How Dems should handle the Paul Ryan "Wine-gate Scandal":

[PCIntern]

Screw 'em, use the hyperbole and the obvious pun:

1. Get him to admit or not deny that he drank this obscenely expensive wine.
2. talking points to all Dems on the air, each question asked by a moderator would have an answer which began, "Well, Brian, the picture of Republican Medicare and Social Security cutting representative Paul Ryan drinking two bottles of THREE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLAR WINE is emblematic of..."
3. Ads running on radio and TeeVee every half hour on all networks and cable outlets describing or showing expensive wine cellars and going over the points.

Keep using the term "WINEGATE"...

[no_hypocrisy]

1. You're on target re Paul Ryan. IMO, your topic needs to be expanded.

Meaning, how Paul Ryan has recently made investments that bet against the debt ceiling being raised, where he stands to make impressive profits on the misery of the economy contracting when August 2 comes and goes without raising our debt limit and bills go unpaid.

[PCIntern]

2. Absolutely...n/t

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. Just like Eric Cantor

I still don't get why his short positions on US Treasuries hasn't gotten any traction.

[brooklynite]

3. Not worth the effort...

Voters don't generally hold financial success against people, since they envision becoming successful themselves. Unless you can show that the money for the meal came from a charity or other inappropriate source, this isn't going to resonate.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I respectfully disagree

It's a silly issue that distracts from much larger issues.

[PCIntern]

14. Equally respectfully,

I believe that you are mistaken...

this is EGGS-ACTLY why we lose all the time...people out there are not interested in larger issues, they're innarested in Edwards' haircut or Kerry's windsurfing, or Dukakis in a Tank. First you trivialize your opponent and then you smash them. Where have "big issues" gotten us lately? Rethugs are REALLY GOOD at this stuff...we SUCK at it.

and here's the best part: we can do TWO THINGS AT ONCE!!! We can do this...and that. We're not unable to do this in a concerted effort to once and for all, show the American People that these folks don't give a rat's behind about them.

[DrDan]

5. why is this such a scandal? Are you suggesting there are no Dems

that drink expensive wines also?

This is just a silly issue.

[Tennessee Gal]

13. The difference is his stance on issues. nt

[DrDan]

18. so doesn't it make sense to hit him on the issues? This seems

rather petty to me.

[Chan790]

27. Petty wins like issues never can.

Yes, this shit is dumb but it works to trivialize opponents. Once trivialized, they are taken unseriously and it becomes easy to marginalize them. This is how the GOP sets about getting rid of gadflies and threats. You cannot combat this tactic because the more you try to defend yourself the more you perpetuate the conversation and if you don't defend yourself, you're leaving the accusation un-refuted. In the game of politics, un-refuted accusations are as good as true. People buy into them and they sink politicians.

There is no "scandal" too small to use as a blunt object to smash an opponent against into submission. It's a $350 bottle of wine, you get the media talking about it and they'll keep talking about it because it's easy low-hanging fruit, then you begin to make passing comments about his investment strategy. That's a scandal, you hammer that and if you can't drive him out of office by resignation, you've poisoned his well to the point he can't convince others to finance his campaign or come to his district to rally support.

Does this sound familiar? It's how the GOP got rid of Alan Grayson. It's the tactic they were using against Weiner until he imploded. They've been doing this crap since they had success with it against Tip O'Neill 20 years ago. It's the basis of the Swift Boat strategy. It's Willie Horton. It's what they teach their young activists (or which I was one once...and handsome.) and it's a big part of the reasons we lose. Even when we win, we lose because they're constantly warring with the far edge of the political spectrum to pull us ever rightward.

Issues sometimes rarely win elections but scandals (even manufactured ones) win movement politics.

[PCIntern]

28. Thank you for 'getting it'. n/t

[DrDan]

33. and this is a scandal??????????????????????

only in the fertile minds of posters here

[Chan790]

36. Several points.

1.) I conceded it was dumb, but that's part of it. You throw shit against the wall.
a.) You never know what's going to stick.
b.) Eventually if you throw enough shit against the wall, even if none of it sticks, you end up with a brown wall.

2.) Just because you throw something and it doesn't stick, you don't abandon the strategy; go back to finding shit to fling because "shit has a cumulative effect."

3.) Scandals are almost entirely manufactured out of whole cloth. If you doubt that, question how a few million people can believe in birtherism. It's because such a belief has been manufactured for them. Portray Paul Ryan as Marie Antoinette or Nero because he's drinking fancy wine while the nation burns and that will have an effect. Actual fact of scandal is almost entirely unnecessary, it's the perception of scandal that is damning.

(Sometimes I get irritated that I have to explain things *this* obvious.)

[DrDan]

39. then save the keystrokes - why join the birthers and the John-Edwards-haircut club

The majority of Americans are tired of politics because of tactics and strategies just like this - as well they should be.

(sometimes I get soooooo irritated that I ha . . . . .)

[Chan790]

41. Because it works.

People always say they're sick of the shit-flinging politics but then they don't respect anything else. It might be disgusting but if you had a choice between winning and being respectable...because you probably can't have both.

[DrDan]

42. sure . . . when there is an issue

this is a non-issue.

Are we really going to tell others how to spend their own money? That simply lends credance to the con's claim that we want to tell others how to behave, how they should live.

Did he spend taxpayer's money on the wine? or his own?

Did his campaign dollars buy this wine (as with John Edward's haircut?

Then perhaps an issue.

If he spent his own money - non-issue and simply petty of us to try to make it so.

[Tennessee Gal]

30. Of course he should be hit on the issues.

He is wrong on every issue. This behavior is living proof of what a callous cad he is.

