W is more dangerous now than ever. (Details below.) Monday, we're coasting downhill in a handbasket. Wednesday, we're racing to the bottom with no brakes. Two immediate priorities.
- Create "wind resistance" by any means possible, slowing our descent until we can fix the brakes.
- Plant message hooks in the minds of Bush voters, so they'll respond favorably to future news events and message elements.
Hook #1 --
"Buyer's Remorse". Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them what their own experience is going to tell them ... and suggest to them how they're going to react to it.
It might be Friday's BLS report ... or next month's Plame indictments ... or next year's outright collapse in Iraq. Whatever it is, remind them there's more where that came from. Each jagged chunk of Remorse is a conversation starter -- and that conversation starts between the ears of a Bush voter.
Hook #2 -- "Debatable Mandate". A win on bad evidence begets a questionable mandate. Those questions can take wind out of W's sails, and prime Bush voters to recognize the same deceits as "Buyer's Remorse".
From the
Parliamentary LibraryMandate was the term originally used to describe the legitimacy of individual members of parliament, validated by popular support, expressed during elections. ... [now] associated with the level of electoral support for a party's policies and its responsibility to implement these policies if elected. ...
Debates about mandates usually focus on the activities of the government. The link between a government and its mandate are clearly defined:
- A party publicises policies during an election campaign
- People vote for that party based on its policies
- Those votes provide the party with enough seats to win government
- The government has the mandate to introduce Bills to implement its policy program.
Tom Friedman said "You can't go to war on the wings of a lie" (though Bush proved you can, and you can even get newspaper columnists to applaud you for it).
Bush claims a mandate, as any decisive winner might. But suppose he won "on the wings of a lie" ... or series of lies, feints, concealments. Then it's not clear the mandate reflects the Will of the People. It's not clear at all. It's debatable. It's a Debatable Mandate.
Most of Bush's voters believe Iraq had WMD ... that 9/11 broke the economy, and he's fixing it ... that he will fix Social Security without raising taxes or cutting benefits ... that Kerry would raise their taxes and institute gay French-Canadian health care. Little of anything W said (or implied) on the stump was true. That's how he won. Does he have a legitimate mandate?
Whenever the subject comes up, call his mandate "debatable". Not "illegitimate" -- that makes people choose sides, and Bush voters will retreat to Bush's corner. We want them to chew on the question. "Debatable"? Oh. Well, what are the facts? So does he have a mandate? I dunno, you tell me.
Fifteen GOP senators are up for re-election in 2006. Almost all are potentially vulnerable. Not much leverage now ... but that changes when Bush becomes "the embattled President". When Bush falls -- as he must -- we want him to take a few senators along for the ride. In the meantime, we want them afflicted by nagging doubt.
Note, we can be negative now without penalty Kerry faced. It won't rub off, there's nothing left to lose, and we aren't pressed (as candidate Kerry was) to define the way out of whatever mess Bush served up.
So employ these message keys -- liberally -- and build on them as we develop better understanding of the landscape and available tactics and opportunities.
As promised above, here's why Bush is more dangerous now than ever.
- He has a filibuster-proof Senate majority (considering dauntable Dem's).
- He has a free hand in shaping SCOTUS and lesser courts.
- He has the CIA and Homeland Security apparatus under partisan control.
- He will soon have a private patronage army of Faith-Based program staffers.
- He has no more fear of voter backlash or Congressional investigation.
- He has K Street lobbies under his thumb.
- He has shed the stain of Florida 2000, and legitimized all manner of new shenanigans (official and unofficial).
- He has time to reshape campaign finance laws before 2006, and he's much better positioned to squeeze dollars out of donors.
There is a bear in the woods ... and it is full of shit. Let's get ours together.