The Big Lie - Iraq - Again - Part II

So many lies, so little time. I was going to write next about the lie that all these horrible consequences would necessarily follow a withdrawal of US troops from combat duty in the Iraq Civil War. I still intend to deal with this topic. However, a new Big Lie has emerged from the Iraq War Supporters.

I am sure you've have heard it. Any mention of placing conditions , or restrictions on the supplemental funding for the war brings forth immediate cries of "micromanagement" from the Iraq War Supporters. Is this really true, or is it just one more Big Lie?

Come below the fold where we'll deconstruct this one and perhaps find some Truth....


Let's start off by defining micromanagement. Dictionary.com gives us this:

mi·cro·man·age : –verb (used with object), -aged, -ag·ing.
to manage or control with excessive attention to minor details.
[Origin: 1985–90]
—Related forms
mi·cro·man·age·ment, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v
1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

House Republican Leader John Boehner had this to say about a recent plan by John Murtha to place restrictions on the use of funds in the upcoming Iraq supplemental funding bill:

“His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to ‘stop the
surge.’ So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations
bill -- an action Congress is clearly empowered to take -- rather than try to
micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to
do.”

Not to be outdone, Condoleezza Rice said:

proposals being drafted by Senate Democrats to limit the war amounted to "the worst of micromanagement of military affairs."

Even Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline program is getting in on the act. They quote :

ROY BLUNT, REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN: It's hard to imagine a group less capable of making tactical decisions about specific troop deployments than 535 members of Congress.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline, in the same story, also had this:

NANCY PELOSI, DEMOCRAT HOUSE SPEAKER: No more blank cheques for President Bush on Iraq. Our taxpayer dollars must go to protect our troops, to keep our promises to our veterans and to provide for the safety of the American people. In light of the facts, President Bush's escalation proposal will not make America safer.

and this:

TOM LANTOS, DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMAN: We are not fighting terrorism in Iraq. We are attempting to referee a religiously based civil war, which saps our strength and destroys our fabric as a society.

So what is all this talk really about? Does Congress in fact have the power to set policies that control how the military operates? Has it been done before?

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power to ...provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union...To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States

So it would appear that Congress does indeed have the power to govern the military. In fact, Congress has done just that from the inception of the republic. There is 5 USC CHAPTER 99 - DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE NATIONAL SECURITY PERSONNEL System passed in January 2005 (For those of you not paying attention, this was in the Republican controlled Congress). Then there is 10 USC TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES. This entire title of the code is devoted to the governance of the armed forces of the United States. It covers everything from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.

So Congress has indeed exercised its powers under the Constitution

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

They have done it under Democratic and Republican controlled Congresses. They have done it before there were Democrats and Republicans. And they should continue to do so now.

So, when you hear your Republican friends talking about Congress micromanaging the Iraq war, just point them to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. If that doesn't work, direct their attention to 10 USC TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES. If none of that works, you know you've got the type of Republican who voted for Allan Keyes for the Illinois Senate seat now held by Barak Obama.

How to Talk About Universal Health Care Insurance: Part 2

In How to Talk About Unviersal Health Care Insurance: Part 1 I talked about how the main crisis is not health care delivery, rather it is health care insurance.

This conversation was sparked by the response to another diary of mine published in December, How to Talk to Small Business People . Almost all the responses from small business people mentioned health care. They told me they are looking for a good way to get affordable health care insurance for themselves, their families and their employees. Of course these responses came from small business people who are progressive enough to comment and / or post on Daily Kos.

This diary is for people who want to advance the cause of Universal Health Care Insurance by persuading others. So let's get started...


If you have seen any of the other How to Talk to diaries, then you know the drill. If you are new to this, here is how we go about the task of talking to people already on our side. The purpose is to give them the tools to persuade people who should agree with us, but don't, that our ideas are the better ones.

The first thing to do is to define the values that relate to the task at hand. Here is my list of values applicable to this subject:

• Community
• That the promise of America is equal opportunity for all and special privilege for none
• Mutual Responsibility
• Inclusion
• Work and Family

We then have to incorporate those values into an argument that fits into these tasks:

Define the Overarching Strategy

Define the Terminology

Mangle the Memes

We start with the strategy.

Define the Overarching Strategy

When you talk to the other side, you should start with your goal in mind. So first, you need to define your goal. Only then can you determine the best overarching strategy to achieve your goal without compromising your values.

