Why have Democrats forgotten what we learned from the GOP?

[FrenchieCat]

Today there were three threads earned for the "Clark/WACO" meme?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=790029&mesg_id=790029

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=791098

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=792117&mesg_id=792117

Have we learned anything as Democrats, or are we bound to repeat our mistakes?
A FUTURE GUIDE

If the past is any guide, Democrats should expect that:

-- The attacks will be personal, not issue-based. Personality quirks or flaws will be used to "define" the Democrats so these traits can be easily transformed into laugh lines for the pundit programs and the late-night comedy shows.

-- The attacks will be thematic, rather than specific. For instance, the Democratic challenger will be described as "Clintonian" -- or in Edwards's case an "ambulance chasing trial lawyer" -- rather than someone who supported or opposed a specific policy initiative.

-- The attack machine will be relentless. Every utterance by the eventual Democratic nominee will be examined to see if it fits one of the thematic patterns that have been chosen as effective attack lines.

-- Statements or issues that fit a "theme" will be repeated again and again in every media venue, from Web sites to radio to TV pundit shows to newspaper columns. Every right-wing pundit – and many mainstream commentators – will use nearly identical language until the "theme" becomes "conventional wisdom."

-- The mainstream press will incorporate the attack lines into regular news stories by using the objective-sounding criticism that the Democrat has failed to counter the attack and committed the political sin of letting his enemy define him.

-- Most importantly, it will not matter who the Democratic nominee is. No one is immune. The attack machine will find a thematic pattern for each potential nominee and will pound the Democratic candidate into the ground with it.

Oblivious Democrats

Yet, amazingly, despite experiencing this Republican strategy at least since 1988 and despite suffering devastating losses in the 2002 midterm elections, national Democratic leaders remain unwilling or unable to address the fundamental messaging and media disadvantages they face.

While there have been some public statements in recent months by party leaders about the importance of developing a counterbalance to the right-wing attack machine, including from Bill Clinton and Al Gore, so far nothing of substance has been created.

Instead, Democratic leaders are signaling their intent to continue working within the existing national media framework. A key indication that the Democrats remain oblivious to the impending political disaster is the advice that Democratic pollsters have continued to deliver both before and after the midterm elections.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/010603a.html

[salinen]

1. Agreed

They have a finely tuned machine that they have been developing for decades. This political season will be the most vicious ever. They have the money and the media to define themselves and define us without rebuttal. Isn't it too late? What could we do before 2004?

[FrenchieCat]

3. First we become united in

picking the candidate that can best kick their ass without reservation.

We look at their possible game plans and issues, and based on that we reframe the issues as ours.

When it is said that one of our candidates is being propped up by the GOP influenced media, those that stick their heads in the sand and don't look closely at the media to see if this is really going on should really really understand that they are weaving the rope that we will all hang by.

That's the part that's so frustrating. With all of the mistakes that Dean has made, the media has been "VERY" supportive. The Flag issue has all but been forgotten, and even when it was at it's heights, the GOP media were really in agreement with Dean...suspicious as hell!

Then the defferment on the military...you hear any Media talking about that? Don't think so......except to say that Clark had attacked Dean on it.

Same with his brother's possible remains...notice that little is being said in the media about this other than to have serene pics. Doesn't that strike anyone as "strange"...that the remains have yet to be identified, but yet we act as though this all happened yesterday, and so Dean should be left to grieve.....again, this is not the brutal media that would normally let a Democratic candidate get away with Sh*t...and I mean not even one little itty bit of anything.

Same with the medicaire issue that Kerry and Gephardt have been raising...it's kinda mentioned in passing...but if they really thought that Dean was a threat, they would have that shit under a microscope. Pundits would be stirring the pot over and over again.

Kinda of strange that Dean is being called the front Runner so fast, even when Clark has been up on him like white on rice....although Clark is only getting side flank (local and press coverage and CBS) attention....and is dissed and ignored systematically by all three cable tripletts.

Even the fact that Dean bipassed public funding after he had made a pledge not to. No problem. I find that strange from a press that is rewarded by the GOP to attack, maime and even destroy. This would normally be a perfect vehicle...that one has reniged on their promise. Are we truly that simple?

If no one wants to ask why that is, then they are just doing the hanging thing earlier described!

If this is supposed to be the most important election in America's 21st century, then why in the f*ck aren't we acting like it?

Why are we talking about anything other than kicking Bush's ass?

[maggrwaggr]

2. with the current "leadership" I'm not optimistic

the current "leadership" is so bad that we actually DO have a one-party system at the moment.

The Democratic party IS irrelevant at the moment.

It's our job to breathe some life back into it, splash some water in its face, and get it back into the fight.

[FrenchieCat]

4. Read my post above...

We need to kick some ass.....

and I don't mean with a movement to nominate someone we all know has too many of the weaknesses that the GOP is salivating over, either...cause that ain't gonna get it.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FrenchieCat]

13. Right...

Now there's a well thought out response! Articulate and reasoned too!

