Massive ad Buy From GOP Vets Group
Sat Jul 05, 2008 at 04:43:30 PM PDT
Politico reports there is more life left in this race. This is a comparatively bright opening salvo. These Iraq surge success and stay the course ads need a response for the MSM that will report these initial 527 policy ads considerably more than they will later - any bright ideas? Or should we just concede the surge is a success we should continue to build on for 100 soon peaceful years in Iraq? Bush had less of a case for success in Iraq in 2004 I suspect so don't take this argument for granted please. Should we really contest the Iraq surge success most or ask where we go from here?
In case you feel the current at most 6 point lead for Obama is one we can count on for half a year remember there are downstream races that depend on winning every round we can on the top end of this ticket. Obama has huge coattails. But only if continues to win the fundamental arguments on policy.
Ads in the can for the GOP 527's are some of the grimmest imagery on crime. These future ads will be impossible to respond intelligibly to since they strike at irrational prejudice and use barely disguised racial appeals. If these policy debates fail then McCain backing 527's are ready to slime things up.
From Politico
Next week, Vets for Freedom — a 20,000-member, nonpartisan organization established by combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — plans to begin spending more than $1 million on a TV campaign that will include Ohio, Virginia and New Mexico.
The group plans to spend millions more and to add other states to the roster over the next four months.
The ad, the largest independent expenditure on a national-security theme in the general election so far, features a number of vets speaking about the success of the surge and the need to finish the job.
The buy is part of what the group is calling the "Four Months, For Victory" media and grass-roots campaign that focuses on a dozen key swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Here are excerpts of the advisory Vets for Freedom will be sending the media:
"WHO/WHAT: On July 9, Vets for Freedom will hold a press conference featuring over a dozen Iraq war veterans to launch a national "Four Months, For Victory" media and grass-roots campaign. The effort will culminate on Veterans Day (November 11) and is intended to inform the American public and key lawmakers about the phenomenal success that our troops have achieved as a result of the surge and the importance of ensuring victory in Iraq, Afghanistan and the overall Global war on Terrorism.
As for the flip flop meme the GOP continues to wax on about -- it is not working at this date. But if we fail to mention McCain's flip flops and simultaneously admit our Obama has sadly always been an embarrassing moderate on many social issues, not known to ever have advocated self immolation to support PETA for instance, then the charge might start to stick.
Do voters believe the two presumed presidential nominees are willing to stick to their principles regardless of the political consequences? Not exactly.
CNN
Sixty-one percent of voters polled said McCain has changed his mind for political reasons; 37 percent said he has not. Fifty-nine percent of those polled said Obama also shifts positions with the political winds; 38 percent said he does not.
That's a change from 2004, Holland said.
"One of the reasons President Bush won re-election in 2004 was that only one-third of voters believed he would change his policy positions because of changing political dynamics. Most voters, on the other hand, believed that John Kerry was a flip-flopper."
As the general election continues to heat up, charges of flip-flopping and political opportunism are becoming more regular on the campaign trail.
On Tuesday, while en route to Colombia, McCain argued, "I don't switch my position depending on what audience or what time it is in the electoral calendar.... I believe that [voters] will more and more see where Sen. Obama has switched his positions on fundamental issues. The one thing they want is trust and confidence in their leadership, and I think I will win in that area."
Campaigning Thursday in North Dakota, Obama replied by saying that McCain "is a person who opposed Bush's tax cuts before he was for them, who opposed drilling in the continental shelf before he was for [it]. [McCain] has reversed himself on a range of very substantive issues during the course of this campaign, and so I'd be happy to have a debate about consistency with John McCain."
According to Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst , the flip-flopping charge may not resonate as much with voters this year as it did in the past.
"So what if voters think both candidates are flip-floppers?" asked Schneider. "After eight years of George W. Bush, voters may welcome some pragmatism and flexibility in their leaders. Times change."
The real weak spot Obama has in voters minds is experience. Only 48% of respondents in the above CNN poll thought Obama experienced enough to be President. That has to continue moving up or we will probably have a nasty surprise in November - if not more than a tight race.
Be sure your apolitical and independent minded acquaintances know Obama had more national experience than Bill Clinton and more than Abraham Lincoln and more than Ronald Reagan when they became President. Be sure to remind them that he had more state government experience than two of those President's. And that he has not exactly been a back bencher. Obama's 800 laws sponsored and his herculean legislative feats in many occasions is an underappreciated fact.
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