As in most of these tasks, our goal is to persuade people who should agree with us but do not yet. We need to do this in a way that does not lose our audience at hello. The target community must receive our message in a way that resonates with them on a personal level. This can best by done by research and real world examples. First, some research.

Some of the best and most persuasive resarch done in this field has been has been done by physicians%20themselves.%20 This research covers topics ranging from the huge administrative cost of our current system, taxes and who actually pays for these costs, and the sad fact that we already pay for national health care insurance, but don't get it.

If that isn't impressive enough, consider the research done by medical students . If the physicians already working in the health care delivery system and the medical students working to join them are in agreement, why would anyone else tell them that they are wrong?

Define the Terminology

Defining the terminology is akin to choosing the battlefield. If you let the other side define the terminology, you will be fighting your battle on the other guys’ battlefield. Any tactician will tell you that he who determines the battlefield has the much better chance of winning the battle.

We also must remember our audience. We are not preaching to the choir here. Out goal is to reach out and create a majority coalition in support of Universal Healthcare Insurance. Our target audience to get this coalition into the majority is twofold:

• Small Business people who already know how hard it is to obtain affordable health care insurance in the current inefficient market.
• Middle class taxpayers who mostly already have health insurance through their jobs.

The best way to reach this audience is to craft arguments where our values intersect with theirs. As we saw in Part 1, the census bureaus's research brought us these two telling tidbits:

• 73% of the uninsured in the workforce worked sometime during the year.
• 63% of the uninsured who worked during the year worked at companies with fewer than 100 employees.

This data give us the first things we can say about Universal Health Care Insurance - Most people who are uninsured are actively in the workforce. We are not talking about some giveaway program going mainly to those who are unwilling to work. We are talking about folks who work for a living just like you and I. Also, nearly 2/3rds of the uninsured in the workforce work for small businesses. This is just one more area where small businesses get the short end of the stick in this country.

So who are the uninsured? They are folks in our community who mostly work for small businesses. One would think that in a country that values entreprenuership, work and family, that we would take care of our workers and their families by making sure they all have equal opportunity to access quality, affordable health care no matter the size of the business they work for.

The other argument that should resonate particularly with small business people is the inefficiency of the current system. Health care insurance is ridiculously expensive, particularly so for folks who are not part of large byuying groups (big business, unions, professional associations, etc.). One of the reasons for the heavy cost is that the private insurance delivery system is incredibly inefficient in delivering the product. Small buisness people know better than most how crucial it is to control costs. The big business of health insurance delivery seems to believe thay can just pass these cost along to us.

What most of us don't know is that the government is already paying the lions' share of health insurance costs in this country.

the amount of public health spending in the U.S. is greater than the combined public and private spending of nations which provide universal comprehensive health insurance. A single-payer system could provide such coverage to all Americans with no need for additional health dollars.

So we could provide equal opportunity for an all inclusive health care insurance sytem without spending additional tax dollars. Is that not a win-win for middle class taxpayers and small business people?

So why do we not already have such a sytem?

Mangle the Memes

The first thing to understand is that there is a powerful lobby in this country that is determined to maintain the status quo. One of the main ways this lobby goes about maintaining the status quo is by demonizing the alternatives. So let's talk about what we are not suggesting.

We are not talking about socialized medicine. Remember, this discussion is about health care insurance. The main problem is not with our health care delivery system. So do not let anyone get away with telling you that it is.

We are not talking about some inefficient government bureacracy deciding who gets what health care procedure and when. In fact, an efficient health care insurance system will put even more of the choice for health care decisions back into the hands of the doctors and their patients. Doctors and patients will take back the decision making from some faceless private insurance bureaucrat.

How do we do that? With a single payer universal health insurance plan, we would wring the waste out of our health care insurance delivery system. Turns out this is a case where private industry is less efficient than government.

administration consumes 31.0 percent of U.S. health spending. Average overhead among private U.S.
insurers was 11.7 percent, compared with 1.3 percent for Canada’s single-payer
system and 3.6 percent for Medicare.

Who would have thought that the US government provides health insurance administration at one third the cost of private insurance?

We have a mutual responsibility to include working families in the health care insurance system. Healthy communities are productive communities. W can provide equal opportuity for access to affordable health care insurance at no additional costs to taxpayers. Ultimately we will have the luxury of seeing health care insurance costs falling for everyone.

