The concept is simple, guys
I guess I’m having a hard time with one because usually when the Republicans bring on the stupid it can at least be roughly grafted onto one of their pre-existing narratives about Democrats. But in the world of that mythical heartland, every manly man is an amateur mechanic and forever tinkers with his roadster and, yes, does things like change oil and check tires and keep them properly inflated.
As the Obama campaign kicks off “energy week” with a new contrast ad and a policy speech in Michigan, Time’s Mark Halperin reports, “McCain supporters in Michigan will distribute tire gauges at Obama’s energy speech in Lansing. The RNC will also deliver gauges reading ‘Obama’s energy plan’ to Washington newsrooms.”
As of this morning, it looks like far-right blogs have received their copies of the Republican script, too. RedState.org’s Erick Erickson is on message: “Inflating your tires and getting a regular tune-up sounds more like Obama’s plan for ego maintenance than it does for helping American families.” Ed Morrissey added, “…Obama refers to ‘big oil’ and the need to reduce our use of oil by 35% over the next twenty years. How do we get there? Keep inflating those tires, folks.”
We are, quite obviously, in the midst of a very aggressive roll-out here. John McCain criticized the notion of well-inflated tires on Friday, and Newt Gingrich described Obama’s remarks as “loony toons” during a Fox News interview. Yesterday morning on ABC, McCain said, “It seems to me the only thing [Obama] wants us to do is inflate tires” to improve gas mileage.
The concept is simple: the McCain campaign knows that it will never get the GOP base excited about their candidate because they hate him. Thus, the only way to inspire Winger Nation to flock to the polls in November is to conduct a Three-Month Hate against Obama by portraying him as a pansy.
How do the tires fit in, you ask? I outlined it thusly on Friday:
The GOP’s echo chamber:
“Hey Beavis, Obama wants you to, like, fill up your tires,
huh-huh, huh-huh.”
“Fill up my tires? That’s, like, the gayest thing I’ve ever
heard Heh-heh-heh-heh, yeah! TIRE!! TIRE!!!”Although recommending that people inflate their tires makes sense, it also sounds sorta… wimpy. As if President Hussein Obama X is already a-warmin’ us up to surrender to the Ay-Rabs by a-tellin’ us to git used to them high gas prices. “Oh, there ain’t nothin’ we can do ’bout them Ay-Rabs a-chargin’ us our first-born child fer gas,” Hussein X seems ta be a-sayin’. “Best
bend over and take it up the poopshaftgit used t’it by a-fillin’ up them tires!” And what would McCain do about gas prices, by contrast? Why, he’d do the manly, All-American thing: he’d drill for more oil (them drills sure do look, er, penis-y, after all) and invade another Islamic country to show them li’l peckers that Uncle Sam is bossa this here town.
And it’s working. Just last month, the wingnut bloggers were whining about how poorly the McCain campaign was being run. Now even Michelle Malkin is getting excited about voting for him, simply because he’s decided to play the Spite Card that worked so well for Nixon back in ’68.
As I’ve said before: spite works, and good liberals need to stop pretending that we can get people to vote for our candidate merely by smiling and presenting them with the facts.
Gavin adds: The Spite Caucus was formed during the Goldwater campaign of 1963-’64, when the crankish right-wing conspiracy thinking of characters such as Robert Welch, the wealthy founder of the John Birch Society, was grafted onto ‘conservatism,’ the formerly conservative kind of politics that conservative people espoused.
Via Richard Hofstadter’s indispensable book, here’s how Richard Rovere of The New Yorker described the Goldwater people who were swept up in the candidate’s barnstorming, ground-level campaign and took over the Republican party at the 1964 National Convention. They were mostly young and affluent, and…
…smartly dressed, well organized, and well spoken. And they were as hard as nails. The spirit of compromise and accommodation was wholly alien to them. They did not come to San Francisco merely to nominate their man and then rally his former opponents behind him; they came for a total ideological victory and the total destruction of their critics. […] They wished to punish as well as to prevail.
Our own Generation of Malkins is eerily similar, if individually less presentable and well-spoken than the typical Goldwater delegate. It’s rarely about policy for them, but about ideological purity, ceaseless argument and contention, and imposing punishment on their foes.
Like the Goldwater campaign (which went down in a cackling blaze in the national election, giving Johnson the presidency), it’s not even about winning, per se, but about shoving it in your face, whatever the ultimate result. Victory is their constant ideal and the eternal object of striving, but winning often means that the argument has to stop — and the argument must never stop.
The Spite Caucus would be back for Nixon in ’68 (and ’72), and by the Reagan campaign in ’79-’80, it would be comfortably at the mainstream of the Republican Party. Today, if these people were for some reason to leave the party, the GOP would be a hollow, floppy elephant skin lying in a sad-eyed heap. They are its very bones and muscles.
They need to distribute tire gauges which are gay and FRENCH and shaped like the Messiah and have a purple band-aid and a big diploma hat and a Muslim suicide bomb ha ha that would show them stupid Demo-Craps they shouldn’t tell us Americans what to do with our own god-d*** tars.
For pretty much all of the last eight years I’ve agreed with ya, Brad. During the primaries Obama almost had me with the “post-partisan” magic act. We all knew that the general election would be hard and ugly, but I’ve had exchanges with supporters who say we have to keep to the high road.
I almost bought it – but the offshore drilling issue and the McCain campaign’s descent into coded racist appeals (for which the media convinces the uninformed to blame Obama! WTF?!) has rewarded the wingers in the polls. Now is the time for Obama to show he’s a difference kind of Dem- by actually fighting back.
I can’t stop banging my head over this. George Will- George Fucking Will- wrote a column devoted how Americans should stop bitching about oil execs and start filling up their damned tires to save a little money. This actually happened. It was, shoot, maybe a year ago. Nary a peep from these mouth-breathers.
This is droolingly sub-moronic. Filling up your tires is good advice. My father told me this. His father told him this. It’s a Good Thing. It’s a Smart Thing. And yet, from the usual slate of chuckleheads…LOOOL OBAMA IZ DUMMIE DONT NEED TUH FILL MAH TIRES UP OH NOEZ CHARCOAL GRILL!!!
Spite works for them because they’re vicious little monsters.
It will never, ever, ever, work for Democrats.
Ya’ know, if only the GOP controlled the levers of power over the last 6-8 years, they would have come up with an energy policy that would have. . .oh, never mind.
This is droolingly sub-moronic.
It sure is.
