A democratic consultant who be unemployed for life

[yurbud]

I stopped dead in my tracks when I read the sentence in this excerpt. Why should someone be paid for giving the OPPOSITE advice to what has been a winning strategy for Republicans for over 20 years?

Polite and circumspect doesn't sell. Blunt and honest does. And unlike the Republicans, we don't have to lie to be blunt.

Bob Shrum's only duties for the democrats in the future should be hanging bunting and inflating balloons--but I'd have someone keep an eye on him when he was doing that too.

Weasels like Shrum aren't the only problem though. Dems are hoping to court business and corporate donors away from the GOP when they get sick of the Jethros and tent meetings. But to get those bigwigs, they have abandoned the rest of us. Here's a newsflash: it doesn't matter how much corporate money you get if voters don't trust and respect you enough to vote for you. I would vote for Lyndon LaRouche or Ross Perot before I'd vote for a future Shrum client like corporate boot-licker Joe Biden.

I hope his hair plugs fall out the minute his warranty expires.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/041105.html

One of the reasons for this is that many environmental groups have strict messaging rules about how to present their arguments, restrictions that anyone who has worked for one of these groups knows by heart. “Don’t be shrill.” “Discuss the policy, not the person.” “Don’t attack motives.”

Many Democratic candidates seem to operate under these same messaging guidelines. For instance, in preparation for the third presidential debate last fall, political adviser Bob Shrum nixed a response that John Kerry planned to deliver to an expected attack from George W. Bush. Shrum felt that the comeback, which referred to the president by his first name, wasn’t respectful enough, according to another Kerry adviser.

While Kerry mostly took the high road in Campaign 2004, the Bush team, led by political adviser Karl Rove, chose the low road as a far more direct route to victory.

[JI7]

1. i'm not too sure about that

if Kerry had done that then the Republicans and media would have been going on about how Kerry had been disrespectful and other shit. and most americans already thought that Kerry ran a more negative campaign against Bush then the Republicans did. this is because Republicans usually get someone other than their nominee to do the attacks.

and of course when the media and Republicans started on in how Kerry had "dishonored" the office of the Presidency and other shit the Democrats would probably not have defended him and instead went on about how it was a mistake on his part.

[saracat]

3. It really didn't matter what Kerry did.

The repukes would spin anything as disrespectful or an attack. He should have gone for it! It is like a trial, even if a witness is deemed not credible on the stand, you can't unring the bell. It wasn't important what the repuke talking heads said that was important, but what the public/ voter remembered. If he had called Bush a "liar" the voters would have remembered and at least given thought to Bush as a "liar".
As a prosecutor I think Kerry knew that and he went against his own instincts. I guarantee you , he won't do that again.Edwards knows that trick as well and they forced him to shut up as well.And he did it reluctantly. They were both right and Shrum was wrong.IMHO!

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Calling the Frat Boy by his first name is entirely too respectful

Kerry should have called him a liar. There is nothing any more wrong with calling Bush a liar than with calling him a white male or a Republican. It's just what he happens to be.

[Selteri]

4. He should have been agressive instead of a spineless wimp (Kerry)

He took the high road, but it didn't matter to the MSM, he needed to stop messing with the high and low road and just go straight through the mountain of BS.

[saracat]

5. "Spineless wimps" are people who continue to blame dedicated

candidates , who even put their own houses up for collateral, long after a stolen election has taken place. I suppose there are those who are so willing to prove that their perception of the presidential campaign is so superior that they themselves could run and do a better job.Yet none of these steps up to the plate! Why is that? And if the evidence of fraud was sooo easy to obtain in order to prolong an election fight, why hasn't someone produced it yet? Could it be they are "spineless wimps", too afraid to run for office themselves and both too afraid ,and too lazy ,to gather evidence themselves?

[poverlay]

7. I think we do have to take the low road...

Without losing our love for the high one. Civility, respect, openness: these are things we can't lose sight of or we become what we most despise.

That said~
All the RWers can do is shout.

We, however, can shout with truth, and a vision of the future that involves more than bombing something.

Unfortunately, as distasteful as it is, we must shout.

Showing them that we're not afraid to take the fight to them on their own turf is key.

Here's my goal: To instill at least a seed of doubt in a Republican every day.

They already know we're right, once they now we won't back down they'll either sit down or start frothing at the mouth.

[yurbud]

8. exactly--say it simple, often, and LOUD

as long as what you are saying is true, it's not immoral.

[yurbud]

9. a problem Kerry had at the time

I was concerned that if Kerry was decimating W in the polls, that there might have been an October Surprise.

There are a couple of things he could have said during the debates that would have been game over and knocked Bus& down in the polls about 10% or more instantly like being far more blunt about the theft of Iraqi oil inspiring the insurgency.

He almost seemed to be modulating his campaign to just win, but hopefully be outside the range of what they could rig away. So he had a window with vote rigging fencing him in on the low end and massive violence on the other. I can understand the thinking in aiming for that, but it almost would have been better to aim for the high end and force the 8ushies to play their hand or try to. That might have lead to a moment like the counter-coup in Russia. Those called upon to harm their own people would refuse and if they didn't the rest of us America would see clearly what they are dealing with.

[Clark2008]

6. Hell, I don't even refer to him as "pResident" in LTTEs

I always just call him "George W. Bush."
That's his name, it's not disrespectful, but it lacks the tag I'd just assume he not have.