Rapid Response Playbook: 15 Counterpunches to the "90% Bush/Pork Barrel Palin" Convention

We've just seen the end of a four-day orgy of lies and gratuitous, harsh, baseless attacks. There's nothing like watching mean white people get all hepped up on Bloody Marys and Ovaltine and then attack anybody who doesn't look or act like them. (Anybody miss Rep. Westmoreland's "uppity" comment about Sen. and Mrs. Obama?)

Sure, I was moved by John McCain's recounting of his prisoner days. And the conclusion of his political speech was great political theater. But that's all it was: theater. Time to fight back, hard, and not by staying on the defensive.

Here are fifteen clear, forceful statements Democrats and independents can use to to counterattack. And the themes that should never be far from the conscious mind are: Electing McCain's too risky. He's compromised himself. Palin's an extremist. And, same old same old.
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1. He's Big Government John now. As a Senator, John McCain has voted nearly all of the time with the president who has created the largest government and run up the biggest deficits in American history. That's not change you can believe in, my friends. He's 90% Bush, 9% Rove, and 1%That's-For-Me-to-Know-and-You-to-Find-Out.

2. She's Pork Barrel Palin. She's always been an expert in draining earmark money off the hardworking taxpayer. She submitted $197 million in earmarks - more per person than any other state -- in her current budget. And the citizens of her little town got fifty times as much federal pork as the average American! How'd she do it? She hired a DC lobbyist. That's right: A K Street shark to fill her Main Street coffers - and advance her career in the bargain.

If you don't like the way Washington does business, you don't like her. What's the difference between Sarah Palin and an old-style GOP crony? Lipstick.

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(Research and graph by The Center for American Progress, which is more measured on this topic than we are.)

3. McCain is actually more extreme right-wing about Iraq than Bush/Cheney: The Bush/Cheney administration has come around and accepted the Obama vision of a schedule for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Better late than never, I suppose. Yet McCain's last definitive statement on the topic was that we could be there for fifty or one hundred years.

4. McCain thought the Surge would fail! The press hasn't seen fit to mention this, but McCain said that he was "very doubtful that we have enough troops" there to get the job done. So if you believe "the Surge" worked, McCain's military judgment was wrong. And it also means he was more extreme about the war than Bush and Cheney. (See #3, above).

5. McCain's economy will be more of the same. If you like the economy we've got, vote McCain. Every time a Republican runs for office he pretends he'll do things differently. Bush said the same things in 2000. Look at McCain's voting record. Wonder what McCainonomics would look like? In the words of the old ad, you're soaking in it right now.

6. McCain has a massive new tax on the middle class, while Obama will cut taxes for 90% of Americans.McCain wants to make health benefits taxable for working Americans who are lucky enough to have health insurance. The tax credit he offers won't make up the difference after he's done making you buy insurance on your own (which is the other part of his plan.) And he'll help the rich get more breaks while leaving the rest of us where we are.

Obama will cut middle-class taxes.

7. McCain doesn't support the troops -- he fought against better benefits for returning vets -- and, perhaps as a result, the troops don't support him.

8. He may be too old. Don't be shy about saying it. It isn't ageism, and it isn't unkind, because it's not the years that concern us. Rather, it's how he comes across, his apparent lack of understanding of basic details (like Sunnis and Shi'ites), and his already reduced weekly work schedule.

If you want to elect a vital, dynamic, and clear-headed 72-year old Republican -- hey, Dennis Hopper seems pretty fit.

9. Who is this guy and what he has done with John McCain? The maverick's gone. He's sold out to the same group of "advisors" and special interests that have run the Republican Party for years. He'll do exactly what they want him to -- which is exactly what we've been getting.

10. What glass ceiling? The Democrats nominated a woman for VP a quarter-century ago! If they're only that far behind real change, I guess that's progress -- for the Republicans, anyway. During the civil rights struggle they were about a century behind. But stop pretending they've done something new -- or that they've done it for anything but cynical, poll-tested reasons.

11. Don't believe McCain's sweet talk about the environment. His very first executive decision was to pick an oil-company-friendly politician who doesn't believe in climate change to be his VP. Barry Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." But Palin's wacky climate theories are "extremism in the defense of Exxon."

The planet may not survive four more years of that kind of government.

12. Women must not lose control of their bodies. If your 14-year-old daughter was raped and became pregnant, Palin and McCain would force her to have the baby -- no matter what your family thought was best. Whose "family values" are those?