[Kanary]

17. zap

~~

[FrenchieCat]

27. You can deny it...

but you still read it...and that's what counts.

[whirlygigspin]

6. isn't this why we have to work by grassroots?

Maybe I'm confused, but I thought the whole reason why the Dean
campaign was working by grassroots was because dems can't get
their message out past the corporate media bias...? no?

[FrenchieCat]

8. Yea,

They are betting on you being confused. The reason that Dean is getting the press attention and Clark is getting the diss is not because of the Internet Grassroot...I can tell you that. The media doesn't give a f*ck about that. What's a few hundred thousand folks when there are millions out there to disinform? When 1/2 of the population were against Bush being elected...did you see the media care? or when clinton was impeached...did you see anything but the media cheerlead it? When 100,000s of people marched in the streets against the war, did you see the media truly reported it or slow down their cheerleading of the war? think again.

So why should this movement matter to where the media is playing their way? Please think out of the box....ulterior motives, perhaps?

[Jim Sagle]

20. Yes. But F4C wants you to blow that off as unimportant.

Folks, ask yourselves:

Is the media REALLY favoring Dean? Or did they find out they get their asses handed to them by his followers when they try to fuck him up? If you don't know, ask Russert.

Dean, and his web followers, AND HIS MEAT-SPACE VOLUNTEERS, are going to WALK RIGHT THROUGH the media. They already do, and no one's going to stop them.

This silly thread might as well close up shop right now.

[FrenchieCat]

23. Sounds like this thread is just not for you....

Others though are interested in kicking Bush's ass...and not winning the nomination as much.

You can't even answer why anybody would want to put up someone with no foreign policy experience against Bush, when we all know this national security/war on terror meme is going to be "the issue"....

Why are they having the National Republican Convention in New York with the closing date being 9/11/04....Why?

If you answer these questions, then you become confused, or do you?

[Jim Sagle]

30. Your questions are BS. If you can make a case FOR Clark,

WITHOUT bashing Dean and his supporters, I'll leave this thread alone.

[jobycom]

5. Very good observations,though overly critical of "Democrats"

Democrats wind up not knowing how to fight the Republican PR department (ie, the media), since the media is the only way they have to get their message through. If they complain about the media, they look like whiners. If they contradict the media, they look like deniers. Their strategy is to be nicer than the media portrays them. The media doesn't have unlimited power. They have to stay close to the truth or the public will realize what they are doing. If the public likes one of ours, and the media is overly critical, the public will turn away, and their reporting begins to look like the advertising it is. So the media has to play within certain rules. Same with the Republicans, though their rules are more broad, because the public expects the parties to attack each other.

Democrats do need a better way to deal with the Repub slander machine, but they can't sink to that level, or when the public catches on, the Democrats will look the same as the Repubs. The problem with having enforcers attack the media for other candidates is that the media is still the only one who would report the attacks, and all they have to do is ignore the attacker. As is happening now. Gore, Clinton, and a host of other Democrats are critical of Bush on the invasion, on the economy, on his dishonesty, etc, but the media shuts them up by not covering the stories. Instead, the make it seem that only the Dixie Chicks and other wacko celebrities criticized the invasion.

The media controls the access. Even if Gore or Clinton bought a network, it would be a minor one with a mostly already-convinced audience, and most people would still hear the same message.

I don't know the answer, and neither do most Dems. And frankly, those Dems that have never faced the Bush slander machine underestimate his ability to slander them. That's another reason I wish Gore would run again. He's faced it.

[Donna Zen]

7. Hand in air!!!!

Call on me, I know the answer.

Ugh_the media is picking our candidate! Because it's really their candidate, the one that bush wants to run against.

Whooooeee!

[FrenchieCat]

9. Hey!

Now there's an answer from a common sense intelligent noble patriot and thinker!

[whirlygigspin]

11. your too funny

or maybe a candidate gets tons of grassroots support and does
and end run around the media. ahum.

[whirlygigspin]

15. the media

Listen, I know everyone in media has their own bias, god knows,
but perhaps attributing corruption is a tad much in that regard, not everything is a conspiracy, even if they are out to get you.

and Yes, I know Bush gets a total pass from the media, I'll bet you an anthrax letter I know why they do....

But you are wrong about Dean, when he started they all poo pooed him
as a small town nobody who was going nowhere, it's the grass roots that made the media pay attention, not because they wanted too,
and despite all the conspiracy theories and cool aid innuendo, he is
a centrist, and that's what the big machine likes.

[FrenchieCat]

18. yea.....

But once the field firmed up, then the media took it's pick out of the litter...and right, they picked the runt. The one that didn't have any foreign policy experience...in any normal world, thinking Democrats would not want that weakness to deal with for the most important election ever...now would they? and if so why?