How long have you lived in this country for?
Tovarisch,
We have our fair share of vicious little monsters on the left, too.
And spite worked like a charm for Lyndon Johnson. History marks him as a petty and hateful man, but he was also an effective politician. We could use people who possessed the ruthlessness of the latter without being the former.
If, after the convention, Obama is behind in the polls, he’s likely to go negative at that point.
Of course, the press will react quite differently to Obama’s negative ads than they do to St. McCain’s. While they present even the most ludicrous, meaningless attacks by the McCain campaign as a reasonable and valid question for him to ask about his opponent in a presidential race, Obama’s will immediately be labeled as “negative attacks” and unfair, unreasonable attacks that have no place in presidential politics.
With any luck at all, it won’t come to that…
mikey
I think I’ve finally figured it out. For all the blather on the right about Obama’s “inexperience” and being style-over-substance, it’s becoming increasingly clear that McCain has no ideas. None. Oh, he knows what he WANTS to do, but his only solutions are a) do nothing, or b) use the Bush plans (which have been working so well these past seven years). By contrast, Obama not only has plans, but an unfortunate tendency to talk about them. Since the McCain camp doesn’t want anyone to hear about them, they have to trash him every time he opens his mouth. Sure, it often (okay, usually) makes them look stupid, but the alternative is people hearing Obama’s solutions and maybe even liking what they hear.
You ask me, I think the solution is to challenge McCain on his own ideas. He’s not too quick on his feet, and a few highly publicized sessions of him hemming and hawing ought to hurt him. Of course, it would be nice if the media would do this, but as long as the reporters have a place at the barbeque it ain’t going to happen.
From thinkprogress.org
“The Department of Energy estimates that (based on gas costing $3.96/gallon), “you can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure” which would ultimately save “up to $0.12/gallon” or, nearly the amount of the federal gas tax ($0.18/gallon), a tax Gingrich supports repealing. Moreover, the auto industry agrees with DoE’s assessment.
But more importantly, Obama is correct to suggest that inflating tires properly and getting regular tune-ups “could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling” — and by a long shot. According to the Energy Information Administration, if Congress lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling, by 2030, oil crude production in the “lower-48? outer continental shelf will increase by about 200,000 barrels per day. By contrast, the production offset based on Obama’s proposal will likely approach 800,000 barrels per day, immediately.”
Fighting back is different than creating bullshit, spiteful attacks.
First problem is the media won’t report them as such, but will attack any attacks by Obama as spiteful attacks. Then they will ask McCain why Obama attacks him with spiteful attacks.
See? We lose either way.
Obama is going to have to carry out a two-pronged attack, including calling out the media. He has to shame them. But in no way could Obama launch a silly Britney/Paris type ad. It would backfire because the press would call him out.
But Obama does need to talk tough, and continue to talk tough.
You know, I still think this is going to work out well for Obama. I don’t know if you caught Benen’s third update. But NASCAR fans and die-hard car enthusiasts actually recognize that proper tire pressure actually is significant.
Imagine you’re a NASCAR dad, and after hearing Obama’s inflate your tires and tune your engine speech you’re thinking “pffft, obviously. This Obama character’s got nothing new or interesting to say”.
But then, the political party you’ve always supported goes out of their way to ridicule the idea. Tires and engines are things you already do. This sorta thing is as obviously true as Teh Ghey is going to pervert yer childrens and yet your good friends at the GOP are making fun of it. Might be hard to reconcile – and it’ll force some more GOP foot soldiers to think about stuff.
….aaand that’s the reason why spite will never work for the Democrats: the media’s in on it. Once the Dems show any sign of backbone or negative campaigning they get bitch slapped by every pundit out there for being too critical.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
These are the same people who drowned out our nominee in ’04 with a hail of fucking purple band-aids. So of course they’ll ridicule saving money and gas: the sole principle of GOP campaigning is that everything the other side does is lame and girly, no matter how much they agree with it.
All 25.7 years of my existence. Spent them between Raleigh, NC, Athens, GA, and Atlanta.
Until the Iraq War, I considered my mother and father reasonable conservatives, and they never- never– found any time to promote and nurture my ignorance. I got chewed out many a time for low Bs because they knew I could do better.
This tire pump shit offends me.
(I say until the Iraq War because they’ve both pressed the eject button from the Republican Failplane)
Of course, the press will react quite differently to Obama’s negative ads than they do to St. McCain’s. While they present even the most ludicrous, meaningless attacks by the McCain campaign as a reasonable and valid question for him to ask about his opponent in a presidential race, Obama’s will immediately be labeled as “negative attacks” and unfair, unreasonable attacks that have no place in presidential politics.
This was my point, yes. Central and such. The right-wing are vicious little monsters, and that works for them because the media will never, ever, ever question them. They’re Republicans after all, completely valid criticisms, blah blah blah.
If Obama ever says anything, he’ll get trounced by the media and their right-wing parasites. Spite cannot work for us, it can only work against us.
We may have vicious little monsters on the left, Snowwy (though really, I only *hear* we have these things, never actually seen a one), but they are not pandered to the way the right-wing monsters are.
Brad, seriously, relax.
This is the pre-season, still.
It’s better for Obama to sit back and play some prevent D. Let McCain show his hand and run out of material. At the rate he’s going by October it’ll be “n****r, n****r, n****r, n****r, comin to getchooooo”. The Harold Ford ad will seem subtle in comparison to where McCain is pushing himself.
Nixonland is a great book, but it ain’t the works of Nostradamus.
Reeeeeeeelax, enjoy the summer, the election will still be here in the fall.
god, it’s so easy. just respond by saying the republicans are running their campaign on flat tires, and have been running the country on flat tires for the last eight years.
What is the probability of having a stroke at age 72 versus the probability of having a stroke at age 47?
He’s not too quick on his feet,
You are a master of understatement.
and a few highly publicized sessions of him hemming and hawing ought to hurt him.
I trust everyone has seen his Panama City meltdown. Spite or no spite, McCain is losing his shit right before our eyes.
Reeeeeeeelax, enjoy the summer, the election will still be here in the fall.
Indeed. One might say it’s time to go wind-surfing. Why worry?
Maybe this is all part of some deep game Team Obama is playing. Seriously, when he staked out a sixteen month withdrawl timeline, it was seen as suicidal – and then it got endorsed by al-Maliki.
Remember that the current climate is such that even FUTK is trying to tell everybody he’s a Dem.
