debate in the run-up to the election? It's funny to me - I see all of us sitting inside our echo chamber, perhaps floating a check or two to a couple of favored candidates, but in essence, just being a bunch of wind-bags. Thank god we don't have to smell each other's breath.
Yeah, yeah... I know TPM flogged the Lott/Thurmond gaffe for all it was worth and found some success... but shit, are we any better off for it? Last I looked, Bush had an even more malleable prop heading the Senate.
So, in the spirit of never tearing at a scab without offering a band-aid, here is my proposal.
This election, at all levels, should be about trust. All democratic candidates should adopt that meme and, as one, flog their opponents with it. Who do you trust to do the right thing in Iraq - the people that lied to get us there so they could reward their Halliburton and Carlyle Group buddies, or the people that counseled reason and coalition building all along? Who do you trust - an administration that redacted 18 pages of information critical of the Saudi involvement in the 9/11 plots or the people that want that information made public so that we can better protect our tomorrows? Who do you trust - an administration that has been accused of leveraging family ties to the Saud family in order to manipulate gasoline prices over the summer as a way of influencing the coming election or the people that have counseled better mileage standards and increased energy efficiency as part of a larger effort to turn away from middle-east oil dependency? Who do you trust - those that have at every turn - from arsenic to mercury - attempted to increase the poisons in our children's environment in the name of corporate profits or those that have proposed realistic, attainable and safe stewardship standards? Who do you trust - those that inherited a huge budget surplus and turned it into an even bigger budget deficit or those that balanced the budget in the first place?
The list is endless. Who do you trust?
The branding on this campaign would be incredibly powerful. Who do YOU trust?
Imagine that repeated millions of times over the next 6-7 months. The imagery would be indelible.
Anyone got a better idea?
Alright - yeah - there is a caveat. To pull this off, we need to have a clearly articulated plan at the ready. I've already blogged about the left's incredibly inept response to the neo-con's plans of war, war and more war:
http://mike-stark.dailykos.com/story/2004/4/17/103149/046
I think those of us that want to present an alternative need to think this through. Yeah, our naked self-interest throughout the 20th century has created this problem, but unless we want to exponantiate our problems, we better find a viable alternative to the neo-con approach. And it is tough to argue with those that say "Hey man, after 9/11, the lesson should be that we can no longer ignore the mid-east. We have to cure - or excise - that cancer. And since we don't have a cure for it... well, excision it is." So what's the cure?
so we'll have to work on that too... let's get cracking.