"Boogieman", a new documentary detailing Lee Atwater's legacy which is the Republican Playbook. Our opportunity? A conversion play to maximize our gains.
But first, my reasons for this diary. Many of the comments I'm reading at various diaries continue to belabor the lies and smears of the M/P campaign. While this is critically necessary, we also need to be vitally aware of a deeper truth; that for a significant demographic
the perception is the reality
What I quote is Atwater's mantra and the philosophy guiding the so-called Republican Playbook.
Because of the economic crisis, the war, the price of gas, heating oil, food, medications, health care, the climate crisis, because GWB & Gang have cried 'Wolf' too many times, because we tire of 'politics as usual', because of all of this and more, we've just experienced a solid gut-punch to our comfort level. Once you invade the comfort zone, folks stand up, start agitating, get vocal, get concerned, get active.
Nevertheless, we, the liberal/thoughtful community have a golden opportunity to seize this moment and engage in some enlightened self-interest. We could actually convert some, indeed many, of those who oppose us. It's certainly in our best interests to do so.
So, how do we reach this demographic? Call me a dreamer but what's wrong with enlightened self-interest? It gets us there and we all benefit. If we think this is a good idea, how do we do it? Well, a good place to start would be Stefan Forbes' doc entitled "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story", released this week in swing/battleground states. You can see Forbes interviewed at GRITtv:
In this Forbes makes the case that we Dems "don't get it" and we do need to get it. There is simply too much at stake. Forbes says,
The thing is, a guy like Atwater, everyone underestimates him. He's coming from the south. Oh, he can't beat these guys from Yale and Harvard. Atwater crushed them all. He outfoxed them. ... And it wasn't just dirty tricks. He wanted people to see it as dirty tricks. ... What Atwater also understood was the power of fear, of cultural symbols like the flag, like the bible. He really got that stuff. He also understood the power of mockery in American elections. And he took this playbook all the way from South Carolina, where he won these early races, to the height of power in America.
Ms. Flanders asks Forbes to "unpack" the phrase 'the perception is the reality'.
It's an unbelievable admission. Tucker Eskew, who was a good buddy of Lee's, he ran GW's war room in 2000. They won in Florida. He did the global communications for the war in Iraq. These guys took Atwater's dictum, perception is reality. He even taught Rove that. Rove took that into the White House and used it as a basis to govern on. And we've all seen what happened to our country. Basically the idea that the truth really doesn't matter. And it's amazing that the Democrats have not realized this. ... They've not realized that a guy like Atwater taught his party how to push the issues off the front page and make it all about emotions. ... And really anything that was hurting the party, patriotism could cure it all. He took the Iran-Contra scandal where Reagen had sold arms to terrorists and lied about it on national tv, he made it not even matter, by wrapping them in the flag. ...
Remember Ollie North proudly displaying all those medals?
Forbes goes on to discuss how McCain continues to play by the book, even down to his pick of Palin, how Atwater got the media to 'spin' the news, how most
Republicans have no remorse at all
how
they believe politics as a war, almost anything is permissible
how
torture is not patriotic, [but] wrap it in the flag and they sell it to America.
He warns that as long as the Democratic Party doesn't study the playbook it will continue to beat them. He illustrates how Atwater taught the rich-guy Republicans to sell themselves as the working guy.
McCain with nine houses, fifteen cars, rich kid, third-generation millionaires is running as the man of the people. You see him at Nascar. You see him at the biker rallies. You don't see Obama there. Obama could have those voters. Again, they give that up to the Republican party.
He iterates that with these guys
the truth doesn't matter
But, it's a two-way street and if you actually have truth on your side as a candidate, you can win.
Forbes thinks that Obama needs to see Boogieman. I agree. We all need to see it and play accordingly. Not, let me be absolutely clear, dirty-tricks-as-strategy, but rather, learn to connect to the 'heartland' viscerally, emotionally, and win not only those votes but those hearts and minds which will help energize our great undertaking of change and new direction.
So. Finally. What do you think? As I wrote earlier, there is simply too much at stake to leave anyone out.
FYVP/brain candy:
GRITtv with Laura Flanders' "The Debate: Town Hall or Beer Hall". Sarah Ludwig gives us a good example of the playbook in action. Plus, isn't it just a pleasure to watch women engage in intelligent discourse?
McCain is all about de-regulation. And that's really at the core of why we're in the midst of this crisis. John McCain and other conservatives are increasingly looking at regulation as the cause of the crisis. They have the audacity to suggest that fair-lending laws like the Community Re-investment Act and laws and policies to promote home ownership among low and moderate income communities actually caused the crisis. [Ms. Ludwig's emphasis]
And it's a way for them rhetorically to then jump and say, 'Look. Regulation should not be the response.' And there's absolutely no foundation to what they're saying if you really know what these laws are about. They're about equity and fairness and so forth. So, when you hear Sarah Palin or John McCain talk about how, 'We need to regulate Wall Street', the same time they're saying, 'Get government off our back'. So I think you really need to pierce through that and understand that they don't see a role for government to regulate. And that's exactly what we need going forward, is a new regulatory structure for financial markets.
Oh yes, you may purchase Boogieman here