13. That Sarah Palin sure is an extremist. She doesn't like moderates, and apparently they don't like her. Did you know she spoke a few months ago to a radical separatist group whose founder said he hated the American flag and American institutions? That her husband was a longtime member? And that the party's founder died in an illegal deal gone bad -- to buy plastic explosives?

14. Experience? Did you know that Sarah Palin has more executive experience than John McCain? True, by the GOP's definition. But did you know that Barack Obama provided services to more than 90,000 people as a community organizer? That's more than 10 times the size of Palin's little town.

Obama's community organizing work was done for a faith-based initiative. Maybe he should've hired a lobbyist instead.

Obama's state senate district was more than 14 times bigger than Palin's town. And did you know Obama manages a budget in the hundreds of millions and hundreds (or thousands) of employees as head of the most successful political campaign in recent memory? That's effective executive experience.

15. Exploiting the dead and wounded of 9/11 with this video? Shame on them. It's like they'd crawl over graves just to win an election. Come to think of it, isn't that what they're doing?

At long last, sirs -- have you no sense of decency?

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I've always liked John McCain. But he seems to have fallen in with a bad crowd -- and he's letting them call all the shots. As the guy who shares 90% of McCain's political DNA once said, "Fool me twice, you don't get fooled again."

Actually, this would make the third time we've been fooled.

RJ Eskow blogs at:

A Night Light
The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog
Future-While-U-Wait
RJ Eskow at the Huffington Post

Comments

[TheKat]

Oh somebody do something. Today, September 8 the polls show the Republican ticket ahead!

How can this be?

[research]

land line lies for the war profiteering MSM?

[pegbo]

Please go to the MSM home pages and start spreading the word about this story to the masses. Hopefully you can get your comments posted. The only stories they post about Obama/Biden have a negative tone. And of course all the MCSAME/pitbull stories are positive. I don't want the media to decide this election. Please OB supporters, talk to your friends and neighbors and whoever you see. If we allow the Mcsames to win, we will be the laughing stock of the free world.

[research]

What, 4 mega corporations own nearly all stations, all the big ones?

They pay the piper.

I think we need a community organizer.

[JustDanish]

A famous quotation by a man who will be known in US history forever, not for the best he did, but for the mess we are in today:

"They had their chance. They have not led. We will. And now they come asking for another chance, another shot."

"Our answer?"

"Not this time."

"Not this year."

"This is not a time for third chances it is a time for new beginnings."

Gov. George W. Bush Acceptance Speech at First Union Center
Philadelphia, PA, August 3, 2000

Hmmm¦was he thinking 2008?

[katherinebrooks]

#16 "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?" Yes Governor, and I hope that any President of the United States would believe as much. This is America, and real, red blooded patriotism, is doing the right thing, no matter how hard it is. And ma'am it's hard to suppress the desire to hurt these people for what they have done, and would do once again. But we are better than that, and the whole world used to look up to us for that. Knowing that makes me a better patriot than you could ever dream of being.

[Traynor]

I think we need to put Jon Stewart in charge of Obama's political ads. The side by side comparisons of the flips and lies are too compelling to ignore. Anybody remember McCain talking about 13 yr old Chelsea Clinton being "ugly"? Would love to see it contrasted to Obama's comment about families being "off-limits" when asked to respond to Bristol's situation. Someone should be able to dig it up.

[dokbob]

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because Janet Reno is her father".
- John McCain, 1998

Charming.

[Nooneyouknow]

Sure, but will the Dems actually use any of these ideas? More to the point, will they take the fight to McCain and Palin or will they continue the wimpy ways that have cost us elections, and so much else, in the past?

[gigi09]

I am angry, and I just posted a blog that probally won't be approved, thanks anyway huff for letting me vent! On the serious note...this issue of race is scary. As a babyboomer, I don't know what I will do if the republicans get into office. When I look at the polls, I am amazed of how close they are, for I did not know that in 2008...we had so many racists among us! There are white babyboomers in the same shape as I am...one or two paychecks from becoming homeless, jobs shutting down, no healthcare, etc. We don't even get a discount on GAS or FOOD because we are middleclass to poor! What I hate is the evilness/demonic spirit that came from hearts and the mouths of those (ALL OF THEM) that spoke including the PIT BULL in lipstick at the cov. Will someone let her know she should be very careful for there are 18 million cracks in HER GLASS HOUSE! These people called themselves christians,and say Obama is Muslim, well the way that I see it right now I am more afraid of the rightwingednuts so-called christians than I am of terrorists...and they are like legions and there are many! By the way wearing buttons claiming the "Pit Bull w/lipstick" is HOT... is sexist!, oh ye hypocrites!

[gigi09]

Palin is the "Wicked Witch of the West" I have always seen this election is all about racism. After watching the orgy (I like that) for the past week it is apparent that the republicans are evil racist, and will take this country down deeper rather than to vote for the candidates better suited for the job. We are in a race war ya'll. It is EVIL (repugs) vs. GOOD (dems). To all of you RACISTs that are on this blog, especially you so call rightwingednuts that claim to be religious...GOD is watching you! Remember "Jesus was a "Community Organizer" and Pontus Pilate "was a governor." This woman has a very shady pass which all of the "good white people tend to overlook, cause she looks like them. If you think that the Natural Disasters have been bad...just let the white racist religious folks vote again based on racial ignorance than for the good of the country. America is on its' way to hell in a handbasket, that will be carried by the PIT BULL in lipstick. What a way to go white folks! PS...I did not say that Obama was Jesus, before you racist nuts start blogging, BUT HE IS CHRIST-LIKE, which is what a real Christian is! You racist hyopcrites, may God himself have mercy on your rotten souls.

[nedustbunny]

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney?

Lipstick

[dmacgregor]

So many terrific and truthful talking points I hope will find their way into Obama ads but I find this one especially noteworthy because most analysts agree that the age of several Supreme Court judges makes it likely the next President may be appointing as many as two new members.
"8. He may be too old. Don't be shy about saying it. It isn't ageism, and it isn't unkind, because it's not the years that concern us. Rather, it's how he comes across, his apparent lack of understanding of basic details (like Sunnis and Shi'ites), and his already reduced weekly work schedule."

[mdahlberg]

You mentioned McCain's claim of Obama's tax plans, which as we know consist of tax cuts for the middle class.
To me it becomes clear that the only change McCain has in mind is the face in the Whitehouse. As to the Republican lies, he will continue that practice to the end of the days.
As to his tax plans, he will continue the Republican tradition of running the deficit into the ground even further so that he can fund the tax cuts for corporations, including big oil who holds the records in profit.
I just read an advance copy of Anonymous' BAYES' THEOREM, a book that will be on the market at Amazon in ten days - give or take - and was impressed by a graph that shows a year-by-year comparison of Republican v Democrats deficit spending. I hate to say it, but Bill Clinton was the ONLY one who got us out of the red.

[jcd8822]

I loved all of them so much that I copied and pasted them into Word. Thanks to dokbob, I added : #16 Maverick McCain First, Country Second. Senator McCain sold out the American people by picking a Vice Presidential candidate who is supremely unqualified, and whom he had met only once, so he could throw her to the Christians in an attempt to get himself elected.

This will be emailed to all of my friends, regardless of political party. . It will be especially fitting as a reply to the GOP garbage I get from others I know. The fun and the campaign has started.

[tonimm]

Wow. Did anyone else notice that not only did they sensationalize things they skipped over a big incident that happened under "Reagan's" watch!!! When the marine barracks were bombed in Lebanon and his reaction was to pull everyone out.

Then of course including that might run counter to the party line that Republicans are sure to keep everyone safe no matter what.

I do feel sorry for the marines and other peacekeepers (French too) that lost their lives while trying to bring an end to civil war. What I don't appreciate is the editing of history for political benefit!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing

[americarocks]

Nice. You might want to add one more "McCain and Palin (and the republican base) are elitists." They look down on those of us who choose not to hunt or join the military and those of us who choose to go to Ivy League schools and exercise our rights to assembly and free speech as lesser Americans. So, really it's "25% of the country first"?

[gazissax]

Hell, they look down on those who ~do~ join the military because they don't provide veterans' benefits! And it is more like 5% of the country first.

[doghunter25id]

#16. Even thought the McBush PORK-BARREL Palin campaign wants you to believe they are the one's who will bring change to Washington, they are not. McBush's campaign has always been run by lobbyists. His campaign director Steven Schmidt is a Karl Rove clone, PORK-BARREL Palin refuses to speak to the media, ala DEFERRMENT Dick Cheney, and finally, PORK-BARREL Palin's acceptance speech was wqritten by one DESERTER George W. Bush's speech writers. How can they be agents of change when the current administration is running their campaign?

[swkidder]

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and an old-style GOP crony? Lipstick.

Great line ... and now I think I'm going to take the weekend off from reading about Joan of Alaska ....