Imagine just as the GOP goes crowing and cheering about all they know about cars and gas – some big name in racing, maybe a retired driver or some legendary mechanic or some such – comes out and endorses Barack, say later this week.
Probably won’t happen – but it’d be awful cool if it did.
All Obama has to do is tell people to fill up their tires with Jesus.
Done. McCain Pwned. Election ours.
WordPress just sent my comment through the intertoobz wormhole.
Rather than try reposting the link, I’ll just say that there’s a youtube video of McCain’s recent Panama City appearence. Look at the one with three camera angles.
Spite can’t help this guy – he’s still got 90 days to go.
Obama should stay strong and not take any shit but, like mikey and others have said, he can’t really use the spite card.
Oh, there it is…
[makes blubbery noise with forefinger and lips]
Henry Lewis, WordPress managed to digest your prior comment, complete with link. Thanks for the link, I’d been scrounging around for it earlier today to send to someone!
I think the trouble with fuel consumption in the US is that a car is a status symbol.
The best way to save fuel and save money.. STOP using your car as a status symbol. Choose a car which suits your actual needs, and it will be slightly older, and slightly smaller and more fuel efficient than what you might have bought otherwise. Being able to buy your car outright instead of on finance saves you a shitload. As does the lower insurance rates on a smaller, older model. And that is before we even start talking about fuel consumption.
So if you stop buying cars based on your social inadequacy.. The next step is to stop DRIVING like you have something to prove. Aggressive driving can easily halve your fuel economy. The heavier the vehicle, the worse the penalty is for driving like a twit. Drive in a calm, courteous manner, and you can seriously reduce the fuel bill for any vehicle.
Now what is wrong with filling your tyres up properly? Well, that involves taking good care of your possessions! You are not supposed to do that.. If you treat your expensive car as anything other than a disposable commodity, people might think you are poor! It’s a slippery slope from topping up your own tyres to knowing how to change the oil, like some poverty stricken redneck!
Almost any attempt at getting Americans to use less fuel boils down to telling them “do as the poor people do” The modern American will absolutely NOT admit to being anything less than middle class. Poverty is a personal failing in the USA. That is why people are up to their ears in debt. They are poor, but doing everything they can to avoid the appearance of poverty.
Look at the success of the Toyota Prius. That only succeeded because it was an expensive car, and a high tech toy too, and thus managed to sneak into the “status symbol” category.
As fuel gets more and more expensive, and car loans become harder and harder to get, the social status associated with an expensive, large vehicle is only going increase. Many people will be clinging to their status symbol for as long as they possibly can. Until their borrowing power and income runs out. The republicans will cling to their SUVs until the bailiffs come and take it away.
Might be hard to reconcile – and it’ll force some more GOP foot soldiers to think about stuff. – Dragon-King Wangchuck
Nope. In my experience, the GOP foot soldiers will just say
The thing about the GOP is that their position is such that they don’t have to demonstrate any sign of being even competent at governance to get elected … if they are stupid, it just proves their point.
*
As to the Democrats being spiteful … I agree with those above who point out that the media (and many spite-mongers in our populace) will suddenly decry how “partisan” and “spiteful” the Democrats are. IOKIYAR lives on, and it’s not all hypocrisy since the GOP platform is based on spite whereas the Dem. platform is based on, well you know, actually governing and stuff.
Anyway, spite is something you have to do all the way … it’s like catching a football — you have to either step in and catch it or just get out of the way. Half-assed sorta catching it is a good way to break your fingers (and that’s a problem with Dems … too many Dems. don’t seem to know this in part because it seems that they’ve never catched a football in their lives).
And we Dems. simply can’t be as mean-spirited as the GOP without completely abandoning our base (and our “brand” for a brand which already is established as belonging to the GOP): can we Dems. be mean-spirited enough to push for legislation that’d label a woman, who faces loosing her uterus because she has an infected fetus inside of it, a murderer for simply attending to her own reproductive health?
We just can’t compete when it comes to spite — so, while Dems. do need to learn how to play hardball (at least we should be more prepared for inevitable GOP attacks … the GOP is so frickin’ predictable, yet it seems the Dem. party is always caught by surprise), we really need to develop our brand rather than be a cut-rate knock-off of the GOP brand.
The people you’re describing are all authoritarian personalities. Imagine that!
Well, I don’t know how this’ll play out, but it looks like Team Obama wants to be talkin about oil. They apparently have something to say on the topic. Maybe they think this could be a winner for them.
I think the trouble with fuel consumption in the US is that a car is a status symbol.
Yep. Exactly. My car, which is so old that it no longer runs efficiently, is a symbol of my status as a post-doc who doesn’t earn all that much money.
Galling as it is I yield the point. The media complicity in right-wing framing just burns me up – and yet even though I know no to trust them, I frequently forget just how corrupt they are.
I’ve met real ecoterrorists. They’re pitiful creatures, scarcely worthy of mention in the context of the GWOT bugaboo, but they’re every bit as monstrous as wingers.
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
Then fucking do. If you’re going to lose anyway, lose with some blood in your teeth.
(And, besides, fighting back will win votes of fence-walking voters who think that the Dems have no balls.)
All this talk on the liberal blogs lately about how Dems are inevitably screwed this election. It really is starting to feel like why bother? The Internet is the most powerful messaging and organizing advantage liberals have and with so many voices in it already saying it’s lost (or, campaign like Republicans or it’s all lost–and nevermind all the bitching about Clinton’s GOP-like primary campaigning, it’s different now) why bother at all. Depressing to see people give up and then shit on those who don’t as naive.
It’s not about giving up. It’s about changing tactics *NOW* to avoid a loss. That’s not giving up, it’s facing reality.
“And we Dems. simply can’t be as mean-spirited as the GOP without completely abandoning our base…”
Bullshit. Willing to fight is not being “mean spirited.” “Mean spirited” is a label applied by people who don’t have the guts to fight pull out, in the hope that other people will come to their rescue.
And if the media labels you “mean spirited” then you fight the media too:
You: “McCain is using racial code words.”
Media: “Why are you being mean spirited in attacking McCain?”
You: “Because he is using racist code words. Do you support using racist tactics?”
Media: “No.”
You: “Then why are you covering for McCain’s racist tactics? Why are you asking me this question and not asking the McCain people when they’ll stop the racist tactics…”
Media: “Uh…”
I tend to agree that this is the pre-season. Obama is testing out his young kids, while his stars are sitting in the club house. McCain has bought a bunch of over-priced free-agents who can beat up on a couple of cookies over the plate. But what will they do when Obama brings in the left specialist and the guy who tosses the cutter at your hands?