So, get away from the keyboard and get out into your communities. Deliver thse messages to your elected officials and other opinion leaders in your community. A concerted netroots / grass roots campaign for single payer universakl health care insurance could get this issue past the tipping point.

What are you waiting for, someone else to do it? Start today.

Our Founding Fathers Gift to Us

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Founding Fathers laid out for us exactly why we have a government. This is why. These 52 words, the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America says it all. And that is their greatest gift to us all.

Happy New Year

We the People

This government is being formed by the people of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence states it clearly:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

This government was not some charter granted to us a foreign potentate. This government is a compact by of and for the people who consented to be governed by it.

in Order to form a more perfect Union

We had, of course, already secured our independence form Great Britian through the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War. The original compact beteween the thirteen original states was the Articles of Confederation . After the Revolution, the myriad problems with the Articles quickly made themselves manifest. The result was a call for a Constitutional Convention to create a govenmental compact to form a more perfect union.

establish Justice

After the who (We the People) and the what (to form a more perfect Union), the first why is to establish justice. It is important to note that the founding fathers found the idea of justice so compelling that it would be first i the list of they why's for creating this government. Perhaps it is especially noteworthy in a time when we have just so callously dumped habeus corpus.

insure domestic Tranquility

It was also clearly important to the Founding Fathers that our citizens be able to live in peace, free from domestic strife. We are agreeing here to bind ourselves together under a set of rules so that we may live in "domestic tranquility" or peace.

provide for the common defence

The Founding Fathers also recognized that it was a dangerous world out there. It was seen by bitter expererience that the most effective form of defense was a"common defence" as opposed to 13 seperate secretaries of defense. Maybe with Rumsfeld in there, 50 secretaries of defence slowing things down might not have been a bad idea.

It really is important to point out to my progressive friends that defense of the Constitution of the United States is one of the paramount jobs of government. It is not to carry a big stick, or to throw our weight around. But the sad fact is, there are people out there who reject everything our Constitution stands for and would kill enough of us to thow it onto the trash heap of history if they could. If the ideas represented here are not worth defending then you might as well kill me right now.

promote the general Welfare

I think this is the one that our Conservative friends seem to forget most about. Let's read this again:

promote the general Welfare

Imagine that. The government exists to promote the general welfare? Not the welfare of the multinational corporations or the large campaign contributors? The general welfare? Yeah, that one sort of baffles them. Kinda goes against the grain of their "government is bad" meme, doesn't it.

and last, but certainly not least,

secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

The government was formed to secure the blessings of liberty? How can that be? Government is anti-liberty. Less government is liberty. Well, not according to our Founding Fathers. They recognized that in order to secure the blessings of liberty, there must be a government in existence to ensure that those blessings are not given, sold or otherwise seduced away from us. So, when Newt Gingrich suggests that we ought to give up our First Ammendment Rights for a little security, be sure and point he and his friends towards the ultimate reason we have a government:

to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and ourPosterity

How to Talk to Small Business People

Today we are back on track. The last two weeks have been spent on How to Talk to the Main Stream Media. While I personally thought they would be very useful, they did not get overwhelming responses. That's OK though, it was good exercise for me to run through my own personal do's and don'ts when dealing with the media.

How to Talk to Small Business People has a more "traditional" goal. Once again we will be trying to convince people who should be agreeing with us that we have the better ideas, and that our candidates are the better ones because they espouse these ideas and values. We need to do this in such a way as that our subjects will not be immediately turned off to our arguments before we even get started.

Speaking of getting started....

Cross Posted at Florida Kossacks


Small businesses create more jobs and are the sources of more innovations than any other segment of our society. They have a very strong sense of self reliance and personal accountability. Community is highly valued by Small Business People. The operate their businesses and employ people in our communities. They raise their families and worship together with us in our communities. They give back to their communities by serving in Kiwanis, Optimists, and all other manner of civic organizations, both international and local in scope.

Small Business People also vote overwhelmingly Republican. They are mistaken in their understanding of what the Republican Party stands for (by its deeds, not by its words). Most Small Business People are moderate by nature - they want their products and services to be sought out by the widest range of potential customers possible. Time and again, that has been shown to be in the "broad middle".

Define the Overarching Strategy

What is the best strategy to use when deciding How to Talk to Small Business People? It is not much different than in talking to any other segment of society you wish to persuade. The first thing to do is to identify which among your values is most applicable to this subject. Emphasize those values that are shared by the subjects, in this case Small Business People. Any facilitator of conflict resolution worth his or her own salt will first seek to identify areas of common agreement. We should view this exercise no differently.

