Reply #14: Stop taking the Bait!! [View All]

[pat_k]

Dean {should have/shouldn't have] said it. Who cares!

Don't take the bait!

The minute you start talking about whether or not it was a mistake, you are on their turf ("not a mistake" assertions are akin to "don't think of an elephant" i.e., you are in the "mistake" frame).

So, what do we do? (You might ask)

There is no need to say anything about the bits the analstocracy are obsessed with. Simply go on the attack and shift attention to the substance of his remarks.

It is wrong for certain classes of voters to face an eight hour wait to cast a ballot. At "Take Back America" Dean spoke out against this terrible wrong. He was right on. Hours-long poll-tax-lines for poor, minority voters AND none for affluent, white voters is intolerable.

His remarks in context:

We need to be the party of election reform. We ought to do everything we can to make it easier for more Americans to vote. The Republicans are all about suppressing votes; two voting machines if you live in a black district, 10 voting machines if you live in a white district. I think every single American ought to be able to vote! I used to say in the campaign -- I meant this sincerely -- I would rather have you go out and vote, even if you vote Republican, than stay home. I really would…

"You -- you know, the idea that you have to wait on line for eight hours to cast your ballot in Florida -- there's something the matter with that. You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever, and get home and then have a -- still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that, because a lot of them have never made an honeI am hoping that youwill help shift attention to the REAL scandal.st living in their lives. <b>But for ordinary working people, who have to work eight hours a day, they have kids, they got to get home to those kids, the idea of making them stand for eight hours to cast their ballot for democracy is wrong.


When the analstocracy went after him for the "honest living" comment, they handed us an opportunity to shift the focus to the real scandal: the Republican policy of systematic vote suppression. Mehlman even told us that he planned to employ suppression part of an all out effort to "do whatever we can to help make sure Jerry Kilgore becomes the next governor of the state” (see http://www.democrats.org/news/200505310003.html ).

Dean is standing up for free and fair elections. Mehlman seeks to undermine democracy by selectively challenging voters who intend to cast their vote for an opponent.

Instead of getting caught up in the Dean bashing game, we move to our turf by talking about the horrors of the last election and pointing out Mehlman's much more serious sins against democracy.

Over and over again, Mehlman plays by the Norquist playbook, where the ends justify the means. We saw it when he violated the law as Bush-Cheney campaign manager (http://eqs.sdrdc.com/eqsdocs/00002BFD.pdf ), and more recently, when he attempted to use deceit to conceal deceit on Meet the press. (His demonstrably false claim that disclosures in the Downing Street Memo "have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it. See http://mediamatters.org/items/200506060008).

Get the complete transcript of what Dean had to say today. He ALWAYS raises substantive issues. Anytime they attack a "gaff" you just need to find the context, and shift attention to the points he made on things that really matter to voters.