Dream meme: All Republican Campaigning = Smear Tactics

[BlueEyedSon]

This came to me in a dream last night....

SMEAR is the entirety of their message. Republicans have no real strengths, no past accomplishments and no (positive) goals for the country. There is no way for them to look good, the only way they can win is to make the opposition look bad. Period.

Examples:
John McCain is a commie
Max Cleland is a fool
Kerry: medals v. ribbons
The $87 Billion
Kerry is the top liberal in Congress
Swift boat liars for Bush

Now that they have a 100% pure track record, it is simple to dismiss any additional criticism they have of Kerry as BASELESS SMEAR TACTICS.

:)

[Chichiri]

1. In other news . . .

Oxygen is good. ;)

[BlueEyedSon]

2. I want to see every talking head on TV say this.

uh... not that O2 is good, that GOP = SMEAR.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Smear and Fear

that's all they've got to run on.

[rucky]

4. didn't kerry say that the past couple of days?

at his NYC speech and on the Daily Show.

or something like that

[seabeyond]

5. a simple shrup of the shoulder, and just another smear

with all that comes out of repugs mouth

[JHB]

6. Standard Bush Operating Procedure.

It's SOP for the Disciples of Lee Atwater (except for the part where he repented):

Bush-Style Politics, Again
By Sam Parry
August 19, 2004

This year’s general election campaign is taking on the trademark stamp of every Bush national campaign since 1988: attack politics that tear down the Bush opponent while a compliant Washington press corps can’t believe the Bush family would play dirty.

In 1988, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis faced Republican attacks suggesting he had undergone psychiatric care, favored dangerous criminals and lacked patriotism. In 1992, the Republicans went on a search for a “silver bullet” against Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, which included searching his passport file and leaking false rumors that he had tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

In 2000, Sen. John McCain confronted whispers about his sanity after five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp and mysterious phone calls about his “black” baby (a child he had adopted from Bangladesh). Vice President Al Gore saw his words so twisted that they were used to justify Republican claims that he was “delusional” and thus unfit to serve as President.

Now, it’s Sen. John Kerry’s turn. On one level, the Bush campaign presents Kerry as confused and inconsistent about his ability to make decisions on war and other issues. In a parallel operation, a conservative group of Vietnam veterans accuses Kerry of lying about his war record as the Bush campaign neither condemns nor discourages the smears.

--- from http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/081904.html ----

And let's not forget to include Max Cleland in this, when the Republicans targeted Georgia to oust him and regain their control of the Senate:

"The issue in 2002 was civil service protections for Homeland Security employees, which Bush opposed and Cleland supported. As the bill, (which Cleland eventually supported, and indeed originally co-sponsored) moved through Congress, Cleland cast a number of votes against it in hopes of getting a better bill. The Republican attack ads made it look as though Cleland was voting against Homeland Security itself, and one TV ad morphed Cleland's face into Saddam Hussein's while suggesting that Cleland was indifferent to the safety of the American people. This ad was so disgusting that Republican Sens. Hagel and McCain both protested it." <15>

In February 2004, "vitriolic right-wing ideologue" Ann Coulter wrote that Cleland should not be referred to as a war hero, as he had lost his limbs in a routine non-combat misssion. Regardless of the exact circumstances of the explosion, or its non-relation to the prior battles for which the stars were given, it is worth noting that Cleland was awarded a Silver Star "for gallantry in action" at the battle of Khe Sanh.

--- from http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Max_Cleland#Political_Slanderings ---