Small Business People value personal accountability. They know full well that given an even chance, they and they alone, are responsible for their own success or failure. Small business people value community. They raise their families, worship and run their businesses in their communities. They are the backbone of the Kiwanis, the Optimists and other civic organizations. They run for City Council, belong to the Chamber of Commerce and support their churches and local charities.

Small Business People value independence and freedom from over burdensome governmental regulations. Their trade group is the National Federation of Independent Businesses. The issues that are important to them include competition, government and regulatory reform and tax relief. The NFIB website proudly proclaims:

Advocacy is a top priority for NFIB.

Their list of legislative accomplishments includes tax relief and "tort reform" amongst others.


Define the Terminology

Small Business People tend to self identify as Republicans because they believe the Republican Party is the party of business. They are only partially correct. The Republican Party is the party of big business. The Gopers give a lot of lip service to small business but that's about all they really give them. All the major legislative efforts of the Republicans have been centered on benefiting big business. Very little is actually done with small business people as the major focus.

Tax rollbacks on the very wealthy are a good example. The Republicans claimed that rolling back the tax cuts for the very wealthy would negatively impact small business people, and therefore hurt job creation, the economy, mother hood and apple pie. The truth of the matter is that most small business people are able to arrange their financial affairs in such a way as to not show very high taxable incomes. Where they are running into real problems is with the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) . This is a tax scheme that was devised to keep the super rich from avoiding paying taxes at all. It has not been modified to keep up with the times, however. So now it is going to ensnare people it was never meant to cover. We can go a long way to getting small business people on our side by making AMT reform a priority.

Fair competition is another area that small business people are getting lied to by the Republicans. I am going to use Wal Mart as an example only here. Small business people don't like the idea of welfare or government subsidies. Because of their sense of community, most of them want to provide and many do, health and other benefits for their employees. What they don't realize is that companies that hire primarily part time employees and pay them no benefits and low wages are getting subsidized by the government. These part time employees get free health care from the government when they get sick. Many of them are on food stamps and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Even though they are working, many work 2 or more jobs, their incomes are still low enough to qualify for government assistance.

When you explain to a small business person that the big company he is competing with is getting these subsidies from the government, they tend to get very unhappy. Usually when they think about welfare, they only think about the Welfare Queens ripping off the government. They don't stop to think that their competition is benefiting from the welfare system by having the government pick up the spread between a living wage and what they are actually paying their employees. When you explain that to a small business person, the idea of a living wage begins to look a whole lot more reasonable to them.

The other argument that Republican use against raising the minimum wage or a living wage is that it will cost jobs and put small business people out of business. Many states have a higher minimum wage than the Federal Minimum Wage. In Florida, we passed a State Constitutional Amendment raising the minimum wage and indexing it for inflation. Florida is still leading the nation in job creation. Scratch that argument. Small business people understand economics. After they get that the government is subsidizing below living wage paying employers, they are susceptible to another argument. That is that if you can't afford to pay a living wage ( not get the government to subsidize you), economically you should not be in that business. A truly free market would force you out of business without the government subsidies. Small Business People really get that argument.

Mangle the Memes

You are not going to get through to Small business People unless you can get past the memes that they have bee indoctrinated on since birth. Use examples to show them that the Republican Party is not the party of rugged individualists, but is instead the party of corporate welfare.

Small Business People tend to be on the patriotic side. Be ready to show them that Dems are competent to keep us safe from terrorists and will otherwise protect our national security. After all, most people now get that Dumbya did not make us safer by invading Iraq.

Don't let them get away with calling us "tax and spend" Dems. Remind them that it was a Dem President who balanced the budget and left office with a surplus. Also, it is the Dems in Congress who are bringing back pay - go budgeting. That's something small business people really understand.

We have more in common with the Small business community than most people think. We have a lot more in common with them than the Republicans really do. The Gopers have just done a better job of convincing the small business community that they share their values. In fact, we share more values in practice than the Gopers do.

If you can remember to speak to small business people in terms of our shared values, you have a very good chance to get them away from the Dark Side. You will at least have made them think about it.

And that's a start.

How to Talk to the Main Stream Media - Part 2

Authors' Note: This is the fourth in a series of "How to Talk to..." diaries.

Last week in "How to Talk to the Main Street Media" we laid out some general parameters about the media as a whole. We then proceeded to apply them only to the daily print media. This week we are going to apply these general parameters to two extreme ends of the news media.

