Time for an all out Offensive

In the last few days I realized once again how overly optimistic I can get about the American voter. I actually hoped that most voters vote on issues, that they follow the campaign, and that they care about the specific plans the candidates are offering in improving their lives. Well, the Palin effect and McCain's bounce shows once again, as many of my friends (even on this blog) have noted, that many voters respond in a very superficial way. Despite Obama's outline of his specific policies during his acceptance speech, and the actual FACTS that are emerging about our economy (the abysmal unemployment rate, declining productivity, increasing rates of poverty), the so-called "independents" seem to be swinging McCain's way and are finding his sudden message of "change" (I wonder where he got that from) appealing. This can be explained by two factors. These voters (including many white women) are either completely and utterly uninformed or they hide behind Palin in justifying voting against an African-American candidate. There is no third explanation.

The fact that the issues and the actually state of our REALITY stands on the side of the Democrats and yet, the Republicans are rapidly gaining ground because Sarah Palin "makes us think like anyone can be President" really confirms my belief from 2004 that this democracy is in serious trouble. The fact that the Republicans at the convention treated the American people with such contempt--cynically adopting the change mantra, uttering blatant lies about the American people, denigrating the working class--and yet, they seem to have gained a considerable advantage tells me that many of our fellow voters are either completely uninformed, disinterested in what actually happens to this country, or simply stupid. Many of my Democrat friends have accused me of elitism for this observation, but I just don't know how you can explain this otherwise.

So, what are the Democrats to do? Obama has run a stellar campaign and has been on the message 100% of the time. He needs to keep doing what he has been doing so well: articulating in simplest terms possible how he will improve the lives of the American people. But at the same time, they have to release the so-called 527s. These independent organizations should serve as attack dogs who lower themselves to the level of superficiality that the Republicans are operating on (with a considerable success). They should flood the channels with TV Ads showing: 1) Sarah Palin's pastor saying that Israel deserves attacks because of God's judgment for not accepting Jesus; 2) the clip of Sarah Palin herself telling us that we are in Iraq on God's mission, and that the believers in her church should pray for the pipeline in Alaska that enriched her and her family; 3) emails need to be circulated outlining her record in Alaska while a small town mayor showing her to be an utterly incompetent mayor who drove the city's budget into a deficit, wasted millions of dollars, increased taxes, and tried to ban library books (all of these are true by the way).

Simultaneously, the Congressional Democrats have to go on a legislative offensive against the Republicans in Congress, the Bush administration, and McCain himself. How do they do this? By bringing to the floor of both the House and the Senate bills that are going to appeal to the American people (on health-care, energy independence, equal pay for women, etc), and forcing the Republicans to vote NO.

This is why for the life of me, I cannot figure out why the Congressional Democratic leadership walked away yesterday from the bill that would expand health-care for children. The Pelosi-Reid coalition has been a great disappointment in this regard. Their justification for walking away from the bill was that the Republicans would never support it and the President would veto it. Exactly!!! They should have brought that bill on the floor of both the House and the Senate, and Obama should have come to the Senate floor and invite John McCain to stand in front of the American people and vote NO on a bill that would expand health-care coverage for millions of American children. Another bill would be equal pay for women, the bill that McCain voted AGAINST in the past. Forcing the MCcain-Palin ticket to vote NO on one of the most important issues for the women of this country would destroy any possibility of Palin appealing to a single woman let alone Hillary supporters.

Then the 527s and local Democratic party headquarters should run ads against all those who voted against those bills, equating them with George Bush, and on the national level, the Obama campaign should run an ad showing McCain voting NO. And this should be inserted into the loop of Cable news on a daily basis.

But it strikes me that the Democrats have never been very good at using the little power leverage they do have on the Hill. The Congress can be pretty ineffective in forcing policy, but it is an extremely effective public relations machine that can cower the Republicans into submission or an outright defeat. Come on, Democrats! Show some frigging backbone here! And let's not have a repeat of 2004!