Note to DKers: I am probably going to take heat for my minority view on this site, but bear with me and read the diary fairly with an open mind, and historical perspective.
Often on this site, and throughout the Democratic party I've heard time and time again, "that candidate took one 'Right Out of the Republican Playbook.' "
To that I say "Who gives a shit!?"
Wait .... on 2nd though ... I say, "Good! That's what we need."
That's right, I'm one of the few here, or in the Democratic party it seems, that I perfect OK with candidates going negative and even getting personal.
Why you may ask?
Do I love the mudsling? Of course not.
Do I love the heat and fire of a campaign? Well ... honestly, yes, but thats not the only reason I like going negative.
Do I have a desire to give Repubs talking points to use in 6 months? Absolutely not, they already have them ... we're not handing them anything.
Do I want to make sure that our candidate can withstand tough,
hard hitting, sometimes irrelevant attacks over and over and over 24/7?
YES and that's why we need to be honest with ourselves and stop being so god damn upset when there are attacks.
Listen, the republicans are going to be coming from behind in this election. Therefore you know they are going to throw everything AND the kitchen sink at our nominee. GWB push-pulled against John McCain in 2000. The question asked?
Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.
If Rove and the Repubs can turn the adopted daughter (who is an absolute sweetheart and is staying low and under the radar because she believes she is a major reason her father isn't President right now) of one of the most respected Republicans in the country (at least amongst Indies and Repubs) what will Rove and his cronies call for the Repub nominee to do to us?
Just think if Gephart or Clark had attacked John Kerry on his War Vote more harshly before we got to Iowa?
What if Dean had a rapid response program to go after every miss step of Kerry and Edwards for months prior to the caucuses?
What if Lieberman had called Kerry a Ted Kennedy loving, liberal, baby killing, flip flopper?
What Edwards hac called Kerry's military accomplishments into question prior to getting the nomination?
You're probably thinking ... no democrat would stoop that low ... that not how we run elections. Well, its also a factor in why we loose elections!
I'll tell you what if ... If Kerry would have become battle tested, all the garbage they threw at him would have been either OLD NEWS or at least Kerry would have shown he was capable of responding and fighting back to the attacks.
And if he hadn't been able to take them, perhaps we, as a party, would have woken up to the fact that Kerry wasn't going to be able to stand the heat in the general, and found someone else to defeat GWB.
Imagine if in the process of deciding our candidate based on issues, and record, and vision, and policy ... also could give us a peak into the not so distant future and know show us how they were going to react to, not just a page in the Republican playbook, ....
... but a coordinated attack of weak side blitz, after safety blitz, after inside blitz, all out of the whole goddamn Republican playbook.
I don't want to get to the point next November when it's 4th and long and our QB just folded to the pressure and took a sack.
I want a candidate who had proven that they can take hit after hit, and still stand tall in the pocket to find the open man down feild.
Football references aside, we need to make sure that our nominee can be put through the ringer and not back down. I'm not going to give any advice on who the candidate is, that's up to you.
For the record I have no issues with either attacks, or responses, like Obama's, which collect and publicize said ridiculous attacks, for those are a back door attack in themselves (look at how crazy/mean/awful/desperate X is).
What I do have an issue with, is folks like us, and in the campaigns, who think that a strong or even personal attack is somehow dangerous to our party.
On the contrary. Testing our candidates will make our nominee more prepared to battle the Repub attacks, or at least, make them old news come next November.
I want my nominee battle tested, and battle tough.
But please, if you take anything from this, take with you a thought of what if we had test John Kerry better in '04. Would we still be in Iraq? Would we have had Katrina? Would with Supreme Court be as dangerous as it is? Would our constitution be relevant?
I don't want to be sitting here in a year wondering only, What If? Or thinking, how Could we not see that coming?