Periodicals and Television are polar opposites in terms of the length of the news cycle and the immediacy of impact.However, the one that is more important just might surprise you...

Defining the Overarching Strategy

Last week we revealed a slightly different goal than is usual for this series. We are not trying to persuade an individual of the rightness of our position on an issue, or the worthiness of a candidate. In talking to the MSM, our goal is to use them to help us achieve those objectives.

According to Zap2it.com the top rated TV show on broadcast television drew in 23 million viewers last week. 60Minutes, the top rated TV news magazine attracted 15.8 million viewers. These are still very sizable portions of the American populace.On cable, top rated (non sports) shows and movies draw over 6 million viewers. Still nothing to sneeze at. Queen of syndicated talk shows, Oprah Winfrey, draws over 8 million viewers per day. With those kinds of audiences, television is not going away any time soon either.

The draw of television is its immediacy of impact. The proverbial gathering around the water cooler discussions of last night's TV shows do in fact occur. High impact TV events are reported on in the print media and on the internet. Television reports on print media happenings. It's all a very symbiotic relationship. Still, the key to television is its immediacy of impact.

On the other side of the coin are print periodicals. These include everything from obscure quarterly technical journals to weekly alternative magazines. They are about as far removed from immediacy of impact as you can imagine. That does not mean they do not have a very important role to play in molding public opinion. In fact, one could argue that print periodicals are both the most important media for influencing public opinion, and the easiest to influence. A perfect opportunity to influence change, if you have a mind to do so.

Define the Terminology

In college, lo so many years ago, I took a course on identifying change and tracking emerging trends. I just spent a fruitless hour searching for useful links on the subject without any luck. So, here's what is still floating around in my old and graying brain cells. If you want to spot emerging trends and changes, there is a method to do it. If you have a long term view about influencing change, you can use the change identification methods to actually influence that change.

So, what does all this have to do with print periodicals, you ask? Here's what. One of the first places you see new ideas discussed is in trade and academic journals and technical publications. You can get the ball rolling about changes you would like to see happen by suggesting a topic, or writing an article for one of these publications; or seeking out and building relationships with the editors of these publications. The next places that change is talked about is in the back pages of general circulation periodicals, or in alternative magazines. Then they will show up as featured articles in general circulation periodicals. Finally, they will make their way into the newspapers and television news reports. By then, the change has arrived. And you may have started it by a purposeful conversation with the editor of a trade or academic journal.That is why I believe that print periodicals are both the easiest to influence and the most important ways to introduce change into society, or in political thought, or whatever it is you want to influence. However, this requires patience and persistence.

On the other end of the spectrum is television news. If you want to get something out in the Main Stream Media right now, the place to go is television. Local television news is also much easier to influence than you might think possible. Most of the same methodology that applies to daily print media also applies to television. There are some important differences to consider.

Remember that TV is both an audio and a visual medium. If you are planning an event that you want to have covered by the local TV news, don't forget to think about the visuals. Visuals are a powerful tool to reinforce the message of your event. Just think about those hokey backdrops the Gopers use for their events. Even if you have the sound off, the backdrop tells you what their message of the day is.

Go to your local TV stations web sites. They all provide you with contact information to get word of your events to them. Get them in your address book and tag them press or something else so you can readily get at your list of press contacts.

TV news generally runs on a 24 hour cycle. Local news casts usually have their editorial / scheduling meetings in the mornings for the next 24 hour cycle. So, if you are having an event today, you should have had your press release to the TV station yesterday at the latest.

TV stations like email more and more as the preferred method of receiving press releases. It makes it that much easier for the gatekeeper at the TV station to distribute your press release to the right people.

Like daily print, nothing works better than developing a personal relationship with the reporters and producers at the station. TV people are even easier to spot at events than print media types. They actually appreciate folks who can help them with their story. If you develop a good relationship with a TV reporter, and you get them to care about an issue you are supporting, they can be your ally in those editorial meetings. They will actually fight to get your issue on their air.

It is all about relationships. Nowhere is this more true than dealing with periodicals. This is actually the area that is the easiest to influence, if you are patient and persistent. You must also be aware of the deadlines that apply to this sector of the media. The major difference here is that these deadlines come up much earlier for weekly and monthly or even quarterly publications. Most of these publications will provide contact information, and perhaps even submission deadlines. Plan accordingly. Study these periodicals and get a feel for what types of stories appeal particularly to them. Use this to your advantage by providing them story ideas or events that fit the bill for them.