[pennylane100]

20. If the democrats who order $350 bottles of wine want to turn their backs on the poor and elderldy,

they should also be publicly shamed. However, I do not think think there are quite as many as there are on the other side of the aisle.

[DrDan]

23. publicly shaming those who decide to spend their own money on wine

yeah - that's a winner of an issue. It'll be sure to catch on. Of course, we can always blame it on the media when it fails.

[pennylane100]

25. While they are being paid by the tax payers,

receiving subsidized health benefits and all kinds of other tax free benefits, while actively working to deny basic needs of this countries senior citizens, they are fair game. If they really believe that a senior citizen living on a pension and health care plan that he or she paid paid into throughout their working life can be taken away, they have earned the right to be ridiculed.

Of course they can buy an expensive bottle wine if they want to. However, the irony is that they are able to pay for it with money from the people they are trying to screw. I would call them less hypocritical, if in the national interest, they would pay their full share of their health costs and stop protecting the billionaires who keep them in office.

We can only beat them if we play by their rules, and that includes exposing their hypocrisy every chance we get.

[DrDan]

32. just a good thing the adults are in charge

[DrDan]

44. thoughts?

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/01/sacrifice-is-for-the-little-people-obama-white-house-serves-199-bottles-of-wine-at-state-dinner/

[PCIntern]

21. sometimes I'm just amazed around here...

The Rethugs bring up every little stupid act which a Dem will perform: windsurfing, hunting in a hunter's jacket (some nerve, eh?), looking like Rocky the Flying Squirrel in a tank, etc., and they gain 2-3 points in public opinion polls. This prick drinks from 700 dollars worth of wine at a table while he's cutting benefits to the middle class and poor, refusing to raise taxes, etc., and that's not an issue?

As I posted elsewhere in this thread...no wonder we lose and lose momentum when we have it. dems are just a bunch of wusses looking to make "BIG POINTS" - Good luck with that...worked real well in 2010 when we just fucking rolled over and got swept due to the 'inevitability factor'. One has to be a mite crzy to think you'll beat these Rethugs with intellect and righteous indignation.

[DrDan]

22. and "wine-gate" will get votes where? - I agree with you, however

I also continue to be amazed at how some try to make issues out of the littlest of non-issues - and do it because "the R's keep picking on us".

[Angry Dragon]

24. .............

:thumbsdown:

[PCIntern]

26. ...but it works as far as the electorate is concerned...

How about the false statement often repeated by nearly EVERYONE in the MSM that "Al Gore said that he invented the Internet"? Even if he HAD said it, which he did not, it was a 'little' issue...and how many votes did he "lose" (sic) by?

[DrDan]

34. "Paul Ryan likes expensive wine" - hmmmmmmmm - scandalous

[PCIntern]

35. Hmmmm...John Edwards gets expensive haircuts...scandalous!

And it "was", wasn't it?

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

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

[DrDan]

46. and your point is . . .

[DrDan]

43. since it was paid for with campaign funds, yes

[Strelnikov_]

47. Does partially explain why when 70% of the people support a Progressive agenda

the right keeps winning.

Too many pedants.

[lynne]

38. Agree although I doubt many others will. I don't like the politics -

- of telling others what they can and cannot do with their own money and making an issue of it. It's not like others - including a few Democrats - don't consume $350. bottles of wine - or drive obscenely expensive cars - or jet all over the country with carbon footprints the size of Sasquatch - all the while telling us we need to conserve and tighten our belt buckles.

Just seems rather hypocritical and catty to me.

[JVS]

6. Was this wine French?

[NightWatcher]

11. Screw French wine. Good Amuricans only drink Freedom Juice (PBR from the can)

[malaise]

7. 100% correct

Treat it like the John Edwards haircut

[Oceansaway]

9. Rob Zerban for Congress !...nt

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

10. You think that this collection of assholes in the current Democratic party

are gonna do a damn thing about this? That would be politically smart so I wouldn't hold my breath.

[PCIntern]

15. eye no whatcha meen...A-greed. n/t

[tomm2thumbs]

12. your ideas are stellar

people of the Tea Party ilk aren't spending 350 dollars on a bottle of wine, they are spending that on a kid's computer for school, or a couple payments against electricity & water/gas.

if you can reach those people, they will recoil at his excesses

[loyalsister]

16. Do you really think this is unique to Paul Ryan?

Or even to republicans? There are plenty of wealthy democrats who live like it. Plenty of Democratic politicians have their hands in the cake. As an issue, this could back fire.

[Pisces]

17. Republicans do not represent the poor therefore they don't care if he drank $2000 a bottle wine. It

is only the poor democrats who care about expensive wine and haircuts.

[flamingdem]

19. Someone here has to make a funky photoshop or youtube video recreation nt

[CTyankee]

29. Well, it IS on Google.

Here: http://www.americablog.com/2011/07/paul-ryans-350-bottle-of-wine-while-he.html

[Tennessee Gal]

31. It's the "I've got mine and screw the rest of you" attitude.

In your face.

[jmowreader]

37. Also ask...

just how many of his America-destroying ideas does he come up with when he's drunk on $350/bottle wine?

Paul, when you crashed the president's Twitter Debate the other night, how many bottles of $350 wine had you had?

And what about when you wrote the Ryan Plan? Were you knocking back a $350 bottle of wine while plotting to kill grandma by cutting off her Medicare and Social Security?

Have you had this drinking problem long, Mr. Ryan?

And how did you get home after drinking two bottles of $350 wine? Did you take a cab and stiff the driver on the tip? You know cabdrivers really hate drunken Republicans.

[CleanGreenFuture]

45. Wine-gate? Really? Are we so devoid of imagination that we have to continually

append the word "gate" to any and all scandals?

Is the wine incident of such scandalous magnitud that it needs the "gate" designation?

I think not.