and opinion researcher.

Lakoff: That's right.

Luntz puts out a little workbook every year or so. And last year in his section on the environment, he said something very interesting.

He said that on global warming, the Democrats have the science on their side, but we can win with language. What we need to do is use words environmentalists like, like "healthy," "clean," and "safe."

Now what that does is each word like that evokes a frame. But what they do is they evoke frames that are the opposite of what they know they mean. These are sort of Orwellian frames. These are ways to manipulate the public.

So whenever you hear an Orwellian term like "Clear Skies Act" or "Compassionate Conservative," means they know they're weak on something. And what you have to do is rename it. Rename it to fit the truth.

It is the Dirty Air Act. It is the Forest Destruction Act.
...snip...


http://www.alternet.org/story/19511

now if they're tell'n me that i have to give up a little liberty to adjust to the NEW REALITY the reTHUGs have created and we're ready to ABANDON SHIP... we'll, NUTS!

and it ain't like the reTHUGs and the rest of humanity just figured out the whole BREAD-n-CIRCUS routine, please... we are not CHILDREN.

now, let's put on our OWN SHOW and start really PANDERING to the PEOPLE :bounce:

peace

hopes up high :hi:

No, I like it. Get this to the Dem party.

Whether they listen or not is another question. But it's what we need to do.

I left out porn for a reason: we can't say that. But you're right--porn is the most successful use of the Internet. The only people who seem to be making money online are e-commerce pushes with brick-and-mortar stores backing them up (Amazon is being carried largely by their tools-and-hardware department, which is the online presence of a B&M store called Tool Crib of the North.), eBay, and porn.

that the Democrats would be very wise to listen to. Understand that, at least as I interpret the post, jmowreader is not advocating that we actually give in and run a moderate candidate. Instead he's saying we need to frame our issues the same way the other side does; we need to make our message simple and make the public focus on their weak points and our strong points while pursueing an agenda that does not always coincide with our speeches. We SAY that we are trying to come up with ways to sterngthen traditional marriage, and we do this as best we can, but we also make sure that same-sex marriages are given equal rights. What I think we should do is copy the repugs' tactics: make sure our intelligent base knows what we are really for, and talk in broad terms about morality rather than specifics about policy in a way that will lure the sheep among the population to our ticket.

3DO

First, we can't call it "same-sex marriage." We need to call it "civil union." The beauty of civil union, which would be granted by a judge, is that all weddings-by-judge would be legally considered to be civil union, meaning that mixed-sex CU and same-sex CU would have equal rights in the view of the law. (My preference is the German system, which requires that all legal unions be performed by a judge--with optional solemnization in a church. But until we can do this, having all judge weddings be considered civil unions works too.)

Second, we need to quit calling them "gay marriages." They're really "lesbian marriages." Quick question for those of you with both sons and daughters: how many of your daughters like to cut out pictures of women in wedding dresses and plan for their weddings? Quite a few, I'll bet. Now, how many of your sons cut out pictures of men in tuxedos? See, guys don't have these "dream wedding" fantasies because we know that our whole purpose in the wedding is to show up in a rented suit and not fart until the ceremony's over. It's the bride's day; except that it's real hard to kiss the bride over the phone, we could basically sit at home, call the preacher and read our vows off a card.

There is a huge difference between what the Repugs do and what we are trying to do: if what the Repugs are really for ever got out in public, we'd win the election no matter who we ran because what the Republican Party is for is bad for America. We could finally put Walter Mondale into the White House. What we are for is good for America, and we need to get back on message.

Reminds me of that old joke "What does a lesbian bring on the second date?"

A U-Haul.

What does a gay man bring on the second date?

What second date?

it's an ebay auction i ran across. The Remaining Dignity of the Republican Party

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3940565060#description

You have put everything into writing that I have been stewing over this past week. All through the primaries I kept thinking, "We have got to run one of these men against the spindoctor himself and they keep bickering with each other!".

Does anyone else agree that we need to start some sort of campaign now? I'm thinking Rudy or Jeb for 2008 and quite honestly, another 12 years of this ^*&^$* is scaring me.

in a smoke filled room, they can forget about getting my vote. Even if it happens to be my guy, that is adopting repuke principles.