The most intriguing aspect of periodicals to me is that you can actually plant seeds of change here and watch them grow. Of course, like any other thing that grows, it needs care and feeding. I can kill anything live that grows, but I have been able to use my ink stained thumb (no green thumb here) to plant seeds of change and I can actually see the physical results. That's a pretty cool feeling!

Mangling the Memes

The same themes apply here as with the print media. Avoid the "spin" and "talking points" traps. Be ready to defend your "spin" or "talking points", and be wiling to concede their weak points. Credibility is a bankable asset. Being known as only a spinner or a talking points spouter causes considerable withdrawals from the credibility bank account. Your influence with the media is directly proportional to the credibility in your account. Don't just parrot what the official line of your candidate or your cause. Be creative.

One of the most useful things you can provide to the MSM is background and context. This is particularly important in this age of budget constraints at the MSM. In the bad old days, MSM types developed some level of expertise in the subject matter they covered. They either came in with that background, or they stayed on that beat long enough to gain an understanding of the subject matter. These days, almost everyone is a generalist, particularly at newspapers and TV stations. They probably don't know jack about the subject matter. If you can become their trusted "expert" for background information, you will become incredibly more effective in getting your message out through the MSM.

Relationship building with MSM types can not be over emphasized. Remember, these are mostly just folks trying to do their jobs. Like any other group of individuals, some do it well, others not so well. The other major thing to remember is to work with the MSM types on the deadline pressures they are under. Get your news releases to them in a timely manner. Do your relationship building when they are not bumping up against their deadlines. Get them to think of you as an asset to them, not as an insufferable pain in the ass.

Go out there and make the story better.

How to Talk to Fear Mongers

Authors Note: This is planned to be the first of a series of "How To Talk To" diaries.

A lot has been written lately about Newt Gingrich. He has been making a lot of news with his speech in New Hampshire where he suggested that in order to be free, we would have to give up some of our freedom. But KO raised an interesting question the other night. He was asking whether what Newt was really doing was getting ready to recycle the fear card. The fear card didn't really work for the Gopers this cycle. That's because it was overwhelmed by the fiasco that is Iraq and the corruption of Congressional Gopers.

That doesn't mean that the fear card is dead. It isn't. Whoever the Goper nominee is, he will attempt to play the fear card yet again. If we are going to get our guy or gal into the White House in 2008, we are going to have to learn how to trump the fear card.

Defining the Overarching Strategy

In talking to fear mongers, our goal is to show that our party and our nominees are better suited and have better ideas to deal with the challenges posed by the current state of affairs vis a vis terrorism. Our strategy will be shaped by this goal and the basic value of Community. It is incumbent upon us to provide security for our Community, to protect it from those who would do us harm, and thus harm our Community.

The perception on the part of Community members that this security is being provided enhances the well being of the community. Conversely, the perception that this security is deficient detracts from the well being of the community. To restate our goal, it is our goal is for the Community to perceive that the level of security that our party can provide is an acceptable level.


The ideas we will use to develop the message used to achieve our goal must be delivered in a way that the community can relate to. The community must receive our message in a way that resonates with them on a personal level. This can best by done by research and real world examples. First, some research.

Democracy Corps conducted a poll October 29 through November 1, 2006 that fairly predicted that the Democrats were going to win control of the House of Representatives in a big way. The poll was conducted in the 50 most competitive Republican held districts. This poll confirmed the work of DKos poll analyst supreme Steve Singiser in his diary HOUSE ANALYSIS--Why Red Districts May Matter More published on September 16, 2006. The most telling quote from this superb analysis is this:

In this case, I am starting to wonder if the numbers are trying to tell us something. The blue-purple districts matter, because they are on our natural terrain, and we have some awesome candidates there.

I think it would be prudent for the DCCC and the DNC, however, to give some serious love to the "flyover states."

Ironically, if an electoral tsunami develops in this election year, it might come from regions that are nowhere near an ocean
.

Who would have believed that the Democrats would pick up three seats in Indiana?

That's what first Steve Singiser and then Democracy Corps told us through research. Some key points relative to this discussion from the Democracy Corps poll:

• Terrorism and National Security was the third highest ranked issue, coming in behind only the War in Iraq and the Economy and Jobs . Defeating the fear card still matters.

• Democrats trailed Republicans by 18 points on the question of who would do a better job on National Security.

