Thursday, September 02, 2004

Republicans, always running from the issues

Has anyone seen any more hatred or vitriole spewed at political convention before in their lives? I mean the Republicans at the Convention are manic. One minute they're bowing their heads in tribute to Ronald Reagan, September 11 victims, and the next they're screaming about John Kerry.

All they can do when talking about George Bush is speak in large sweeping generalizations. They can't point to his environmental record. They can't point to his economic record. They can't point to his health care record. They can't point to his spending record, and they certainly can't point to his war record. All dismal stuff. And how many times has a Republican speaker mentioned fiscal conservativism in this convention? I've counted about six times so far. They've abandoned it in their platform.

Why do they keep bringing it up?

The Republicans are scared shitless. That's why they're resorting to so many constant attacks against John Kerry. They don't want to talk about issues. They don't want to talk about how poverty has increased by 1.5 million in the past four years - reversing a trend it took Bill Clinton eight years to turn around. They don't want to talk about the thousands of wounded soldiers who fought a war in Iraq that diverted attention and money away from a war on terror. They don't want to talk about the Corporate giveaways and relaxing of clean air laws so that companies who have been resistant to modernizing with pollution controls can sponge off of the emissions levels of those who have. They don't want to talk about how their controlled federal agencies have been dragging their feet in pursuing anti-trust cases that resulted in unjustly higher energy prices for citizens of the west coast. They don't want to talk about how it has taken them three years to put any sort of real money towards Homeland Security.

No, John Kerry is a flip-flopper and speaks French. Those are the big issues to Republicans. Makes you feel good about who's in charge, doesn't it?

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Putting our faith in Fictionists

Michael Moore could be one of the most influential filmmakers in history, save for one small flaw (actually, make that a big flaw)-- he doesn't know when to stop. Michael Moore suffers from the same flaw that ails MoveOn.org. They both hold far too much anger to excel in their muckraking.
Now, I'm not saying their viewpoints are wrong. In fact, they're far from wrong, but they do themselves a severe disservice in the way their message is broadcast.
Take, for instance, Bush's military service (or lack thereof). MoveOn made a big mistake of running an ad that accused Bush of being AWOL - or words to that effect. Most thinking Democrats probably cringed at the gall of MoveOn to run the ad. I was one Liberal who fervently wrote to Eli Pariser, telling him to drop the issue. But, of course, they don't listen to one sensible person. John Kerry, to his credit, felt the same way many Democrats did - it wasn't going to get them anywhere, and it prevented us from taking the high road.
Even now, when we're trying to point to the unfairness of the SWIFTVet accusations, MoveOn completely disarmed our arguments for 527's with their boneheaded thinking.
Michael Moore suffers the same affliction. He's far too angry and that clouds his message. I'm not saying people can't be angry at Bush - I am, but I also know the old saying - You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. It's absolutely true. Michael Moore and MoveOn are wasting their time preaching to the choir. Of course Democrats and Liberals are going to eat the stuff up, but where does that get them? What Michael Moore and MoveOn SHOULD be doing is trying to convince the OTHER side that their candidate is the wrong choice. You do that with persuasive arguments and evidence. Not with rants. It has never worked and it never will.
I'm waiting for the new MoveOn ads to come out - the ones showing Bush supporters who've made the switch to John Kerry. I was one of the thousands (or millions) who voted on which ads were the most persuasive. The ones I picked? They were the ones that had normal people who many of us could identify with, but who didn't paint their criticism with a broad brush. I voted for the woman who wondered what was going to happen with oil prices, education, permanent tax cuts -- not the ones who said that Bush took the country's hopes and sold them to his cronies at Halliburton and the Carlysle Group -- or something to that effect. Guess which kind of ads it seemed MoveOn had chosen? Right. The ones that express their outrage, but do nothing to convince anyone from the other side, or any undecided folks.
The problem is that we Democrats are fed up with the corruption, the corporate welfare and huge giveaways, the disregard for the environment, unnecessary and costly wars, but we don't know how to be calculating and persuasive. It's one big reason why John Kerry hasn't pushed ahead of Bush by double digits. When John Kerry said he would have voted for the authorization of the war, but wouldn't have actually voted for the war, he threw away his chance to make an important distinction.
His comment about voting for the 87 billion before voting against it was taken completely out of context and twisted by the Republicans. Shame on them. When explaining his war authorization vote, there was no manipulation of his message, he simply botched it big time. Shame on him. I even heard his campaign spokespeople screwing up the message for days afterwards.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the poor persuasion skills that beseige the Democrats at every turn. I personally believe the choice of John Kerry over some of the other candidates is part and parcel of this talent for miscalculation that we Democrats just can't shake. Don't get me wrong, I do believe John Kerry is far and above a better choice for America, but I don't feel very good about the Democratic campaign machine's ability to get him elected. The machine needs a rebuild.
But we mustn't let Michael Moore or MoveOn touch even one spark plug!