ProgressOhio

There should be a simple theme when dealing with Republicans and Iraq. It's this: Republicans want to spend money on Iraqis but not on Americans. They want to help Iraqis but not Americans. It is simple, it is direct, and it is true. It also takes less than four seconds to say, which means that you might be able to get a spot on local news shows when you say it.

Crossposted at www.mcdac.blogspot.com

Okay, we are pretty sure that there are not making this kind of video about McCain, Guiliani, Romney, or for that matter, any of the other Republicans. This video clip has already been seen on You Tube over 800,000 times. The question becomes, according to this blogger on Huffington Post, what white American males are going to make of this video. Will it help Obama by making him appear hip to younger voters, or will it frighten white Americans, especially white American males, with its obvious reference to Obama's sexuality?

The Huffington Post blogger is afraid that this video clip will do to Obama what the infamous video clip of the white woman telling Harold Ford to call her did in  the Tennessee  2006 campaign for U.S. Senate. Of course, one problem with that ad was that Ford didn't address the obvious racist appeal of that ad head-on. What he should have done is cut an ad that said somthing like,"Have you seen that ad with the woman telling me to call her? Well, here's the thing. I don't know that woman and never met her. Now, why is she lying about me? Because the people who made that ad think all white voters are ignorant racists." He didn't and he lost by about 3%.

See, here's the thing. That kind of ad is always going to work with a genuinely racist voter, who isn't going to vote for a black candidate anyway. What you want to do if you are the black candidate being attacked is make white voters who aren't racists mad at the people who made the ad, and, by extension, at the candidate benefiting from the ad.

When Republicans appeal to fear and play culture war politics, the only answer is to call them on it. Think about the swift-boat ads against John Kerry. Think what would have happened if Kerry had cut an ad along the lines of "Let me get this straight: George W. Bush used political connections to avoid serving in Vietnam. I volunteered and now my service record is being attacked by Republicans? Does this make any sense to you? Why are Republicans talking about my military service? Because they can't talk about their own."

Instead John Kerry ignored the ad, put no counter-theme out there and lost the election. We don't think that Democrats should necessarily be the first to go negative in political advertising. What we do believe is that when Republicans hit Democrats, Democrats need to hit back hard and fast.

Cross-posted at www.mcdac.blogspot.com.

On May 1, we ran an entry about how George Voinovich likes to criticize Bush but when the chips are down, he is going to back the President. We argued then that one reason why he does this is so he will appear to be a "moderate" Republican. His so-called "moderation" serves him well with the media, as can be seen in this column in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch.

Joe Hallett reveals how Voinovich visited Colin Powell about two weeks ago to urge him to run for President in 2008. Apparently Voinovich believes that handing the American government over to a man who appeared in the United Nations and talked about non-existent weapons of mass destruction will somehow restore America's credibility with the world.

Hallett goes on to say "We all got conned -- everybody," Voinovich said, not blaming Powell or anyone else in particular, but lamenting that the right questions were not asked of the right people in the run-up to war."

Of course, "everybody" didn't get "conned". Sherrod Brown didn't. Dennis Kucinich didn't. A lot of commentators didn't. The "everybody" that Voinovich is referring to does include a lot of Democrats, but to try and pass this disaster off as something that was unforeseen is wrong, and more than wrong. it is dishonest.

Here's why Republicans like Voinovich want to claim that "everybody" got "conned." If everybody was wrong then Republicans can't be fairly blamed for getting us in a war that didn't do one thing to advance American security and has done so much to undermine American security. Claiming "everybody" was wrong is a way of making sure that in 2008, and beyond, Americans don't just blame the Grand Old Party for this Great Big Mess.

The real question isn't why Voinovich is claiming that "everybody" was wrong. The real question is whether the media will let him and other Republicans get away with it. One reason why the "right" questions weren't asked by the "right" people is that the Republicans controlled the Congress and weren't about to let anyone question Bubble-Boy's rationale for taking us into war in Iraq.

Democrats have to be vigilant in making sure that variations of "everybody got conned" don't go unchallenged in 2008. The media, which was complicit in the run up to the Iraqi War, and the Republicans, who wanted this war, each have a vested interest in pushing this narrative. Democrats have a vested interest in making sure this narrative doesn't go unchallenged.

Cross-posted at www.mcdac.blogspot.com.