This underscores the importance of being able to deal with the fear card. It is a very important issue, and the perception is that Republicans can do a better job at it then Democrats. The Iraq War was the number one issue this election cycle. I think we all hope and pray that it will not be the number one issue in the 2008 election cycle. However, with Iraq and Republican corruption out of the way, we must close the National Security gap on the Republicans. We must learn how to trump the fear card.

Define the Terminology

Defining the terminology in a war of wards is synonymous with choosing the battlefield. The first key tactic in trumping the fear card is refusing to play on the fear mongers’ battlefield. Their battlefield is littered with such discredited terms as “stay the course” and “cut and run”. Fear mongers are stubborn folks though, and they think the voters have short memories. Even if they abandon these terms temporarily, they will come back to them and their ideological cousins. Do not get trapped on the fear mongers’ battlefield. Our discussion on defeating the fear mongers’ is going to take place on the terms that we define.

The first term to define is the very conflict itself. We are always going to talk about the Conflict with Islamic Extremists. We should also refer to this as the Long Term Conflict with Islamic Extremists.

We are going to define the Main Battlefront in the Long Term Conflict with Islamic Extremists as the Battle of Ideas. Ultimately, this conflict will not be won on any physical battlefield, but on the metaphysical battlefield. This is going to be accomplished by working with the Moderate Elements in the Islamic World. In order to win the Conflict with Islamic Extremists, and the Battle of Ideas, our plans have to be Tough and Smart.

We have already seen the Bush Administrations’ ideas on how to fight this conflict. The voters have already, at least in their own minds, named this Tough and Stupid, and rejected that idea. The war in Iraq is a perfect example of this administrations’ pursuit of the Tough and Stupid battle plan. Cutting and Running in Afghanistan is another example of actually Not so Tough and Stupid.

The Bushies have also abandoned the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine speaks to the use of Overwhelming Force. What good is having the Finest Military in the World if we do not use our Conventional Superiority with Overwhelming Force? A perfect example of the Powell Doctrine is the 1991 Gulf War. There we took our time, built up our forces, engaged in a prolonged bombing campaign to debilitate the enemy, and proceeded to invade with Overwhelming Force and won the war in 96 hours. A perfect example of the abandonment of the Powell Doctrine in favor of the Tough and Stupid battle plan is the current Fiasco in Iraq.

In summary, the base of our terminology in describing the Long Term Conflict with Islamic Extremists is talking about the Conflict with Islamic Extremists as the Battle of Ideas. Our battle plan is to be Tough and Smart, and we will work with the Moderate Elements in the Islamic World. We are going to avoid the Failed Policy of Tough and Stupid that the Bushies have followed. We are not going to Cut and Run as the Bush Administration did in Afghanistan, leaving Osama bin Laden as Osama Been Forgotten.

Mangle the Memes

The final weapon in our inventory for Trumping the Fear Card is to Mangle the Memes. What this refers to is our Counter Attack Strategy. This Counter Attack Strategy is for us to reject every meme that the Bushies and their ideological successors lob at us.

We have already alluded to one such meme above, Cut and Run. Never let Cut and Run go unchallenged. Here are some counter attack lines to mangle this meme:

• The only cutting and running we have seen is this administrations cutting and running in Afghanistan.

• When the Bush Administration Cut and Ran in Afghanistan, they let Osama bin laden become Osama Been Forgotten.

• If the Bush Administration hadn’t Cut and Run in Afghanistan, they would not still be quoting Osama bin Laden. (This is actually a two-fer because it combines mangling Cut and Run with Bushies quoting Osama bin Laden.

Newt Gingrich was warming up the fear card with talk about Losing a City. Never let Losing a City go unchallenged. Here are some counter attack lines to mangle this meme:

• We have already lost a city under this Administration, its’ name is New Orleans.

• Condoleeza Rice talked about the Mushroom Cloud over a city to scare us into Iraq. I’m a lot more concerned about the Mushrooms they are eating.

• While the Bush administration had us Bogged Down in Iraq, the Real Mushroom Cloud Danger has been developing unhindered in Iran and North Korea.

The basic rule in mangling the meme is to never let a meme go unchallenged. The other side can only get away with this if you let them. So don’t let them.

In order to Trump the Fear Card, we determined which of our values applied to this problem. We defined our overarching strategy. We chose the battlefield by defining the terminology. And we counter attacked by mangling the memes.

Happy Hunting.