Democrats' new hardball against the GOP: 'If they come after you with a knife ... pull out a gun'

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Top of Sunday's front page

They called themselves "The Lincoln Brigade."

Even as Democrats feared having to spend as much as $40 million for a bruising, bloody fight expected to drag on for months, this makeshift group of California Democratic operatives needed just weeks to pummel a Republican-funded push for a ballot measure that threatened to change the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.

The ruthlessly effective battle plan of the California Democrats' group raises the specter that, as the 2008 election looms, Republicans may have to confront a far more aggressive Democratic ground game that has revived the old "Clinton war room" philosophy.

"We need to fight back and not be reluctant - that if they come after you with a knife, to pull out a gun," said California Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, former spokesman for President Bill Clinton's White House and Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

... After events such as the 2000 Florida presidential election recount, the 2003 California recall election that ousted Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, the 2004 "Swift Boat" campaign against Sen. John Kerry, "Democrats are waking up to reality, " said Doug Boxer, the son of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and a Bay Area consultant who was political director for the effort against the ballot measure.

... Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean flew to San Francisco for a press conference with labor leaders to "make it very clear from the beginning that the new Democratic Party is not going to take it lying down - we still stand and fight," said DNC spokesman Karen Finney.

... Eckery, the former spokesman for the ballot measure group, said that while the experience served as "a tune-up for the Clinton machine in California," Democrats shouldn't get overconfident from the result.

"Politics is a contact sport," he said, "and the presidential election is the Super Bowl."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/07/MNSESIOTG.DTL&tsp=1

[rox63]

1. I think those are the kind of Dems we can all support n/t

[FARAFIELD]

2. Hmmm Mamet would be proud

I hope they credited David Mamet the screenwriter of the UNTOUCHABLES with the "that if they come after you with a knife, to pull out a gun," QUOTE, Im paraphrasing but Im sure Im pretty close the whole quote goes something like
CONNERY: "what are you prepared to do Mr. Ness" (to get Al Capone)
KOSTNER: "everything within the law"
CONNERY: " and THEN what are you prepared to do?, because they wont stop till one of you is dead. If they pull out a knife you pull out a gun, they put one of yours in the hospital you put one of theirs in the morgue, that's the Chicago way, and thats how you get Capone"

[gratuitous]

3. We fight, we win

Who would have thought it?

Congressional Democrats, are you paying attention? This is why your approval numbers are in the shitter; we the people had one chance to put you folks in a position to do something about this lawless administration. We came through like gangbusters. It's time and past time for you to hold up your end of the bargain. The people want this administration hamstrung, tied up in knots, over a barrel or whatever other metaphor you want to use. We don't want this administration operating in our name anymore.

[NI4NI]

4. Kick 'em where it hurts,

Kick 'em when they're down!

How many times does a rabid republican dog have to bite before a Dem realizes it bites?

[DinahMoeHum]

5. Now THESE are my kind of Democrats !!

:kick::kick::kick:

[LostInAnomie]

6. Anything would be better than the...

"if they come at you with a knife, fire off a strongly worded letter" wimps we usually elect.

[ShortnFiery]

8. Suggestion: Why can't our illustrious Congress hold up "the rule of law" and IMPEACH ?!?

[ShortnFiery]

7. Yeah! We politically morph into the moral FILTH equivalent of "Reservoir Dogs"

Bravo! :puke: :(

[ljm2002]

9. Fighting to win is not immoral...

...not at all.

I am continually amazed at those who think that fighting like your political life depends on it, is somehow "sinking to their level".

No, sinking to their level would be: lying, cheating, and stealing to win. That is what they do. But fighting those tactics by using strong tactics in return, such as: immediate response, immediate mobilization, exposing their funding sources, and spreading the information of what their real agenda is (in this case, the agenda is to neutralize California's voting bloc by making it proportional, while 48 other states, including other big states, continue to vote as a bloc). I don't see that as sinking to their level, merely as smart hardball politics -- something the Democrats have been woefully short on in recent years.

Did you read the whole article by the way? Because I didn't see any dirty tricks on our side, unless you think that exposing their real agenda, and exposing funding sources that they were trying to keep secret, is a dirty trick.

Guess what: if someone is kicking you in the teeth, you have an absolute right to defend yourself. That is what we are faced with, and have been for lo, these many years. I am heartened to see that we took this round quickly and decisively, with no muss and no fuss.

Way to go, California Democrats!!! Woo Hoo!!!


:bounce: :toast: :loveya: :headbang: :yourock: :applause:

[DemGa]

10. Precisely the needed attitude

Republicans must be destroyed in this manner; it's the only thing they can and will understand. This is very good news indeed.

[porphyrian]

11. Talk is cheap. I'll believe it when they fucking DO it. - n/t

[JNelson6563]

12. Reminds me of The Untouchables

They send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of theirs to the morgue.

:toast: