In watching coverage on the news of Karl Rove becoming Deputy Chief of staff, there were comments about his qualifications. One pundit said: "Policy is Politics", which is why the job is seen as a 'good fit' for Rove.
But for me this also highlights a weakness: politics is being used more and more by the Republicans to sell policy - bad policy. That provides opportunity.
Is it possible to put the spotlight on the politics (or perhaps ignore it and take it out of the policy debate alltogether) and have a substantive debate on the issues, a debate we can win? I see the Social Security debate as a miscalculation by Rove and Company. The more effort they have to use to sell something, the more politics is used (calling Dem's obstructionist naysayers, etc), but perhaps this really provides more opportunity to find fault with the policy and offer alternatives. If we stay in the political fray, we lose.
They have a history of selling things that turned out not to be true: WMD, Iraq reconstruciton costs and how they will be paid, the number of jobs to be created with and without the tax cuts, the Medicare prescription drug costs, the deficit, etc.
I think we need to avoid the political tit-for-tat and concentrate more effort on the actual policies. The more time we spend on politics, the less clear the issues become and the less effective our message becomes.
Many have done excellent work in highlighting the facts of the social security proposals. This tactic should be used elsewhere. Above all, we need to stay above the fray. That's how to beat Rove.
And identifying flaws is not being an obstrucitonist. It is being responsible an accountable by ensuring policies solve problems, not just shift them into the future. Bad policies are caused by flawed ideas and inaccurate facts that are used to achieve political gains, not really solve problems.