They need to restructure the primaries so that we get input from a more representative sample of states instead of always having Iowa and New Hampshire choose our candidate.

Think back to the 2004 election. We had three people who I thought would have been really good presidents--John Kerry, John Edwards and Wesley Clark.

If we would have sent...oh, 2000 people, 40 from each state...into a smoke-filled room for three days and let them pick one of the three, would you object to that? Moreover, how about letting rank-and-file Democrats elect the people to go into that room? That would be pretty democratic and still get us where we need to be--one good, well vetted, electable candidate from the start of the election cycle. It would have prevented the 1988 problem, which was that Michael Dukakis really wasn't presidential material.

The Repug leadership, maybe five guys at the top, decided on Dubya Bush. We let our guys beat the shit out of each other until America is tired of seeing them. This has got to work better than what we're doing now, and that's the whole point.

No, I don't agree that it would be democratic. Maybe I'm just being obstructionist in my attitude, but I think that the key is to look at a major restructuring of the ways in which we hold our primaries. We should look at ways to get a more representative sample of the American population giving their input, more time and opportunity to get to know the candidates, and more people overall having their primary vote really count.

My caucus vote didn't count at all because Kerry already had the nomination wrapped up by that time and I really resented it. I live in a potential swing state that might offer some valuable input into what characteristics have a wider national appeal.

Winning isn't the whole point. Voters feeling like they have a real say in the process is important in keeping them engaged and mobilized. It obviously is different for the Repukes, but we are not like them.

I also notice you leave out Howard Dean. How do you think his supporters would feel about your scenario. What about Kucinich supporters. What criteria gets used to decide which are the good ones and which aren't? Your scenario is always going to leave some group of people feeling left out and marginalized. There would have been far less grassroots mobilization in this campaign without the Dean supporters IMO. Let's not have a process that excludes important blocs.

Sorry, that was a reference to an article posted earlier about some DLC trouser stain's suggestion on how we win in 2008 (i.e. by going to Applebee's). I agree with the vast majority of what you suggested. I'm going to add a few modest proposals. First, a year before the election, we put every namby-pamby, pansy-ass DLC strategist in a tiny, little cage until the election is over, with weekly beatings supplied by yours truly. Any mention of focus groups within the campaign will be met with swift punishment (most likely, being fired). Actually, focus groups are fine; it's just the imbecile Democratic strategists, who don't know how to use them, who need to go. As an example, if people in a focus group say, "We want concrete plans", that does not mean the candidate should say, "I have a plan" every other second. It probably means that, in the absence of a clearly understood message and theme from the campaign, the people want to sound thoughtful, smart, and reasonable. And it certainly doesn't mean they want you to recite the details of an economic plan in a convention speech, or anywhere else, putting them and the rest of the world to sleep. To go along with your simple, easily explicable ideas, the campaign needs one or two overriding themes. Clinton had "Putting People First" and "I feel your pain". Even Carter had a theme, as has every other victorious challenger I can think of. The absence of such a message from Kerry was mind-boggling since there were such obvious and uncontroversial themes to choose from. His people didn't even need to think of them; they were suggested by Al Franken, Arianna Huffington and others: Uniting the country not dividing it; A new era of post-9-11 self-sacrifice and patriotism. The last one had the added benefit of fitting into Kerry's life story. In fact, both did, if you think about it. Kerry chose the uninspired approach of backing his way into the presidency. That's not what people want in their leaders. I hope we never make that mistake again.

The DLC strategists need to be locked up right now.

I can agree with.:D

but you're right. Fuck human rights. Let's lock 'em up now!

We lock their asses up.

We charge them with the high crime of Being a Dumb-Ass.

Being a Dumb-Ass gets you four years--we release them the day after the election.

And then we campaign our asses off. Which is what it's gonna take.

I like it a lot. How many people could we lock up on that high crime? Everyone who voted for Bush? I like the way you think.

If you aren't working on a major campaign, you should be. You are absolutely right, especially on points 2, 4 and 5. I agree with them all, but those three had me screaming the most during the campaign.

process? WE WON!!!! WUZ ROBBED!!!!

I really, really love these ideas.....but PLEASE, PLEASE pick a strong candidate. If Dean was the candidate this election cycle, there would have been no "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", no flip-flop issues, no voting record issues, etc.

Thank You and Rock On.