Hillary, The Terror Issue & The GOP (Part 2)

arubyan

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Sunday August 26, 2007 · 6:17 AM PDT

2007/08/26 · 06:17

[This is a follow-up to my earlier diary, Hillary Is Right About The Terror Issue & GOP.]

So many commenters have responded to what I wrote with essentially the same message:

"The perception that the GOP is better at security is not born out by the facts."

But Senator Clinton didn't say it was...nor did she say it wasn't. Go back and read what she said:

[another incident] will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world...

Seems a pretty straightforward observation to me. And, after all we've seen from the Republican noise machine, how do you refute it?

How do you ignore even the remotest possibility that, post-attack, Bush would actually cancel the next election? I think he'd do it in a heartbeat -- he's even got the Executive Order to back it up.

If you think that can't happen here, I'd suggest you think again about what happened to habeas corpus, the Geneva Conventions, the US attorneys, Valerie Plame, Article I of the US Constitution, and most of the Bill of Rights.

So, for a moment, suppose he does do it -- what are you going to do in response? Blog about it? Blast-fax Senator Leahy's office to urge him to issue subpoenas and fight Bush in court? Good luck with that.

I'd say that scenario definitely ends with "an advantage for the Republicans." Wouldn't you?

Luckily, we have a couple of things going for us:

No attack, yet. And by that I include anything involving Iran.

After all the disappointments of the past 8 months, voters are still receptive to the Democrats.

But to make this work for us, we have acknowledge that a winning campaign is about more than facts. Just ask President Gore.

This campaign will be about the perception of toughness, judgment, vision, and pragmatism. Or more to the point:

Which candidate is perceived as being tough and which one is perceived as a dangerous bully?

Which candidate is perceived as having sound judgment and which is perceived as being delusional?
Which candidate is perceived as having vision and which is perceived as being messianic?
Which candidate is perceived as being pragmatic and which is perceived as simply lining his pockets?

That's how I see it and I could be wrong.

But I doubt it.

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