For the sake of any brave lefty/liberal/progressive folks who are thinking of running for office, I'll ask questions they're likely to ponder in the hope of drawing wisdom from the DKos well. The first, below, is on responding to smear campaigns.
The smear campaign -- or Swifboating -- is now one of the main tools on the GOP campaign workbench. It's used not only to attach negative thoughts and feelings to a candidate, but also to control the agenda, keeping the public and the media distracted and the target candidate off message.
What's the best way to respond? What, if any, data is out there to support your recommended method of responding? We all have gut-level preferences for responding, but has anyone studied the issue to determine the most effective?
If the candidate ignores the smear and stays on message, he or she may be perceived as weak (as did John Kerry).
But if the candidate fights back, he or she is taken off message and can be lured into chasing around putting out GOP-lit fires.
What to do? How to minimize the risk of either option? Your thoughts?