Judd Legum from the Center for American Progress writes:
Only losers wait until the debate occurs to start the rebuttal.The CAP has posted a stream of what Bush will say with the facts which dismantle his assertations.
That's nice - but I really need to know if CAP is just sending this stuff to the choir in the blogosphere, or are they going the extra mile (as the GOP has done so effectively)? Here's my note to Judd.
Judd...You can watch night after night, and one fact stands out. Wonk is the last thing you see on the news. They like the surfing cats. They like the world's record for the biggest pastrami sandwich. They like the flying squirrels. They never - NEVER report the disputing facts of an important political story - just the accusations. They need to move things along for that surfing cat story.
Has CAP sent this high-priority to the newsrooms (network AND local) across the country? And I'm not talking e-mails with links - I mean a hard copy of the article itself on the desks of every news editor - broadcast and print.
I honestly want to know. I appreciate (and use) these emailings, but the actual printed articles should be waved in the faces of those who need to see it - the so-called down-the-middle press who simply don't have time to sift through emails, or for that matter, click through to every link they get.
Thanks! Keep fighting the good fight.
Hoffmania.com
So what good would it do to put the article in front of news editors? To plant the seed of truth in there. Repeatedly. Constantly. It may not be quoted immediately or verbatim, but you've at least put something in their noggin, so that when they get the same old crap from the GOP, they'll look at it with some newfound skepticism. And if it stems the spread of at least SOME of the GOP lies - like flip-flopping, voting for higher taxes 370 times, voting against the troops, etc. - we'll have put a big fat ol' dent in Karl Rove's bullcrap machine.
Sending this information to us is fine. It gives us more ammo. But we're firing it largely at people who agree with us. We need to get this info to the inactives, the lazy, the "why bother" voter. We MUST get the truth to the Democrats who think voting is a waste of time. We MUST hammer the people who believe the system doesn't work - and show them that we'll accelerate in the wrong direction if they let Bush win his lame-duck four more years. This is what the ground war must focus on.
Nights like tonight are made for the interested undecideds. Kerry MUST sell himself and his plans to those people, while convincing them that re-electing Bush is another four years of fear, war and economic meltdown. And follow it up by making damn well sure he's on every newscast with something fascinating every night through November 2nd.
Fact: I have plenty of Democratic friends who are throwing their hands up in the air over how Bush is gonna walk away with this one again. I give people like that hard copies of dead-heat polls, which seem to surprise them. And DAMMIT, I make sure they look at the registered voters' numbers instead of the likely voters'. Why? Simple. People who claim to be likely voters are just echoing junk they hear from pundits to show off to the pollsters. But it doesn't mean jack of those people aren't registered to vote.* If you're not a registered voter, you have no business speaking for ANYONE in this election year. Registered voters are keeping this thing even, and those people are the ones who friggin' matter.
* Note: This is but one of MANY definitions of "likely voters." As Edison Media Research points out, the definition is different for each pollster. More reason to take numbers of "likely voters" with a grain of potassium chloride.
While we're on the subject, if you're not registered, get off your ass right now and do it. That window is closing.
So grab your indifferent and undecided friends, pull 'em into your home, order a pizza and watch the debate tonight (9pm ET, 6PM PT). Take comfort that even though Bush has his attack team which got him a razor-thin electoral win in 2000, Kerry now has the team which destroyed his old man in 1992 against incredible odds, and destroyed Bob Dole in 1996 against an onslaught of lies and empty investigations.
John Kerry and John Edwards are good men. Effective men. Smart men. They have a team watching their back now. And they're running against an incumbent who is still popping sub-50% poll numbers.
The debates will finally end the "Who is this guy?" mindset among undecideds. They already know Bush. If they're still queasy about voting him in again, this thing is Kerry's to lose.
And he doesn't like losing. Ask anyone in New England. Enjoy the show.
UPDATE - Judd Legum replies:
We sent emails to our media lists (print and broadcast) yesterday. When we send to media we send the full text. Hard copies are a good idea but haven't yet developed the capacity to execute it. Would definitely be worth exploring in the future.All the more reason we need to support these folks to put this infrastructure in place. Thanks, Judd.
