My thoughts on the state of the presidential election today.

[beachmom]

It is based in reality -- conversations I have had with some old friends. I am now very pessimistic about our chances in November. We should probably redouble our efforts on congressional elections.

The way people talked about John Kerry in August 2004 -- that is the way people are already talking about Barack Obama. The swiftboating was successful. And Hillary is destroyed, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5589306

[beachmom]

1. You can see an expansion of my thoughts in the thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5589405

All I can say is John Kerry should not spend a single second blaming himself for his response to the SBVT in August 2004. Not a damned thing has changed this time, even WITH Obama's fantastic speech "A More Perfect Union". Nobody even heard or read the speech. Just his "typical white person" comment, Wright screaming, the Farrakhan link. That's it. If people don't SEE the response, then it's not worth anything. That is the state of our news and information infrastructure today. Even with everything we have built since '04. Even with me fighting back in a personal conversation, something I did not do in '04. I was USELESS in the face of propaganda so insidiously and ubiquitously disseminated.

I am very discouraged and depressed, that the lies have taken hold AGAIN. It wasn't John Kerry's fault in '04, and it isn't Obama's fault today. It is the SYSTEM set up against us. Only way we win in November is a lack of enthusiasm for McCain.

[Island Blue]

2. I get the exact opposite feeling, Beachmom.

Here in my little pocket of the world (which admittedly is very small and not totally in touch with reality) I'm surrounded by people who are fired up about thought of having a Democrat in the White House come 01/20/2009. (Most of the folks I know are Obama supporters, although I have seen a Hillary sticker or two.)

The first really negative comment that I've heard about Obama came yesterday from a guy who has a heart of gold, but his television stuck on FOX. He believes in what he believes in and what he mainly believes in (apparently) is voting against his own best interest. Some folks are just like that.

Maybe all of this is because the NC primary may actually mean something this year, I don't know, but as a result of what I've seen around here, I'm very hopeful.

You may be right, but I sure as hell hope not. :hug:

[beachmom]

3. I have given it more thought, and maybe all this is is "The Fox News Set".

It is pointless to argue with them. They WANT to believe the propaganda and lies. Maybe the type of person attracted to Fox is not a persuadable, and we just will have to accept that. Even if they give us glimmers of hope from time to time, they have it all set up to always pull the lever for the R.

[wisteria]

6. The real Fox News Koolaid drinkers in numbers are actually no different IMO

than those people who still support Bush. I am not worried about them this time around. I think most people realize they were taken advantage of in 2004 and lied too. They won't get fooled again.

[JI7]

4. personally i think they should use more of Kerry to reach out

to these white working class voters. Kerry did very well among them in the Primary. the type of people Kerry has problems with are religious people and other social conservatives. but they are not a big factor in the Democratic Primary.

Kerry was the only one considering a run for 2008 that would have been competitive among these voters Hillary is doing well with. Gore and others would have also but they were not going to run as Kerry was.

[wisteria]

5. I refuse to see and guess what will happen in the future. McCain has not

felt any real media heat and there are things that I believe will come out and into play again once we can progress into the general election. My concern is one of when though. The longer we have our candidates fighting each other and the Republicans out their framing our candidates it makes it more difficult for us later. Personally, I pray that Clinton loses on Tuesday in PA, that way it will be obvious to all who our candidate will be and Clinton's friends can start to gently convenience her it is time to give it up.

[Mass]

7. There is no surprise there. The media have been carrying this meme for weeks now

so, how could good people have heard about something else. This is why I said a few weeks ago that at this point, what Obama would say did not matter. People would NOT hear it.

This said, there is a good news in all that. We are in April and people have a short attention span. If the liars had come in April rather than August, I am sure that it would have been less problematic for Kerry because he would have had a lot of time to weather the attack. Hopefully, the fact that the attack was early on will make it look old stuff to many people. We'll see, but we need to end this primaries very soon for that to happen.

[karynnj]

8. Not sure about the good news part - the liars did come in April

and Kerry very convincingly batted them away. The first time they surfaced was before Kerry had his Naval records up on the web site - so the initial story was that they forced the Kerry people to put the records out in defense rather than triumphantly. The fact is that Kerry likely would have put the records up relatively quietly - there is nothing in anything he did before or afterwards that would suggest that he would do something like this with great fanfare. As it was the unplanned nature of his reunion with Rassmann when he had nothing to do with the planned event actually made it more real and more touching. But, anyway, the SBVT ended that time when the records went up - if anything, they drew a small amount of attention to the records. The second time the liars scheduled a press conference, they backed out when Kerry, Cleland and his guys announced a counter press conference.

If anything Kerry in April 2004 was in far better shape swiftboatingwise than Obama is now. The difference is that they have 2004 as a guide that they need to fight back each and every time. In fairness to Obama, he has been hit with more by the Clintons than Kerry was by all the attackers in the primaries combined. (In a comment I wouldn't make on GD or GD-P, Kerry also gave the others less to work with - Obama is an amazing speaker, but Kerry was far less gaffe prone because he was more cautious when he spoke then and he had more years in politics - the LA comments really were a bigger gaffe than any Kerry made.) In addition to the SBVT, Kerry very professionally and gracefully fended off the (LaHayne (Clinton?) rooted Intern attack.

I share some of Beachmom's pessimism but hope that things will turn when he becomes the defacto nominee and there can be a shift to the difference in issues which might balance some of the attacks. The problem is that HRC's only remaining argument is that he is damaged - though she is apparently blind to the damage that has hit her - mainly from her own actions.

