I distinctly remember during the run-up to the 2004 Presidental election a flurry of Pro-Bush/Anti-Kerry commercials, complete with slow motion frames and dramatic movie-trailer voicing, paid for by the Committee to do this or that. The most damning one in my mind was the one showing a film of the Kerry speech where he said, rather sheepishly, "I actually did vote for the [bill or amendment] before I voted against it."
Clinton tried to diffuse Kerry's contradictory vote while stumping for him at a speech, calling it a protest vote, voting your principle when you've vote won't make a difference to the outcome anyway. But nonetheless, Kerry made it worse, it was on tape, and the 527's used it for all it was worth.
Now I ask you, Why, oh Why, can't the Liberal/Progressive/Democratic movement do the same with the plethora of nonsense the Bush Administration and Republican Congress has spewed forth? Here's a hint: watch the Daily Show and take notes. It's not difficult. Hell, Dick Cheney alone could break MoveOn's budget with all the times he's opened his mouth.
Sure, I could spend an hour (day, week, month) googling all the goodies as an example, but I won't. You know them, you've heard them, you've internalized them. My favorites are Saddam=Al-Qaeda, the war will take six weeks, and the war will pay for itself. But there are so, so many more, especially when you start covering Congress. Throw in all the scandels (Coingate, Abramoff, etc.) and I find myself asking myself: How can we NOT win?
It's not because we blow it. It's because the RNC plays by different rules. But the Republicans have built up six years of soundbites, and thanks to their removing all Democrats from power, they've no one to blame and they've nowhere to run. If there is not some Liberal/Progressive/Democratic 527 out there somewhere, making attack ads showing Bush studdering, Cheney lying, Rumsfeld pontificating, Frist diagnosing, and so on, I am going to metaphorically if not personally start burying my foot in the asses of the old scared D.C. Beltway insiders.
The Republicans' own words, deeds and policies can be their downfall. Let's take a play from the 2004 RNC handbook and use everything they've said against them, on every channel, over and over. We've already won 2006. The only way we can mess it up, is to fail to inform the voters.