Strike out. A lot. And look really bad. And old. And silly.
Obama does not have to get spiteful. All he has to do is link St. McBBQ to Bush, which he really hasn’t started to even try.
It’s about changing tactics *NOW* to avoid a loss.
So give us something, Brad (he said with deep respect). Personally, I’m not sure what to do with ‘spite works’. Show us what you mean.
You’ve got a megaphone here.
Then he has to make dry water and fire that radiates cold.
Bullshit. Willing to fight is not being “mean spirited.” – Grant Canyon
I agree — we need to fight. Too many Dems are complacent that we’ll win this election without a fight — but we can only win this election if we fight and fight hard.
However, a lot of voters are actually mean spirited and spiteful and will vote for the mean spirited, spiteful party and that party — no matter how much we fight … and we should fight like hell — is not us.
No, it’s giving up. Obama is ahead, but we absolutely can’t have that, so we need to lose with blood in our teeth instead.
Clinton lost, running as a spiteful lunatic.
McCain *is* a spiteful lunatic, like the right-wing always is.
Should we really emulate either, when we know they’re both proven losers?
Grant Canyon
Part of the problem with your scenario is that the GOP has been successful in their campaign to get people to believe the media is liberal. Not only do people think we liberals are a bunch of wankers cause the media is filled with wankers and people take the media to be representative of liberals, but also this is how your scenario would play out in practice:
You: “McCain is using racial code words.”
Media: “Why are you being mean spirited in attacking McCain?”
The Hoi Palloi: “Wow! Even the liberal media thinks that Obama’s supporters are being mean spirited … they must be dangerous for the country”
There is no ‘spite’ in Grant’s example.
‘Fighting hard’ doesn’t to use spite as one of it’s weapons.
Please insert ‘need’ above at the appropriate place.
Time for a nap.
HA HA DUM OBAMA THINK THAT I HAFTUH PUT AIR IN MAH TIRES HE DUN THINK WRONGLIKE I TELL YOU THAT MUCH FUR SHURE
wE shud show that dum Obamahadist by tying ar charkole grilz to the bak of ar carz and get even les ful konmee ha!
“Obama should stay strong and not take any shit but, like mikey and others have said, he can’t really use the spite card.”
One way to do both is to be exquisitely polite while saying in subtext what you really mean. We do this all the time in polite society. Instead of saying, “I’m hanging up, you’re a fucking idiot wasting my time,” we say, “I’m sure you’ve got other calls to make, so I’ll let you go,” and then hang up.
When I was 15 I would have thought this was “phony.” 42 years later I get it. (Miss Manners/Judith Martin is great to read in this regard. You never have to be rude to get where you want to go.)
Obama should deal with McCain in this way. Outwardly polite and even deferential, but with a goal and an agenda. “Senator McCain’s been around a long, long time, and been involved in just about every major Republican administration, from the time of the savings and loan problem to the invasion of Iraq and the sub-prime meltdown and the real estate crisis. Now that’s what I call experience. Still, the world changes,” etc.
DAS:
the Hoi Polloi might think that once, twice, ten times, but on the eleventh, they’ll start to question whether the so-called “mean-spirited” attacks just might be true… And then they’ll respect the fight.
But trying to not be too forceful and blunt, in favor of some complex, nuanced approached for fear of being called names by the media, is a recipe for disaster.
It seems to me that there is at LEAST as much risk for the Obama campaign in going negative than there is in not doing so. To encourage using “spite” as a winning strategy in american elections without acknowledging the very serious and very real downside risk to such a strategy is not being thoughtful or fair.
Perhaps there is a different strategy the Obama campaign could employ that would be more effective at countering the repeated mindless, personality based attacks from the McCain camp. But rather than hollering SPITE SPITE SPITE, it might be more valuable if you offered a set of guidelines to illuminate your proposal.
I’m pretty sure that even you would agree that a scorched-and-salted earth campaign is not what you have in mind. You probably recognize that attacking his vietnam experience will not get you positive results. So other than dog-whistling his age and intemperate personality, what would you talk about in these “spite-based” ads?
mikey
All he has to do is link St. McBBQ to Bush, which he really hasn’t started to even try.
He’s done a bit of it, including his new energy ad, which places McCain and Bush side by side. But I agree, I have yet to see “the hug” appear in any of his ads. He may be saving that for the fall. There is also no shortage of video clips of McCain enthusiastically praising Bush for one thing or another. Like you said, Obama has not even begun to exploit that particular angle, but I do believe it’s coming. They are simply too smart not to hammer it to death.
Except a lot of the base check their tires. Hell, they rotate their own tires and change the brake pads. Gasping “Check your tire pressure? My dear how gauche!” makes someone look like a pansy, but it ain’t Obama.
You probably recognize that attacking his vietnam experience will not get you positive results.
So no mention of the USS Forrestal, then?
Damn.
A dem candidate would have got nowhere near the nomination with an albatross like that.
I think the joke that they are trying to make is that Obama
A) thinks that people need to be told to check their tires, and
B) has no energy policy beyond tire checking
They smell another Jimmy Carter sweater moment and they are biting.
And now that I’m on the topic of authoritarian personalities, I’m guessing that McCain’s negativity is energizing the Freeper base simply because it is negative. Authoritarians crave strength and hyper-masculine aggression. The worst thing McCain can do in their eyes is look weak. Screw policy, screw the economy, screw the country — they want a leader to take them negative so they can jeer the Democrats in perfect, testosterone-soaked harmony.
The authoritarians won’t support for McCain if he looks weak, and spite is the only thing that could possibly make him look strong.
Unlike McCain, I don’t think Obama will automatically get points for being mean.
Never forget that there is a substantial minority of people in the world who are just plain old mean, foul-tempered, small-minded hateful little assholes and in the US they form the base of the Republican Party.
Proposed 30-second spot:
[A 30-something couple, in bed, fast asleep]
SOUND – OFF: A small baby starts crying, very loudly.
THE WOMAN [flicking on table lamp]: Your turn.
[THE MAN gets up slowly, walks wearily out of frame]
VOICE OVER: It’s nights like these when it seems like they’ll never grow up.
SOUND – OFF: The baby quieting gradually, soothing sounds from the MAN.
[THE WOMAN rolls over]
VOICE OVER: And then, there’s the “terrible twos,” and then the “time-outs.” Soon enough, you’ll be worrying about them really getting into trouble.
