Where Does The Spin Stop On How Nice Democrats Are?

Sometimes when you’re talking about liberals, it can be hard to figure out where the spin stops and where the things they really believe begin.

For instance, how many times have you heard liberals say, in some form or fashion, that Democrats keep losing elections because Republicans are vicious, steely-eyed, political gunslingers while the Dems are just big ole, lovable, huggable carebears who just can’t stand up to them in a fight?

Of course, they do have half of that right, politics is figurative knife fight in a phone booth and Republicans usually give as good as the get. But…..Democrats don’t? That’s what some people say, like Jill Lawrence from USA Today. Here’s how she opened a column called “Character issue puts Dems on the defensive”….

“Imagine a Democratic presidential candidate and his allies assailing the character of the Republican nominee in ads and speeches every day for eight months.

Having trouble? That’s because Democrats generally don’t have the stomach or the discipline to do it. Often they don’t even effectively fight back when under attack themselves.”

Really? So accusing someone of going AWOL from the National Guard isn’t an attack on their character? How about accusing Bush of being another Hitler in MoveON ads? What sort of character does a person have who’d order an invasion of Iraq “for oil,” to help out his business buddies, or to get revenge because “Saddam tried to kill his daddy”? When Democrats say Republicans hate black people, want to help the rich at the expense of the poor, and are looking to poison the environment, how can that be anything other than an attack on their characters? This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say, I don’t know “where the spin stops and where the things they really believe begin”.

Here’s more from Jill Lawrence’s piece…

“Democrats “as a group are uneasy” about attacking and defending on character, says Harold Ickes, a former Clinton aide who heads the Media Fund, a political ad organization. “But they damn well better get the stomach,” he adds, because “we’ve seen way too many of our candidates taken down on issues of character.”

…”We were caught off guard by this perennial Republican attack-dog mentality,” says Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and a potential 2008 presidential candidate, reflecting on 2004. “We’ve got to find ways to develop our own.

…Another problem for Democrats: They can’t shake the idea that people of integrity shouldn’t have to, and don’t need to, talk about their integrity. So when they come under attack, they often shrug it off and assume voters will, too.

…Some Democrats want killer instinct in their next nominee. They also pray for a candidate and campaign with the discipline to choose a line of attack and stick to it. “You don’t want your central critique to be a secret,” Clanton says. “You want it to be well-known so it can be repeated” by your allies in e-mails, on talk radio and cable TV.”

I thought Kerry did have a line of attack, that Bush was wrong about EVERYTHING, particularly the war in Iraq? Kerry’s whole campaign was nothing but slamming Bush — and to be fair, “I went to Vietnam!” — butressed by enormous amounts of money spent democratic 527 groups.

I also seem to remember…

Al Gore saying “(George Bush) betrayed this country” & that Bush worked with “rapid response digital brownshirts”.
Wesley Clark claiming Bush was putting our Democracy at risk.
— Teresa Heinz Kerry referring to Dick Cheney as “unpatriotic“.
— Max Cleland claiming Bush had gone “AWOL
— Ted Kennedy opining that the war was a ““fraud,” “made up in Texas,” because it was “going to be good politically”

May I suggest that Democrats lose not because they don’t fight back or because of Republican spin, but because they’re on the wrong side of the issues?

For example, in this last election, John Kerry got on the wrong side — or in many cases, simply tried to take both sides of the issue — of the war in Iraq, gay marriage, and Bush’s tax cuts. But are they looking to make changes? Maybe a few of them are, but most of them just think they need to talk about faith more, send Northern liberals down to the South to waste money and time campaigning in states where they can’t win, and most importantly, they need to start FIGHTING BACK instead of being such “nice guys”…

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!