New strategies needed--Bush's Bad Behavior is no secret.

[Whoa_Nelly]

I believe the Democratic party needs to hire a crackerjack team of people who know how to hit the voting public in the many available types of Achilles' heels', hit first and hard, and keep repeating until the mantra has them galvanized...but this time have it be with the truth. When stating a "crackerjack" team of people, I mean a team that is capable of using mass appeal on a highly sophisticated psychological basis, rather than taking the rollover defensive action of that does not reach those who engage in sophomoric thinking.

Can the Dems be reprobate? Sure they can, with better strategists STARTING NOW! And they can be reprobate with the truth.

Who knows? There may be one particular issue that takes fire with the many uninformed brain dead in this nation, and a Bush et al. hunt ends this administration before the four years are up.

The "truth" as given by spoon and soundbytes over and over again, choosing which ones were given and at what time, were all part and parcel of the Roverian think tank.

The Dems can do the same thing, but with actual truth...over and over again, until it becomes the litany of the masses.
But what is needed are strategy teams that will hit hard, fast and lowball with the truth when it counts and can be used to start the Bush cabal running.

BushCo, a la Rove, targeted groups of voters and nailed them. There are many other issues near and dear to these target groups, which can be used to teach them actual truth, not the Bush version.

The Dems play defense way too much. Time to take the offense and punt like hell...right where it hurts.

Bad behavior is no secret. And, as far as BushCo goes, the secrets need to start coming out now, not in two to three years as people are gearing up for another election.

Flame me as you will. Am simply being an American exercising my First Amendment rights.
O8)

on edit: typos

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. Am kicking: Until new strategists are in place, it will be

a difficult race in 2008. Unless the offense strategies and moves begin now, it is pointless to project the Dem team of who would be the best and/or most likely team to beat out the republican party in 2008.

[lawladyprof]

2. Posted this on another thread but it is a practical application

of your suggestion.

I thought that for the most part our ads were bland and superficial. We are dealing with people who respond to emotional appeals (recall commentary about the girl whose mother was killed on 9-11 and that the focus groups were so moved by it--one commentator said men were crying). Well, that ad made me mad but in a more cerebral, intellectual way. "If Gore had been president, she wouldn't have lost her mom" and "Any president would have hugged her (let no photo-op go by)" and when she said she said she felt safe because Bush was president, I said, "Idiot." But it illuminate one fact. People responded to it emotionally. And then I remembered the ads used so effectively against Clinton's health care plan. Those, too, were emotion driven vignettes.

So our ads should be single issue ads. No more shotgun (multiple issue) ads. They should tell a story--note these can archtypes and use actors. James who lost his job and his health insurance and then had a car accident and who is now faciing bankruptcy, Phil whose super-smart 13 year is in trouble because he is bored by teaching to the test, a rural Nepalese woman whose baby died because of the defunding of family planning agencies who would have provided clean birth kits, Meredith in college but now has to drop out because state funding cut, Sally who found that Bush's drug cards didn't help her a bit, Tom and his wife, a retired couple, who learned that their former employers were dropping their medical insurance because they could do so and throw them onto Medicare only), Ben and Joan putting off retirement so they can help their kids because their son's job was outsourced, Mary and Phil whose marriage is strained because Phil's mom is asking if she can come and live with them because she doesn't think she'll have enough social security to live on when she retires in a few years, Sonia who needed a "partial birth abortion" (I know that is not a medical term and is an invention of the right) for medical reasons and now can't have another child--her baby lived a minute or two, now we see her in the nursery taking a teddy bear out to put with attic sale stuff--she'll never need it. There's thousands of pathos-filled stories-results of Bush/Republican policies that tug at the heartstrings and also (sadly) play the fear card ("that could happen to me").

The point is to draw the viewer in to a story he or she can identify with. The protagonist should not talk to the viewer (well, maybe a quick one or two lines). The ads should be a slice of life, a mini soap opera. These ads do not change our message but they bring our values to life. It is not abandoning our principles but repackaging them and making them vivid.

There is benefit from analyzing what went wrong (picking over the bones), but I had the uncomfortable feeling that the campaign was too cerebral, too rationale. I didn't see the danger because that approach resonated with me. But even if I had I didn't/don't know anyone of influence to suggest this idea to. Finally, the fault lay in not analyzing Republican success and co-opting it.

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Yes, must make it personal

The point is to draw the viewer in to a story he or she can identify with

I completely agree with this statement from your post. Until the personal hits home and makes one uncomfortable, nothing will change for that person. Many of those that previously backed Bush, kissed good-bye loved ones sent to Iraq, only to never see them again, and changed their political stances and views.

[immoderate]

4. good stuff.

--IMM

[lawladyprof]

5. Many thanks

Now, do you know how I can get it to someone who can run with it. It can be done on issues that will come up shortly not just for candidates.

[KharmaTrain]

6. If Being AWOL, Drunk Driving & Drinking Didn't Do It

What makes you think anything will stick now?

And whose gonna spread your messages? The same people that we had that have now been dismissed by the media?

Just curious how you'll go after this windmill.

[Edmond Dantes]

7. You're on the right track.

[txdude10]

8. My point exactly...

We can moan and groan about the outcome of the election. But guess what, the right-wingers are in power and intend to hold on to it by every means possible. What we, the Progressives, need are better media and electoral counter-strategies to defeat the right-wing behemost that we are now facing. I believe four areas are absolutely deserving of Progressives' attention, otherwise we will be crying from the wilderness for a long time to come.

Building an integrated media structure (an echo chamber, so to speak) is an absolute necessity. Who says that you could never go wrong underestimating the stupidity of the American people? The sad reality of American life is that this is very true. I see it everyday. A few days ago, a student in my class said that she voted for Bush because "he looks like a regular guy and Laura is a traditional woman, while Kerry is one of those northern-liberal elitists and his wife looks scary." That, my friends, are the kind of people we have to deal with it. But rather than berating these kind of people for their stupidity, we need to find the way to reach and educate them. Right now, that's not possible because we have a union of right-wing and corrupt corporate media. So, our first step is to create an apparatus for pitching our message to the American people. I don't claim to know the mechanics for setting up such an apparatus (I leave that to the experts), but however it is set up, it must include a national network--something like FOX.

Second, and I have posted this before elsewhere, we must become more aggressive at the state and local levels and work to elect people into offices in charge of the electoral process. Wasn't it Joseph Stalin who said that it is not the vote that matters but who counts the vote? Sadly, this is becoming a truism in American politics.

Third, we must use Republicans' method of divide and conquer against them. For example, Republicans have often called for tax cuts. Well, let's adopt our own version of it, with a language that cloaks it in a way that appeals to the bubbas in the South. Should the president submit another tax cut proposal for the rich, let's encourage our members of Congress to attach amendments that will let each state keep more of its tax revenues. The amendment can have a title like "state rights tax initiative" or whatever language can appeal to the "God, Guns, and Gays" crowd in the South. Until these people are made to feel the consequences of their vote, the Republicans will continue to have a stranglehold on the South for the forseeable future.

Lastly, we need a new crop of young, attractive, and Progressive candidates. This must begina at the local and state levels.

My friends, the success Republicans and conservatives are enjoying today didn't begin yesterday. The foundation and strategies began more than three decades ago. The question is can we do the same, or are going to continue with the same tired and wornout strategies and inane and politically naive proposals that have gotten us nowhere?