[THE MAN comes back into the frame, wordlessly gets back into bed. The woman turns out the light. A moment later…]
SOUND-OFF: The child starts crying again.
SOUND: John McCain’s voice – “Is this change we can believe in”
[after another moment, the table lamp comes on again]
JUMP CUT to still shot of McCain walking, as seen from behind. The camera pulls down, focusing on his derriere.
VOICE OVER: Depends.
SCREEN TEXT: GIVE THEM A TIME OUT. DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN.
Paid for by notice, etc.
“what would you talk about in these ‘spite-based’ ads?”
Don’t know about anyone else, but since McCain is running a competence campaign, I’d attack his competence.
Highlight the fact that although he professes to be a “maverick”, he’s a typical Rep., dancing to whatever tune is played by Big Oil. I’d show the flip-flop on religion — i.e., his opposition to the religious right in 2000 and his courting of them in 2008 — to show that they’re pulling his strings, too. Finally, I’d highlight anything that makes it look like he’s out of touch or doesn’t have command of the subject (like his quotes about not knowing much about the economy, or the clip of Traitor Joe having to correct him about Iran and al Queda.)
Make the people not believe his boasts about being “ready to lead from day one” and you have a good ad.
I don’t think that “spite” is necessary, but it has to be hard hitting in tone. Not a tone that says “we respectfully disagree”, but one that says “he’s out of his fucking mind.”
Oh, c’mon Brad. I’m talking about taking minor pot shots that won’t even be blips on the radar come November as the unimportant ephemera they are.
Shit, Kerry was the worst candidate I can imagine, and he still only lost through electoral fraud and voter disenfranchisement in Ohio (at least). That not effective negative campaigning, that’s electoral fraud and voter disenfranchisement. Don’t give Rove more credit than he deserves.
Obama can hit McCain hard without becoming a spiteful dick. If he became a spiteful dick the scary negro meme would become that much easier to sell. McCain is, if you want to give him more credit than he deserves, trying to bait Obama. He’s trying to get Obama to deny fucking that pig. Obama might just be smart enough to wait him out then ask, “why are you so interested in pig fucking?”
The good/bad part is we get to find out.
Firing up the base won’t be enough this year. They need to convince independents to vote for McCain, and this “Obama’s energy plan is tire gauges only” campaign and similar marketing tools designed to fire up the base aren’t going to do it.
I also can’t help but feel there’s some internalization of the opposing narrative going on here.
Yeah, fracturing the Spite Caucus would be great, but who in that group do you target, and how do you do it without fatal self-compromise? How is becoming a reactionary, and letting McCain effectively determine his positions for him, going to help?
I’m not arguing for a Dukakis turn the other cheek suicide, but is Karl Rove really who you want Dems to emulate?
Who in the hell uses a tire guage anyway? The new tire systems check their own pressure and tell you when they need some filling. McPOW, still stuck in the 20th Century. It’s time for a (tire) Change.
“I’m not arguing for a Dukakis turn the other cheek suicide, but is Karl Rove really who you want Dems to emulate?”
Well, he won two elections he had no business winning and got who-knows-how-many decades worth of Roberts/Alito votes on the USSC bench… So, as far as results go, I wouldn’t adopt his strategy, but I would adopt his tactics.
Voter fraud?
I dunno, you really want to adopt it when our lead’s from Chicago?
Neither Kerry nor Gore lost because of voter fraud. They lost because they ran shit poor campaigns. You couldn’t “voter fraud” over the type of margains they should have won by.
Maybe we should hand out little tubes of SPF 15 sunscreen labeled “McCain’s health care plan”. Apply liberally!
What the hell is wrong with Obama’s surrogates? Let the Repugnantkkkans trot out their tire gauges.
Every Obama surrogate in America ought to simply direct people to this obviously Soros-funded, bomb-throwing, far-left, hate site, the Department of Energy:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml
where the freaking long-hair hippies say that you can save money and fuel by checking your tire pressure and getting a tune-up.
I mean, really — it’s not that freaking hard!
Really. I’ve had that damn “tire pressure” indicator light on the dashboard on for a couple months now. My tires are fine. The sensor’s either fucked up or overly sensitive. Great solution, though. Causes me to HAVE to check the tire pressure manually to find out the diagnostic circuit is hosed.
Yay!
mikey
“Generation Of Malkins” made me think of “Generation Of Vipers” by Philip Wylie.
Dissent Ahoy!
Methinks somebody mayhap has a misunderestimation as to how well Obama can make (or already has made) McCain The Third his bitch, the same way he turned the heavy Dem favorite into his co-campaigner as nominee.
Guesstimate: Iraq endorsing his plan for them before he’s even the official candidate yet may be a PROTIP.
Methinks, too, that you’re going to get an unpleasant tutorial in IOKIYAR in action, c/o a big crass well-housebroken pack of both old- & new-mediasluts, if weapons-grade badassness becomes the order of the day for Dems. At which point the entire Dem campaign output becomes viable Gooperista attack-ad fodder since BOTH narratives juxtaposed will make Obama seem both craven & schizoid, at a bargain-basement ad-rate for said Gooperistas.
McGump, there, he does exactly 1 campaign event (U GOE, GRRL!!11!) per day, & I suspect for him this is full overdrive. That old hump is already being held together with plainly visible staples, baling-wire & chewing-gum, & it isn’t over for MONTHS yet.
Obama is a Chicago pol, & FWIH those aren’t exactly Care-Bears. The best reliable barometer of POTUS victory is Da $imoleon$ – in the fund-raising arms-race, it so happens that the guy with the beer-heiress hubby running for the Rich Insider Honky-Dudes’ Party is the runner-up. That’s just GOTTA hurt, especially (& all the harsher) if something new & important comes up later on, just when the cash-bucket gets anorexic on him. The neoconderthal demographic is letting McCain know exactly how little they like him, right in the wallet.
Obama is looking strangely Teflonoid, i.e., every single flung gob of gooper-mud lacks persistent traction, whilst he’s handing them back their ass-clown narrative, as confetti. He puts out some primo responses as ads, usually the same day – if/when he cold-cocks “Reverse Ace” on being such a reptile/brick-wall to the Veterans’ & POW/MIA lobbies, or on his remarkably brown-lipstick-lubed path to Air Force glory via his Admiral Daddykins, or even (*insert your personal favorite McCain whopper here*) … the REAL campaign gaming will get in full effect.