No, the media is picking our candidate. I am not scared of the word conspiracy....are you? Seems like if one says that word these days, then it's impossible. There is an implied conspiracy..it's called circular disinformation....look at the kind of people they have working at AP and Reuters....it's scary.. here's one:

other than an alledged deranged writer can generate....More Peter Yost slime First he slimes Clinton about Kathleen Willey. He was writing for the Moonie Times back then. Then he moves to AP and defends Bush about Harken insider trading. God bless the searchable Daily Howler. from a cleander source Guys, we are in the big leagues: we get Boyers, Yost, Mattai - the guys they used to smear Clinton and Gore. Me thinks Clark be noticed?

Here's background on Peter Yost rumored to be a child molestor...
http://www.drudgereport.com/Weiss/082000.htm
with this quote "Mr. Yost is obviously a resourceful fellow. But honor, it seems, is a motive he is not equipped to understand."

[FrenchieCat]

22. many of the journalists are

serious stooges for the right wing....Look at what happened to Clinton....and Hillary saying there was a right wing conspiracy. You discount that? think they crawled back in their holes, or do you think they are even more out then ever? Which is it?

This is what we have to contend with......

Boyer Plate
Who is New Yorker staff writer Peter Boyer -- and why is he after Wesley Clark?

By Matthew Yglesias
Web Exclusive: 11.14.03
Print Friendly | Email Article

This week's New Yorker contains a profile of Wesley Clark with a striking thesis -- that the general's "military career, the justification for his candidacy, may also be a liability." Author Peter Boyer argues initially that Clark's plans for a military campaign against Slobodan

Boyer appears to have made something of a career for himself as a conservative interloper at otherwise liberal media outlets. Back in 1992, his sympathetic profile of Rush Limbaugh for Vanity Fair drew praise from the conservative Media Research Center as being "fair." In 1997, as a Frontline correspondent, Boyer promoted one of the more obscure "scandals" of the Clinton years in a show (titled "The Fixers") based around an allegation that Commerce Secretary Ron Brown had been involved in a complicated scheme to convince a Hawaiian couple to buy an Oklahoma natural gas company. An independent counsel appointed to investigate the matter filed no charges against Brown
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/11/yglesias-m-11-14.html

[Donna Zen]

12. Just paying attention

to "Blood, Baath, and Beyond" I consider this the "beyond."

[FrenchieCat]

14. Yep....

This is f*cking warfare that we have to enter in.....and who best to do the honor of leading us into this jungle than a General who can go toe to toe with the horrible cabal known as BushCO, Mr. Dictator galor!

The next years of our lives depend on being smart and doing it right...we ain't getting no replay!

We blamed Gore, Nader, Bush and the SC the last time (and forgot the media)...who will we blame this time considering that we had 4 years to come up with something!

Thinking caps need to be on at all times....not 1/2 of the time.

Y'all hear!

[whirlygigspin]

19. there is a difference between a political and matial battle plan

I don't doubt General Clark's credentials as a battle field commander
but politics is quite a different game, mon ami.

Dean HAS worn his bullet proof vest before in the line of fire
and he doesn't take things lying down.

I know we all want the best candidate, so far, I'm sticking to my
little pugnatious pit bull, Dean.

Show me that Clark can win a political battle, maybe I'll change my mind.

[FrenchieCat]

21. Being a General

in a war is all about defeating the enemy. The type of enemy is not as important as you think...it's all about strategy....not a damn thing else. Wes had to negotiate with 19 countries, each with a different agenda, each with some bugs against each other...he had to get everyone to cooperate and agree to each and every move made. he also had to fight the goddamn pentegon, all at the same time. No my friend we are talking strategy of the first order.

Show me where Dean has battled anything....getting elected in a tiny weeny state of 600,000 isn't' exactly an experience that just bring me to my knees in confidence.

This ain't politics...this is war.

Don't you understand that politics would mean that the media would do it's job...well it isn't .....not this is about strategy.....and not a damm thing else...

It's not about what you promise, or how you pander....

Not, this is quite different.

[Kanary]

16. self delete

Didn't realize it was another thread to fight about candidates.

I'll learn.

[whirlygigspin]

24. well, if Clark has the best strategy, he will win

may the best candidate win,

good luck to all!

[FrenchieCat]

25. It's called

Food for thought....

Of course the election is about the candidates and picking the best one...how could it not be?

[FrenchieCat]

26. and just remember

what the "Trump card" will be....

if we didn't have a screwed media, it might be different....but with their interjection of plain manipulation, the best man doesn't always win...look at who is in the White House....
Look at the war we are fighting....

Thinking caps everyone must be on at all times!

[FrenchieCat]

28. maybe self defeat (n/t)

[whirlygigspin]

29. trump card?

you meant Hillary? lol

[FrenchieCat]

31. lol......

The top post at the end is the most important....that we don't forget what we are really dealing and get lulled into a sense of comfort and destiny! It never really works that way....not in 2000, and it won't work that way in 2004... in particular.