The Democrats need to stop wallowing in being defensive and victims. Time to take charge of the national debate or if we do not we will just prove to the world what a hopeless bunch of losers the Democratic party is. We should expect a bounce for the Republican brand after their convention. However, many polls make this a close race and a recent Gallup poll puts McSame ahead by three points.
Time for a change..... in strategy.
As I see it, the Democrats can and must begin to emphasize three major themes:
- Americans are safer with a Democratic Administration,
- Democrats are much more fiscally responsible, and
- Family values and American values are better entrusted to the Democrats
A. American Security, at Home and Abroad
For the life of me, why is it that the Obama campaign never makes the case that we are MUCH less safe with Republicans? The worst attack on American soil came under a slothful Republican administration. When the attack began Bush, stayed in a chair reading a children's book for quite a while. Bush's monumental miscalculation lead us into the Iraq war. That has brought terrorists to Iraq. That war strengthened one of our most dangerous enemies: Iran. That war took us away from the vital war in Afganistan, and let Bin Laden and the Taliban regroup to recommence their war on the Afganistan population and to train mass killers to be released on the Western World, including American soil.
The idea that the surge worked is Orwellian double speak. What the heck does it mean? Within weeks of our invasion of Iraq--ignoring for a moment that Bush/Cheney misled us about the reasons for the war--we conquered the nation by any modern or ancient definition of the word. We destroyed their military. We controlled all the country's roads and resources. We had the military power--and I am NOT suggesting we should ever do this--to kill the Iraqi population if we wanted to. I always thought that meant you had won?
The problem is not that we did not achieve victory--we did. The problem is that the fools running our proud and great nation for some strange reason thought that if we attacked and occupied Iraq that the Iraqi people would love us and change. What idiocy is this? Is there any empirical reason to believe this?
What is the result of the Republican stupidity of taking us to war against a country that we already had defanged (e.g., we controlled the airspace)? Well we have spent too much of our treasure. Our economy is in trouble. We have decimated our once proud and mighty military. We have increased terrorism in the world. We were distracted from our main mission of destroying Bin Laden and his group.
The proof is in the pudding. The policies that Obama has been pushing for over a year--in the face of being called an anti-American-Cut-and-run fool--are now pretty much accepted as the way things are going to go in Iraq. Timetables? Yep, those are being agreed to. Getting our troops home? Yep, that too is being agreed to. More troops in Afganistan? Yep, the Republicans came over to the Democratic view once again.
B Democrats Fiscal Responsibility vs Republican Rapacious Borrow and Spend Economics
The budget was last balanced under the Clinton administration.
Republican administrations for decades have mouthed fiscal responsibility without meaning it like an excited sixteen year old boy tells his date he loves her. The fiscally and morally bankrupt tax policies which give a bigger and bigger piece of the American economy to the super rich weaken America and America's backbone--the middle class--grows ever smaller. There is plenty of data to prove that the American economy performs better under Democratic administrations. Why is it that we are failing to make this case?
At the moment all we hear are foolish platitudes from Obama about more jobs, more education, more money, more more more. The truth is that Americans are too smart to believe that the election will bring them more of everything. Americans know there is no free lunch. But, as Americans, we CAN AND WILL work to make our lives better. Only the Democrats offer a reasonable hope of achieving this.
C. Democrats: Traditional American Values
Obama has repeatedly referenced the scriptures concerning being our brother's keeper. This is fundamentally grounded in traditional Judeo-Christian values.
It is time to step up the Judeo-Christian linkage to Obama's message. Hard work. Sacrifice. Judeo-Christian values really are at the center of the Obama family story and the story he is telling to American. Yet, like a pair of shy teens at the prom Obama is afraid to embrace the essential Judeo-Christian nature of his values and the message of hope he brings to America.
Sure this may upset a few far lefties. But really where are they going to go? Are they going to vote for McSame? I do not think so. And this election will be won in the middle. In the middle of America are strong Judeo-Christian values.
Well those are my thoughts. Flame, agree, comment or ignore.