I thought about titling this "How Republicans win Elections" but I decided my position paper was much more deserving of that title...this is just a short diary that leads to an open discussion on this topic;
I suspect, and fear, in November we will be scratching our heads, as we do every four years, wondering why despite the fact the country appears to agree with us on almost every issue, we still lost to John McCain. I hope that, for the first time, the Republicans won't be able to capitalized on ignorants and holes in our argument that left our candidate vulnerable to attack.
I sat down this afternoon with three of my oldest aunts; all Democrats, never voted for a Republican president in their lives. All hardcore Hillary supporters, but all have relunctantly admitted that they will vote for Obama in the Fall...at least as of this moment.
But after hearing them talk, I wonder what people who aren't beholden to the Democratic Party think? and I wonder how it will influence their votes.
WELFARE/SOCIAL SERVICES:
One of my aunts, the youngest one, tells a story of a man she works with, in his 50's, nice guy, who has 20 children with 6 different women. She explains that at least two of the women are raising her children on welfare in Section 8 housing in Brooklyn. After a short discussion, the table bemoaned how offensive it was that people were having babies and "we" were paying for it. After arguing unsuccesfully that these "welfare queens" are not a widespread occurance, they, together, came up with an idea; the government should force sterilization of many man and/or woman who is on welfare after one child.
The money quote from said aunt;
"The Democrats are supposed to be for the people, but instead they waste their time defending these welfare queens who take advantage of the system."
TAXES
Taxes are too high and we're not seeing results.
The money quote from middle aunt;
"If this is how our government is going to spend our tax dollars, then I want my money back"
IRAQ
Everybody at the table opposes the war, with the exception of two, they always have. Ten minutes of the discussion was spend screaming about how Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney should be brought in front of The Hague in chains on war crimes charges...However, it's getting out that presents the problem.
My oldest aunt, who lived through Vietnam, made a point to declare Iraq and much worse situation because, as she said (this will be the money quote in this segment);
"Vietnam we could leave and it becomes their problem. If we leave Iraq and the place descends into chaos it becomes everyone's problem; Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Europe, the US. We need to find a way to fix the mess we made without bankrupting our country and sending our kids out to slaughter."
My middle aunt pointed out that she was pleased Obama backed away from this "withdrawal immediately" meme, declaring that those who think immediate withdrawal is practical and good are "just as crazy as those who think we should stay there for 100 years"
The table came to the conclusions that the Democrats are better on the Iraq issue, so long as they "don't push for an immediate withdrawal"
THE ENVIRONMENT
After applauding Al Gore's environmental message and against blasting the Republicans for stealing the election in 2000, they discussed environmental change, and came to an interesting conclusion quoted by my dad's best friend;
"We need to do two things; We need to invest in alternative energy and we need to drill in Alaska to supply our short term needs."
I wonder how the blogsphere will respond if Obama endorses that idea.
NATIONAL SECURITY
This is the one topic that had me squirming the most. My oldest aunt went on a tirade about how offensive it is that we have to take extra care to not racially profile terrorists when "we know what they look like and who they are"
The ACLU took a beating in that discussion. The money quote;
"If it were Italians who were the terrorists, I'd understand if they did extra searching and pulled me aside because of my name"
Hmm.
The bright side is they had all seen the movie Rendition and were highly offended and angry at our government because of what was depicted in the film. The bad news is "Even John McCain opposes torture"
The most interesting fact of the discussion was how much these guys railed on the ACLU and MoveOn.org as "counterproductive."
I wonder if our biggest risk issues wise this year is what we believe is our greatest strengths. The nation agrees with us on the war, on the economy, on the environment, but can the Republicans capitalize on some of the holes here. Can they still win with erroneous, but striking headlines like;
"Democrats want to take your money and give it to people abusing welfare"
"Democrats want to let you die so they don't offend Arabs"
"Democrats want to pull out immediately and send Iraq into chaos and risk the world's stability"
"Demcorats care more about moose than they do about how much you're paying for gas"
Yes, I know it's stupid, but I'm thinking like a Karl Rove here. I think these are vulnerabilities in our arguments that can turn people who should vote for us away form us. If anyone is able to win over votes of "moderates" who are frightened of some things the Democrats stand for, John McCain is that person.