Saturday, July 10, 2004

Sowing Seeds of Democracy

This posting over at Blog For America proves the value of the "never let them run unopposed" strategy behind Dean's endorsements. It tells the story of the effect that one Jeffrey Siemer is having on one particular race:

When you are a previously un-opposed congressional candidate running for office with a warchest over 90 times as large as your democratic opponent, nothing can more be meddlesome -- or land a monkey-wrench in your plans -- than running against a Dean campaign inspired candidate with national grassroots support. The St. Petersburg Times yesterday reported on fundraising tactics used by U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, the Republican incumbent for Florida's District 12. The grassroots have Putnam singing the victim song to his big donors.

I know that some have criticized Dean for endorsing candidates who, by traditional political logic, have no chance of winning. The standard procedure for a nascent political organization is to prove their value by racking up a few wins and thus drawing more powerful players to them a s they prove their political value. But that approach has lead us to a Democratic Party establishment that only pays attention to a narrow segment of races and leaves the rest of the party to essentially fend for itself.

And then they wonder why there aren't any good candidates to carry the party forward into the future.

Dean's approach is different. Success is not simply a matter of marking off wins on a check list. It also is about building organizations that will grow over time into political machines that will win the races that were previously considered un-winnable.

For example, at last weeks DFA meetup, we got a visit from Mik Sander, an average citizen who has decided to step up to the plate and take on the incumbent Republican in his State House district. He has virtually no organization nor institutional backing from the party. But he has drive and a good message and he is very personable. He's the kind of guy we, as citizens, should want representing us. But he would never get anywhere if he had to rely solely on the traditional Democratic leadership for help.

But maybe, with the support of organizations like Dean's (Mik has lobbied for, but has yet to receive a Dean Dozen endorsement), candidates like Mik can build the foundations they will need to achieve victory in the long run.

Simiarly, the story from BfA shows that, even if Jeffrey Siemer doesn't beat Adam Putnam, he has forced Putnam to go back to his fundraisers and tap the well again. That means less money available for other candidates. That means more time spent campaigning by Putnam. That means less time he can spend pushing the Republican agenda. And maybe, just maybe, more opportunities for him to make a mistake on the campaign trail.

That's called growing the party from the grassroots.

Thursday, July 08, 2004

"I've watched it for the last four years"

John Kerry on F9/11:

LARRY KING: Have you seen "Fahrenheit 9/11"?

JOHN KERRY: No, I haven't. I haven't.

KING: Do you plan to?

KERRY: I don't plan to, right now.

KING: Don't plan to?

KERRY: No, I don't plan to.

KING: Wouldn't you be curious to want to see it?

KERRY: I've seen it. I've watched it for the last four years.

You know, I think I'm finally starting to warm to this guy.

IOKIYAR

Go read this and keep the following in mind: back in the 90s, the media made a lot of noise about the fact that the Clinton White House received one briefing on the Whitewater investigation (before it went to an Independent Counsel) from someone in the Justice Department.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Dissin' the troops

GKC President Beth Kerasotes confirmed Thursday that the Springfield, Illinois-based company with roughly 270 movie screens at 29 theaters scattered across five Midwestern states will not show Moore's film as long as the country is at war.

"We believe in Michael Moore's freedom to make this movie," Kerasotes said. "We trust that our customers will recognize and respect our own freedom to choose not to show it. During a time of war, the American troops in Iraq need and deserve our undivided support."

That owner must not have a lot of faith in the troops if she thinks a little movie is going to hurt them.

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

I hate it when I'm right

Not to distract from the cheers in the Democratic ranks at the choice of John Edwards for VP, but ...

President Bush's campaign strategists say they are planning to attack Senator John Kerry's running mate as a second choice no matter who it turns out to be and are preparing a commercial asserting that Mr. Kerry has made clear that his first choice was a Republican who still stands at Mr. Bush's side, Senator John McCain.

