Lets Landslide: Memo to Democratic Senate and House Candidates and Staff (pt. 1)

In recent weeks I have received quite a number of private calls and emails from people involved with a number of House and Senate campaigns asking for advice based on ideas posted here and elsewhere.

I have tried to help every one of them, pro bono I would emphasize, because this is a moment of historic destiny for America that will leave us with a continuation of one party goverment and all the disasters that will follow, or a renewed American idealism and spirit with a rejuvenated progressive movement while the Republicans snarl against each other about how they blew it.

This note will lay out specific initiatives involving ideas, message, taking control of the debate, and winning. A subsequent note will propose ways that Air America, the Party, individual candidates and the blogosphere can fight and win in unison on matters such as mobilizing the vote and instant reaction to Republican vote manipulations and their inevitable October Surprise. Though I emphasize again we must have OUR October surprise.

I come from the JFK school of winning. When I was a very young Senate aide, my bosses were JFK guys and would take me periodically to the old Mayflower Hotel where the great Kenny O'Donnell would hold court and talk about JFK and Bobby. They knew how to win, they played to win, and they won because they always took the initiative, they always took the offensive, they believed in striking first, and striking hard, and taking the fight to the other guy. Qualities modern Democrats have largely lost and must regain.

And when I worked for the House Democratic Leadership we won, we controlled the House, we did battle every day with New Gingrich and the same tactics Rove uses today, with Dick Cheney who was then our counterpart in the House Republican Leadership. We did not answer them, we counter-attacked by attacking them. I cannot tell you, how many countless conversations I had with Democratic candidates and Congressmen and women from tough districts about how to win.

Lets make 2006 a Tsunami. Lets make 2006 a landslide. And understand the math: we can win seats but remain in the minority; and we can win a slight majority of popular votes but emerge with a landslide gain of seats. Do not believe what the compensated consultants or pundits say on television. They have almost nothing to do with the real America. On the Sunday before the 1994 Republican landslide the Hotline and Sunday Washington Post polled 21 alleged experts. 17 of them, many of the same people in the punditry class today, said the Democrats would retain control of the House. 48 hours before a Republican landslide they had it totally backwards. When you see them on television today, ignore them.

Here are some ways to take the right issues to the voters to win:

1. Iraq: to repeat my earlier post, candidates can propose that if Democrats win control of Congress our first act will be to name leaders on national security such as Senator Sam Nunn and General Zinni to meet with the Joint Chiefs and Iraq commanders and develop a rational exit strategy.

Understand the politics of Iraq. The voters who will decide this election have lost confidence and trust in Bush, but do not yet have strong confidence in Democrats. Every candidate now has some position, which is fine, but understand what the voter sees today, is that 465 Democrats running for the House and Senate have 465 plans, with a national leadership without a clear plan. This is hard to communicate, and easy to demonize.

The way to handle this, is talk sense to the voters, state that if Democrats win Congress the obvious truth is that we will have a Democratic Congress and a Republican President and obviously they will sit down. Our simple message is this. If Democrats win some of the most credible and respected national security figures in the Nation will be working with us, to get out of the mess Bush created. Vote for us, that is what voters get. Vote for Republicans, Bush has promised two more years of the same and the only people making these decisions are named Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove.

The American people are tired of polities so obsessed with Iraq, that the President cuts and runs at Tora Bora, and lets Bin Laden escape, and runs his policies so poorly that he ends up recruiting more terrorists, making the world more dangerous, and playing into the hands of Iran.

Trust me, folks, we win that debate.

2. This is the big sleeper issue: Bush is bringing back the draft through involuntary military service, the most recent example being the involuntary recall of Marines. He is doing this because he has mismanaged the war, the reserves and our force structure.

We take this issue to the voters: listen to the news of what Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rove want to do, if they continue having total power. They seem to want war everywhere, and having started one war in Iraq that we did not have to fight, if they have total power for two more years, and push for more unwise wars, they will have to find more troops and that means more involuntary service which is in fact a draft.

Go right in the face of Republican opponents and make them answer this: for every war position you advocate, where do you get the troops? Are you supporting more involuntary service and if there is another significant war would you support resumption of the draft? And to voters: the best way to prevent this, is bring back the check and balance of a Democratic Congress that will do its job, which the Republican Congress has not done.

3. Lets have a pro-American energy policy made in public not anti-American energy policy made in secret in Dick Cheney's office. Understand the Cheney link, make this link at every opportunity, Cheney is less favorably viewed than the bird flu. We must be honest about it, and if we are, media will report it.

Draw brutally hard and true comparisons: it is wrong for executives of major oil companies to have severance and compensation packages where they make hundreds of millions of dollars in personal profit while our troops risk their lives for inadequate pay. It is wrong for major oil companies to have the largest profits in the history of capitalism while some Americans have to choose between buying food or paying gouge prices at the pump, while veterans find military hospitals closed, and oil speculators use our money to buy mansions in the Hamptons and weekend trips to ski in the Swiss Alps.