Don’t hit below the belt when you can make the other guy kiss the mat with one fast easy shot to the temple or solar plexus. Winning clean – golly shucks, Jack & Janey Sixpack LOVE that motif too. Nearly everyone does.
(*** in b4 McCain gets permanent deer-in-headlights expression ***)
I’ve wondered if what we’ve got here is a kind of kamikaze run.
The Republicans have no ideas, no candidate, and screwed up for the last eight years spectacularly, and screwed up even earlier less spectacularly. They have no consistent ideology, policy, or even results.
This of course came about because of the Spite Caucus. When you have to keep feeding the hate, when you have to keep marketing, then marketing is all that’s left.
Now of course they can’t stop themselves. This is literally all they’ve got, and having seen the right-wing lunacy as of late, I think that right now this is a kind of kamikaze run – in full bore, straight on, no stopping, no matter what happens to them, the party, or the country. A giant surge as it were with the hope that after the lies, the deceit, the hysteria, they’re less behind than their opponent.
It is of course ridiculous. A moment’s pause by Republicans would reveal McCain is a poor choice, but if they stop they’ll see what kind of failures they are.
Hey, don’t knock sunscreen. It’s kept McCain melanoma-free since 2000!
I heartily encourage the Right Wing to drive on underinflated tires, postpone their oil-changes and their tune-ups! Oh and they should also drive over 55, recklessly, and gun the engine at every intersection. Not only will it Show Me, it will also drain their wallets and increase their odds on the Darwin list.
You couldn’t “voter fraud” over the type of margins they should have won by.
How about the margins they were winning by? Y’know, 49-47, 50-48?
Yeah, they should’ve won by 100-0, but turns out a minority of this country is so insane that they’ve managed to stick us with 30 years of narrow-ass races, just enough for the disenfranchised and voter fraud to actually fuck things up.
Sorry dude. Nope. Maybe the term “voter fraud” doesn’t accurately describe what happened in Florida in the fall of 2000, but Gore won that election – of that there can be no doubt…
mikey
Heartland, we effete liberals recommend that you never drive without working brakes, because we don’t think you’re manly enough to stop your cars with your heels.
[…] Sadly, No! doesn’t get it (shocka!) The concept is simple: the McCain campaign knows that it will never get the GOP base excited about their candidate because they hate him. Thus, the only way to inspire Winger Nation to flock to the polls in November is to conduct a Three-Month Hate against Obama by portraying him as a pansy. […]
“Sorry dude. Nope. Maybe the term ‘voter fraud’ doesn’t accurately describe what happened in Florida in the fall of 2000, but Gore won that election – of that there can be no doubt…”
If he wasn’t inaugurated, he didn’t win.
[…] Sadly, No! doesn’t get it (shocka!) The concept is simple: the McCain campaign knows that it will never get the GOP base excited about their candidate because they hate him. Thus, the only way to inspire Winger Nation to flock to the polls in November is to conduct a Three-Month Hate against Obama by portraying him as a pansy. […]
So, in your opinion, there is no voter fraud, unless it happens the day of the inauguration?
Like if Gore had won, but Bush waited until January, showed up and went:
“BUM RUSH THE MOTHERFUCKING STAGE!”
Then that would constitute fraud? Because I think that’s a bit different than most definitions.
No, what I’m saying is that there’s no style points in politics. You can cry day and night that such and such counts as fraud and that Gore “really” won, but at the end of the day, under the laws as they stood, he didn’t win. The Supreme Court made a decision, people thought it was bullshit, but, in our system, that’s how it goes.
It may make you feel better to think that they wuz robbed, but it doesn’t change the past.
Ummm, sorry to interrupt the election fraud banter, but if you’re not reading JMM’s TPM, go over there now. They’re turning up more and more on a recent donation bonanza to the RNC.
Who needs spite? Dem’s should be delighted to talk about oil.
So how would you emply Rove’s tactics, GC?
Disenfranchise evangelical voters?
Hire old Air Force vets to claim McCain shot himself down and wasn’t actually a POW, but hid out at a resort in Thailand?
Really, it’s whoever gets sworn in. So if at the next inauguration, Earth Leader Obah-Ma unzips his head and reveals that he’s really Kang (or Kodos), we’ll be stuck building that giant death ray.
Except I guess the swearing in doesn’t count if you use a fake name.
See? The system works!
“Really, it’s whoever gets sworn in.”
Yes, it is. The one who is inaugurated gets to sign laws and nominate Supreme Court Justices and the one who doesn’t get inaugurated doesn’t.
It’s morally reprehensible in circumstances like these, but it is reality.
You can cry day and night that such and such counts as fraud and that Gore “really” won, but at the end of the day, under the laws as they stood, he didn’t win.
the point was made during a discussion of whether the dirty tactics of the Republicans could work to win the election for them – emphasizing the issue of GETTING VOTES.
Well, Al Gore not only got the popular vote, but he also won the Florida vote, though those votes were disenfranchised. It has never been disputed that Al Gore won the national popular vote, and it has never been disputed that Gore would have won the Florida votes had they been counted.
so when the discussion is whether dirty tricks will affect who people vote for – it’s a relevant point to say that Al Gore “won”.
Somehow you seem to have missed the point. Go back up and read Brad’s post. We’re talking about campaigns, and the tactics they employ. And I was making the point that Gore’s campaign was SUCCESSFUL. He won the election. I’m not saying it wasn’t successfully stolen from him. I’m merely saying that Rove’s tactics actually failed, and they had to bring daddy’s powerful friends in to save the day for junior…
mikey
Bush won in 04 by making himself the taller of two midgets. That’s just not a model to emulate.
Obama is going for a mandate, not a narrow partisan win. It’s risky, but it’s also a good plan for overcoming the Rove margin. The FISA cave in drained much of my enthusiasm, but I still think Obama and his campaign have shown fairly good tactical intelligence. It’s going to get rougher, but why waste good material now? Everyone’s on vacation or sweating their asses off at work. Let McCain fume, no one is really gonna notice.
Hi, g!
mikey
“so when the discussion is whether dirty tricks will affect who people vote for – it’s a relevant point to say that Al Gore ‘won’.”
But he didn’t win. Because although it is relevant to discuss how many votes he got, it isn’t dispositive on the question of who wins, as 2000 shows. He may have gotten more votes, but that wasn’t enough to win.
Well then, smart guy, what next?