"We think it's important that people understand that this is a ticket of John Kerry and his second choice," Nicolle Devenish, the Bush campaign's communications director, said.

Apparently the Kerry-Edwards camp has a pretty good response to this ad: a positive blurb on the back of John Edward's book from John McCain!

Still, this ad just proves my point that the whole talk about McCain was foolish and dangerous.

Update: Kos has the McCain quote:

Kerry-Edwards

Good choice. In the last couple of days I had come down to the feeling that it should be either Edwards or Graham. I would have liked Graham for the fact that he was anti-war and could thus provide a good counter-point to both Bush-Cheney and John Kerry. If nothing else, the "Thank-God-It-Wasn't-Gephardt" rush in the democratic ranks will give the campaign a boost.

Probably the most encouraging thing about this pick is not just who was selected but how well the Kerry campaign has stage-managed the roll out. I was critical of Kerry's ham-handed campaigning in the primaries, but since Iowa he has shown himself to be a master of the low-key style. Good job Senator!

Monday, July 05, 2004

The need for fighters

I agree with Athenae :

Kos has a Gephardt thread up discussing his VP chances, and he makes a point I think a lot of people will make if the choice should be Gephardt after all: that here is a man who gives the Republicans no ammunition.

My only problem with looking at that as a significant advantage for any candidate is this: since when have the Republicans needed ammunition to go after somebody? I know, let's ask Max Cleland, who clearly gave Saxby Chambliss ammunition to question his patriotism by losing three limbs in a war. Let's ask the Republican strategists exactly how concerned they are about giving Dems ammunition to paint their candidates as compassionless warmongers.

In Republicans' eyes, Democrats are going to be the party of evil no matter what. I want to win as much as the next girl, and I'm not advocating for or against any Veep choice. I just don't want to see us, in the next four months, get too wrapped up in avoiding the slings and arrows of outrageous Republicans. Let's spend our time thinking about how to hit back, hard.

I made this same argument during the primaries when people suggested that Dean was more vulnerable to attack than other contenders, such as Kerry. Republicans don't need an excuse to attack. They will attack regardless of who we put forward. What matters is that we have a candidate who knows how to respond to those attacks and can hit back as well.

The $100+ million campaign of smears against Kerry is a perfect example of this. I will admit that Kerry has weathered the storm better than I thought he would. He has proven himself to be pretty adroit at handling the attacks (better than Gore was in 2000). Specifically, Kerry has not allowed the attacks to get him off message.

Would Gephardt be as successful at handling the inevitable attacks? I don't know. But arguing for Gephardt on the basis of him being less vulnerable to attacks is a non-started as far as I'm concerned.

The primary attribute of any candidate today is their fighting ability. I've never gotten the impression that Gephardt was much of a fighter.

But then I wasn't impressed by Kerry's fighting skills during much of the pre-primary season. So what do I know?

Dubya's War is not Vietnam

It is the Bay of Pigs, on a much grander scale.

That's the impression I get from reading this New Yorker article on Ahmed Chalabi. Particularly this passage:

Shortly after the [Iraqi Liberation Act's] passage, General Anthony Zinni, who was then the commander of centcom, which is assigned operational control of U.S. combat forces in the Middle East, saw a copy of Chalabi�s military plan. �It got me pretty angry,� he told me. Zinni knew Iraq�s terrain well, and testified before Congress that Chalabi�s plan was �pie in the sky, a fairy tale.� He said, �They were saying if you put a thousand troops on the ground Saddam�s regime will collapse, they won�t fight. I said, �I fly over them every day, and they shoot at us. We hit them, and they shoot at us again. No way a thousand forces would end it.� The exile group was giving them inaccurate intelligence. Their scheme was ridiculous.�

When have we dealt with a group of foreign nationals who manipulated the United States into supporting a military intervention with inadequate forces (inadequate because they would have never been able to persuade us by asking for realistic help)? Cuba in the 50s and 60s