Challenge Republicans to give back campaign campaign donations from oil companies who are more loyal to despotic Middle Eastern business partners than Americans on Main Street. Call for an energy policy that is truly powerful and pro-American and creates new energy sources and attack an oil-dominated Republican Congress that favors an oil- dominated energy policy, and then recycles their bloated profits into Republican campaigns so they can buy the next Congress, too.

Use aggressive, patriotic terms. Take the fight to them. Ask questions they must answer. Do the attacks the way Republicans do, except we tell the truth. Lump the Republican President, the Republican Congress, major oil companies and Dick Cheney into one big bed and say its time to throw the bed out of the house.

4. Go to the voters and say on the first day of the Democratic Congress we will pass a bill to help homeless veterans of America.

Understand this will win support and acclaim from liberal groups who want to help the homeless, military families who care about these issues passionately, and religious groups of every denomination. There are ways to communicate this position that cost nothing, that reach huge audiences of Middle America that determine not only who wins, but create the possibility of a giant landslide Tsunami election. This is a compelling moral issue and a powerful political issue.

5. And yes talk about challenging all of our people to work against homelessness and hunger throughout the land. Quote the Sermon on the Mount, and Hillel, and JFK saying that God's work must truly be our own. Do public announcements where the candidate stands next to a Minister, a Priest and a Rabbi in whatever combination is appropriate for the constituency. People care about these issues, we have a decent and noble people in America, and liberal politicians and their consultants sell them short as well as Republicans.

Bill Clinton won a majority of the evangelical Christian vote, and we should go after every vote of every person of faith and be just as aggressive taking our case to them, as we are taking our case for a pro-America energy policy and rational military policiies. Just for emphasis I repeat: at every opportunity have a public announcement with the candidate standing next to leaders of different faiths, and communicate this to the local church or temple newsletter as well as local radio and television.

6. Speak in terms of the American Family, to be united, rather than rabid partisanship of the far right Republican Congress. Use this phrase at every opportunity, use language and ideas that average Americans relate to.

Our American Family supports wounded troops whether or not we support the war; our family helps the poorest among us because as JFK said God's work must truly be our own; the American Family wants to give our children a better world, not a world of endless war leaving them with shameful debt.

7. Look for opportunities to say nice things about some Republicans when possible, such as John McCain and Colin Powell. And yes, yes, I will get some comments about how evil they are, but I know how to win elections in tough states and districts. I certainly have my differences with McCain and Powell, but they are better than Bush and Cheney, and they have stratospheric favorable ratings, and this dramatizes the kind of America we get with a Democratic Congress of unity and respect versus a Republican one party government of intolerance, disunity, extremism and failure.

8. Go right in Republican face on homeland security and level these charges directly: Where were you, Republican Congress, for six years doing nothing on immigration and creates the crises we have today? Where were you, Republican Congress, refusing to protect our ports from the day after 9-11 until today? With a Democratic Congress we will have more American protection for American security, while one party Republican Congress has nothing better than Dubai port deals.

Every Democratic candidate and campaign manager should get the book by Clark Kent Ervin, former Inspector General of Homeland Security, a Republican and a good guy I know. Page after page, issue after issue, lets tell the country who will really make America safer.

Where were you, Republican Congress, trying to cut money for airport screening? Where were you, Republican Congress, shortchanging local police and firefighters when you should have been supporting them since 9-11? Where were you, Republican Congress, when instead of supporting nuclear non-proliferation you were asleep at the switch while Russian nuclear materials remain unsecured today, Pakistani proliferators work secretly with terrorists, and and the FBI still cant get a computer system that works?

Vote for us, American people, and we will take this fight to them every hour, every day, from the first day of the new Democratic Congress.

I end Part I with this. The American people have rejected Bushism and the Republican Congress. The only tactic left for them, is to demean us and slander us, to make us look like we are alien, radical creatures who will endanger America. They are so low they cannot win by elevating themselves; all they can do, is try to drive us down to levels below theirs.

The American people love underdogs and fighterss; lets take the fight to them.

The American people are tired of anger politics, fear politics,and partisan vindictivenesss; lets stand for an American family with pro-American policies, pro-American unity, and the American spirit of courage and bravery. The American people do not want to substitute our anger and vindictiveness for theirs; they want to end this era of Bushism and Republicanism and all it represents, and bring back the good old USA with a can-do spirit, a country that comes together, and a democracy that is respected throughout the world.

With overwhelming disapproval of the status quo, the President, the Congress and the media the American people are giving us their message loud and clear. If we listen carefully to what they are saying, we will win an epic victory and send a message that will rocket through America and rocket around the world.