You’ve proven to me that it doesn’t actually matter if you win the vote, because we’ll still lose the inauguration. So what the fuck do we do to determine we get the inauguration?
Cause I’m still partial to this bum rush the stage idea.
“Somehow you seem to have missed the point. Go back up and read Brad’s post. We’re talking about campaigns, and the tactics they employ. And I was making the point that Gore’s campaign was SUCCESSFUL. He won the election. I’m not saying it wasn’t successfully stolen from him. I’m merely saying that Rove’s tactics actually failed, and they had to bring daddy’s powerful friends in to save the day for junior…”
Here’s the real point, one that too many people in our party don’t get: the one, sole and only goal of a campaign is to win the office. If you don’t do that, you don’t have shit. You can’t effect change and you can’t do good.
And whether one believes that the Supreme Court decision was correct or not, it constitutes the law of the land. And under that law, he did not win the election.
Gore’s campaign was not successful, because the only rational metric for success in a political campaign is whether the candidate assumes the office. Gore did not, therefore he was unsuccessful.
And whether one believes that the Supreme Court decision was correct or not, it constitutes the law of the land.
Actually, the funny thing about that decision, and the reason everyone who paid attention knows it was bullshit fraud, is that it’s not the law of the land. It bears absolutely no precedent on any other case. It just kind of fucking happened, and it’s never supposed to be referenced ever again in a case.
“So what the fuck do we do to determine we get the inauguration?”
Win by so many votes that even the Repub. cheating machine can’t recover. Fraud only works if the vote is close. Fight, hard, for every vote; attack smart; get new voters to the polls; get Republican voters discouraged, so they don’t go to the polls. Bite, scratch, kick. Win the office and then govern effectively.
“Actually, the funny thing about that decision, and the reason everyone who paid attention knows it was bullshit fraud, is that it’s not the law of the land. It bears absolutely no precedent on any other case. It just kind of fucking happened, and it’s never supposed to be referenced ever again in a case.”
Even if a case is limited to its facts and thus not precedent, it is still the law of the land, by virtue of the fact that the Supreme Court is resolving a case or controversy before it.
Yes, those are all pithy slogans.
Now seriously, STRATEGY.
How do we do that? What’s ‘attack smart’ mean? How do we get new voters to the polls and why does that matter since polls don’t mean shit anymore? How do we get Republican voters discouraged (or is that evasion for saying “disenfranchise”), what does bite, scratch kick actually mean aside from pretend this is a fight instead a political game?
AND HOW DO WE WIN, IF WINNING DOESN’T MEAN WE WIN.
Those of us who drive older cars because we can’t afford the payments on something worth more than $1,000? Just guessing here.
Gore’s campaign was not successful, because the only rational metric for success in a political campaign is whether the candidate assumes the office. Gore did not, therefore he was unsuccessful.
*SIGH*
Some people y’just cain’t reach…
So, Grant, as I understand it, your advice to the Obama campaign would be to not even participate in the election, and afterwards attempt to have the outcome nullified by the supreme court.
Because as near as I can tell from what you insist on talking about, that’s the only strategy you deem effective. There’s no lesson for you in the 2000 campaigns other than cheat after the election.
Ohh Kayy. But here’s the thing. Why are you even bothering to participate in discussion about campaign tactics if you don’t believe they matter?
mikey
[…] Sadly, No! captures the essence of the problem, along with some help from their friends. […]
The best and most elegant way for the Obama camp to take the air out (heh) of this pressure gauge gimmick is to embrace it. Pass out hundreds of thousands of Air Pressure Gauges at every campaign stop. Put them in the mail to every OFA contributor. Smart auto maintenance becomes a symbol of how to fix what’s wrong with the USA.
Hell, they can embrace and disarm just about everything they try. Pass out 3-dollar bills and 7-cent nickels with Obama’s likeness. Big giant foam bumping fists. Big rubber ears, a la Steve Martin arrow headpieces. “I’m with Rezko –>” tee-shirts. “Ask me about my radical preacher” bumper stickers.
Embrace, adopt, defuse. Works every time. Shows humor -and- maturity. The public will eat it up and beg for more. Soon enough, the rethugs will stop even trying.
Just testing here– I’d been having trouble posting earlier.
Where’d the comment form go on the next post? It’s totally MIA.
I’m with you, Snowwy. If this is the only place I can comment, then I’ll have to engage in Grant’s annoying faux argument, and I’d much rather talk about how bubblegum pop songs about kissing girls are ruining our youth.
See what I just did there?
I’m pretty sure it’s Big Orange fucking with the little guy again.
Sadly’s hamsters aren’t gonna be back to normal ’til they can get off the wheel and get a nice fresh hit of steroids and hamster growth hormone….
mikey
The wailing here in the comments is evidence of how on target McCain’s ads have been.
Why are some of you advocating going negative? Isn’t the big answer to disagreement diplomacy? Why doesn’t Barack just talk to the McCain camp and make everything alright?
Obama seems to think it would work with Iran and North Korea, why not with the Republicans?
Obama seems to think it would work with Iran and North Korea, why not with the Republicans?
Interesting point, and much better than the usual round of trollery we get here. As far as I’m concerned, Obama is talking to the McCain camp, through campaign ads and such.
I think Obama’s team at home needs to keep letting the McCain campaign set the agenda and define Obama, ’cause that really seems to be paying off.
This is Obama’s election to lose, and if they really want to, they can do it.
But if Americans are really, really stupid and venal enough to put another f***ing Republican douchebag in there because Obama and the Democrats didn’t give them the proper campaign to make them remember what ought to already be tied around their necks stinking up their nose each and every morning, well, by god, that’s what America wants, and if they want the country to go down the tubes ’cause they’re nervous about a celebrity black guy who’s vaguely Muslimish and John McCain makes ’em feel safe ’cause he thinks we ‘ort to go to war and stick with it more, then they can have it.
[…] props to Brad at Sadly, No! for bringing this up. Heh indeedy […]
So is the “listen to a song, become a lesbian” deal off? I was going to ask if it still includes a toaster. Ah, well, a day late, a dollar short, and doomed to be hetero, story of my life. I could’ve really used the toaster.
Well, I dunno, El Cid. “They” likely do deserve it, but I’m pretty sure “we” don’t.