One thing I worry about is that most of the internet action is very divided by party line. We have become good spreading information to other Democrats - moving them to some degree. But, the internet is highly segregated by political affiliation. Some local Democrats have mentioned a newspaper based NJ forum that I had found too boring - so I had ignored. They were right that that was a place to reach some non-affiliated people - but their lack of being one side or the other has led them to be boring - so they don't reach that many people.

I like Kerry's idea that we need to use the same viral email with the truth that others use with the lies, but it may mean that we need to be sure to include friends, relatives and neighbors we know are Republican. Otherwise, I wonder if the "left" network and the "right" network might be too homogeneous to have enough links to really get the message out to people who would not reject it otherwise. Independently, I know of two instances where that people have used the Reply all to send the truth to all who got the lies - in one case it led to a series of Reply all dialogue that ultimately was productive though it did annoy many recipients.

[beachmom]

9. A 527 group could be formed offended by Rev. Wright. This person I talked to

is Jewish and insisted that Obama was a "racist anti-Semite bigot". No matter what I said, he would not listen. Frankly, this is worse than the Swiftboat attack from my personal viewpoint. Kerry was called an embellisher, a liar, and at worst, by a fringe element, a traitor. Nobody ever called him a bigot in '04. And frankly, this person I spoke with has a way of viewing things that must lead to him thinking anyone who supports Obama is an anti-Semite, too. I mean, there is no evidence whatsoever that Obama holds anti-Semitic views, nor anyone in his family. Rev. Wright has never been shown spouting anti-Semitic views. It is only Wright's daughter (I believe) who printed a newsletter with Farrakhan in it. I mean we are talking two degrees of separation, and yet this crap has stuck. Then, the next thing this person says is "Hillary is better than Obama", although he never would vote for her. But .... then he brought up the sniper incident, so clearly, if Obama fell and Hillary was the nominee, it would make no difference, especially since the Clinton hate is bubbling below the surface of right wingers who simply think she has lost the nomination. This is why I am saying it is a problem with our entire party -- and history shows that bitterly contested primaries often lead to defeat. I am understanding why.

Back to the 527, the Republicans could take a minority -- Jewish people maybe -- and have them go around all offended, and equate Obama with Farrakhan. This would hurt Obama with Jewish voters, but more importantly, it could hurt him with people who certainly don't want to vote for someone with even the APPEARANCE of anti-semitism.

I may add that this person is from Boston, but lives in another state now. His family still resides in Mass., and even though he knows I like Kerry, he couldn't contain himself from restating how he hates Kerry and can't stand him, and how he has done nothing for Mass., blah, blah, blah. I am used to that shit but for the hatred to spread to Obama so early on, well, it is dispiriting. The thing is, a person like this will influence swing voters -- that is the inherent awfulness of the Right Wing Noise Machine. Ordinary citizens participate by hearing the propaganda, and spreading it to friends, family, and neighbors. The product they sell is hate. I do not know how to stop it. I think it is useless to debate these people unless a known swing voter is in the room. Even then, I am still upset by this conversation, and frankly, I don't even want to talk politics with anyone for whom I know that they watch Fox News. Life is too short to listen to their toxic talk.

[karynnj]

10. That is a problem and in many ways may be harder to fight than the SBVT

Kerry after all had the NAVY on his side - he was a genuine war hero. The protesting was an issue but Kerry was prominent enough to see that he was not a freaky long haired anti-war Maoist. Nixon feared him because he was as he was described in a book on Vietnam written in the 1980s as "the boy any parent would be proud to have as a son" and it mentioned that he was at the time the book was written Lt Gov of MA. One thing that makes it harder is that Obama is not being called for anything he did - but for things others did.

I know that you are using Jews as an example, but because I think the Jewish community is doing many things right - here is what I have seen. (I do think that this may have hurt Obama some in the primary, but Obama is lucky that at least in my synagogue there is little love for McCain. Many feminists (and we have lots) are very pro HRC and she is from the next state over - those factors rather than the smears are the basis for her doing better.)

The Jewish population was anti-war way before the rest of the country and most are very skeptical of quilt by association. I've posted a web site set up by Jewish Democrats against those smears several times. Now, I got it from my husband's uncle who was got the American Thinker smear as one of many people on an email list that was mostly war vets (WWII vintage), Republican and FL. He sent the smear thing to me to ask if I had stuff to counter it with (he knew I was for Obama and that I was active on the internet), but before I could pull together enough stuff, someone else on the list sent the anti-smear site via Reply ALL - and he sent it to me. (here's the link to the anti smear site: http://njdc.typepad.com/stopthesmears/ ) In addition, I've been monitoring the weekly Jewish newspaper that I usually ignore and they have done a great job on this - hitting back at least 3 times this year - very prominently - second page - on attacks.

Your last paragraph is extremely interesting. What I can see is that I should look for local (or non-local for that matter) Jewish blogs and try to establish credibility as you did in VA. Because you are right that even with the things that are being done, it is obvious that we will be a target of a McCain effort. As you can see in my earlier post, I've been wondering how I can help in the general election. This is a community where I am involved in real life and can try to act as the next person at the water cooler after someone hears a smear. If enough people in a community know the truth, that could act as a vaccine that will keep that person from believing and then spreading the lies.

The real counter to McCain is to describe as Kerry, and now Obama, have that the Bush/PNAC policies have not made Israel safer - they have inflamed the entire middle east. That and pointing out McCain's other policies - which are not close to the values in the Jewish community and we are not really one issue voters. (Not to mention most American Jews are not big on Likud.)

[beachmom]

11. I'm not the only one thinking this. Yes, Karl Rove is winning the Democratic primary:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/21/1920/84164/21/500345

[wisteria]

12. Rove is a one trick pony and his slim politics only benefit Bush. He hasn't been right since 2004

and even that is debatable because it looks like they had to cheat to win over Sentator Kerry.