Look, as long as Kos or whoever is denying me the pleasure of commenting on the I-kissed-a-girl thread, I’ll say this: it strikes me that people here on this thread and elsewhere are muddying their terms a bit. Does everyone know what s/he means by “going negative”? or “hitting back”? I have absolutely no problem with Obama calling McCain on his bullshit, mocking him, pointing out his flop sweat at every opportunity. I also have no problem with Obama hitting McCain hard on his bad and/or nonexistent positions. But the minute Obama’s camp starts behaving like Atwater proteges, I think we’re well and truly fucked.
*sigh*
I’d so rather be skewering naughty-christian-girl music . . .
Calling SN Tech Support dept. Comment box down in latest post. Wingnuts to blame? Hamsters on extended coffee break?
Whoever wins the ‘I Kissed A Girl’ thread is gonna have to use an asterick.
Smiling Mortician: I didn’t use the term “going negative” or “hitting back.” But if the Obama campaign can’t figure out how to tie John McCain in with the 8 years of the Bush Jr. administration he so slavishly supported, contrary to the deluded myths of the Maverick, it’s not calling upon the spirits of Atwater to suggest that, hey, um, that’s a weakness of McCain’s.
But maybe we ought to just send out lots and lots of prominent Democratic proteges to talk on TV shows about how astoundingly, amazingly, mind-bogglingly honorable John McCain is and how distasteful some Democrat who criticized McCain is, such as John Kerry this weekend, who I’m quite sure was 100% convinced he was doing the smart and honorable thing.
No, I don’t know what the next 90 odd days hold, but it’s not irrational to wonder if the incompetence of the last week or so will be the frame within which the Obama campaign will work, and we’ll be left hoping that somehow we’ll turn out far more Democratic voters than any solid evidence has us hoping we will. It’s possible, but I’d rather the lead be wider than narrower.
As far as the other point, look, I’m not magic. None of us are. And I have contradictory feelings, as much as I criticize the Democratic campaigns for continually working hard to mess up good leads.
Simultaneously I feel that in the end, it isn’t just about the campaigns and how gently and Xmas-wrappy they present themselves to the voters. It’s what people choose. If enough people choose to vote for McCain (so that he wins, or so that it can be rigged for the Republicans again), then that’s what they chose to do, for whatever reasons, and I get sick and tired of hearing about how it’s all the candidate’s fault for not running the perfect campaign.
If enough people want 4 more years of Republican leadership of the country — regardless of what their feverish little minds imagine that they will get out of it, and how disastrously self-defeating their mental movies of a McCain future would be — then they will get it.
Similarly, people have an opportunity to choose something different and better. It’s not just up to the campaigns and the newspapers and the TV shows and the blogs. Regular people have to make their own choices, too, in an imperfect universe and where all-too-predictable consequences await.
Sorry, El Cid — my comment was sloppy and I was trying to address too many points in a short space. I didn’t mean to say that you were confusing terms — rather that others upthread seemed to be doing so. I absolutely agree that Obama should be slapping down McCain’s ridiculous dogwhistle crap, and doing it surgically. I agree that he hasn’t done so in the past several days and frankly, I’m a little baffled by that. What I was really referring to with the muddied-terms comment was that some commenters here (again, not you) seem to think that there’s no significant difference between forcefully pushing back against everything McCain puts out there and going the Atwater route of ratfucking the McCain camp. I just don’t think ratfucking will work.
Somebody should record I Hugged A President as the next fluffy teen-age smash hit.
I think that Obama is the smartest politician I’ve seen in 47 years of life. I’d be willing to bet he’s just layin’ back in the tall weeds and when the time is right, he’ll pounce on McCain and bat his head around – but he’ll do it in a way that will make people go, aw, that’s so cute! To mix a metaphor, I think he’s employing the rope-a-dope.
I don’t think we’re giving Obama enough credit here, is all. I haven’t seen his campaign make too many mistakes. Obama will ultimately come out ahead.
NB I surely do hope I’m right about this. If McCain is elected (or installed) I’m leaving this country and I don’t really care very much which direction I take. I think anywhere will be a better place to be.
WTF? Another cavein:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/05/barackobama.uselections2008?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Petrol prices the main election issue?
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!
Clinton lost, running as a spiteful lunatic.
McCain *is* a spiteful lunatic, like the right-wing always is.
Should we really emulate either, when we know they’re both proven losers?
Leon Trotsky, Exile-in-Mexico said, August 4, 2008 at 20:10
sadly combining McCain’s and Clinton’s spiteful lunatic vote is a winning majority
Listen-
As long as we’re going with humorous labels for candidates, Hussein Obama X is fine with me. However, for McCain, I have to say that St. McBBQ doesn’t do it. First, saints are good people. They get shot all full of arrows for believing in Jesus and shit like that. Not something you want to associate with McCain, who lied on behalf of the NVA. Secondly, Mc. Mc indicates Scotch/Irish heritage. These noble folks brought us whiskey, television, bicycles, telephones etc. McCain will not bring us a goddamn thing, save senility and more casualties. Finally, BBQ is great food. Personally, I like all kinds, but Tennessee BBQ will always be my real favorite. McCain is a rich man; therefore he don’t know squat about real BBQ.
I would prefer it if we went on with JiSM3. That’s funnier.
Sorry dude. Nope. Maybe the term “voter fraud” doesn’t accurately describe what happened in Florida in the fall of 2000, but Gore won that election – of that there can be no doubt…
2000 was a little of this & a little of that – targeting weak Dem seats for mail-kiting (a not-so-victimless crime) was one GOP fave, the dirty-pool push-poll was another … as was turning “dangling chads” into a conveniently destructive & disruptive mini-riot, with a judicial coup d’etat as dessert. It was nearly as ugly afterwards, with the Senate (both “D” & “R”) administering a lethal cornholing to the Black Caucus as it rallied to protest the disgustingly invalid election America had just gone through, demanding an enquiry.
Year One of Bananas-Republik.
Bug hunter is on the money. “Ask me about my radical preacher”
Half the populace will think it’s a rethug sticker…in a good way.
In Oz, the (then) Opposition put out an ad featuring a headshot of the (then) Prime Minister next to his quote “Australians have never had it so good.”
Since people were starting to feel pretty insecure about credit crunches, interest rates, fuel prices, dragged out wars and our first combat deaths in Afghanistan – which occurred during the election campaign – this message was ambiguous, yet truthful. Maybe even a tipping point.
– MC
My dad always checked the air in his tires. And kept a friggin’ book in the glovebox to calculate gas mileage.
Not all dogwhistles are for Republicans, Brad.
[…] popular… plus, he exercises and he’s thin. Speaking of thin… (Not that this crap still can’t […]