WWJWI?
What would Jesus wedge-issue?
Karl Rove's playbook for the 2006 election season is now public information, and therefore we know the answer to that question. Rove has never before had to spread his unique brand of irrational hatemongering, fearmongering, projection, foam, roviation and pustulation when his main man, President Dumbya, has been in such a hole (29%, his approval rating is. That's 3% less backwash than it was 2 weeks ago!)
What does a Bush, and a Bush surrogate, such as a Lee Atwater, a Roger Ailes, a Mary Matalin, or a Karl Rove do, when an election is upcoming and Republican popularity is so low?
Hurl as much slime as possible at opponents in the hope that some of it will stick. Each slime time consists of a slightly different menu of vileness, with choices designed to solidify the fundies and peel off Democratic votes. This year's menu: gay adoption, a flag-burning amendment, the Federal Marriage Amendment, a ban on human cloning, a bill on fetal pain, a bill banning gays from being foster parents, and so on.
For Rove, deciding where to serve up these yummy choices may prove to be something of a challenge. The Federal Marriage Amendment is easy - it is an amendment that will be put before the entire country. And because we all know about this amendment already, it having failed to get out of committee by a huge margin, its reintroduction into the Senate constitutes the hurling of the most slime in the (relatively) quickest time.
Some other wedgies, though, cry out for more bigetically strategic placement. In states where a particular race is exceptionally close in an "off" election year, Rove will (as he has done already) place the bigetic wedgie/encourage placement thereof on the state, rather than national, agenda - in the form of, say, a state constitutional amendment, or state referendum. Doing this allows voters of the state in question to feel more personally engaged with the issue. Gay adoption is one of the issues that is being placed on the ballot in several states where races are close. The idea is to draw out foamy fundies who would not otherwise vote, so that they can vote their bigotry on this issue (and in the process, vote for the Republican candidate). This strategery can be infinitely more successful than wedging the shit out of the gay adoption issue by making it the subject of federal legislation. One can imagine Republicans coming up with a bill that proposes the following: "the federal government need not recognize the adoption of any child by two homosexual parents, nor need any state other than the state in which the adoption was consummated." (We can call this bill the Defense of Adoption Act - why not, since, when we substitute the word "adoption" for "marriage," the wording of the bill is identical to the Defense of Marriage Act). Nationalizing a bill can have unintended consequences vis a vis the fate of a particular candidate. If, say, bigetic bill A is voted upon by both Houses in October, foamy candidate/incumbent B who votes for it will not be able to criticize Democratic challenger C for not having voted for it, if challenger C has never been a member of Congress before. The most foamy B can do is try to goad challenger C into saying the bill was a bad idea. This may draw out some fundies (after the appropriate bigetic commercials are placed on television saying challenger C opposed bill A, and the commercials have saturhated the state) who might not have otherwise voted, but it's easier to criticize someone on a voting record than on a hypothetical voting record. Also, the more foamy A attacks challenger C about national legislation, the more challenger C can use this to his advantage, by throwing foamy A's curve back at him, in effect stating, "You want to make this about national issues? Well, let's talk about George Bush..." So, the strategy has some risks.
Can the entire scheme work well enough to keep Republicans in power? Who knows? It didn't in 1992, when George Bush senior reached a 29% approval rating, and people voted their economic concerns. There are enough economic concerns in the miraculous jobless recovery we are experiencing (one which, apparently, is so buoyant that the Fed just raised interest rates yet again) so as to have these concerns ultimately win out over the wedgies Rove will throw at us, but, I think, more than utter passivity on the part of Democrats will be required to drive home the point that voting against your economic interests has always been the game of the likes of Bush and that most of his wedge issue agenda never gets enacted (it's not that people don't recognize this; they do - they hate the Democrats so much that they believe the Democrats are responsible for the failure of the enactment, even though the failures are either bipartisan or come about as a result of the wedgie in question being abandoned once it has served its purpose and the election is over).
Oh, and the grandest wedgie of all this time: a stylistic on - the false choice (don't forget, of course, all of the other logical nonsense we are subjected to by the Rove crowd, including the ad hominem attack, the circular argument, the flawed deductive and inductive reasoning, the incorrect assumptions, the red herrings, the improper analogies, the straw man argument, and so forth. All of these will get another set of stretch marks in the next six months): "either you support the terrorist surveillance program, or you support the terrorists." Of course, one can support a surveillance program, but also support the idea that it is done legally - this "third choice option" is considered "nuance" to Republicans - because it requires a grain of thinking, and because it is "unpatriotic" (the friend stabbing in the back device will be employed this season too), so Democrats must be able to drive home the point that it 1)is not nuanced; and 2)is patriotic. How can they do this? Perhaps by reframing the argument - by throwing the question back at the Refoamundies: "Why does the President believe that surveillance can only be conducted illegally?" "If you care about spreading freedom abroad, help to protect it here. We can do both, and protect ourselves, by conducting legal surveillance. Let the other side tell us why this won't work, and let them tell us what wonders their system has wrought."
If I were the Democrats, I'd drop the impeachment and censure talk until after the election (whether they win or not), and yes, would speak to the issues of faith, of homosexuality, and so on, but speak to them in a manner that points out the hypocrisy of Bush's so-called desire to spread democracy abroad. What message is he sending to the rest of the world - to a world where homosexuals are stoned - when he wants to treat them in a similar manner? Why does Iraq need him when it can stone these people itself? Why does it need a "democracy" pushed upon it by a religious extremist from abroad when it can have one pushed upon it by one from home? Oh, and for crying out loud, Democrats, engage the hateriots who say that if you breathe the wrong way on the Iraq issue, you don't "support the troops." Read them the riot act. Don't wait to get the go-ahead from the DLC as to how to do this. Ask them where theirpatriotism was when they agreed with Bush that billionaire's tax cuts were more important than body armor. Ask them where their patriotism was when they cut veterans' benefits.
It's time to go nuts. To defeat - the wingnuts.
Karl Rove's playbook for the 2006 election season is now public information, and therefore we know the answer to that question. Rove has never before had to spread his unique brand of irrational hatemongering, fearmongering, projection, foam, roviation and pustulation when his main man, President Dumbya, has been in such a hole (29%, his approval rating is. That's 3% less backwash than it was 2 weeks ago!)
What does a Bush, and a Bush surrogate, such as a Lee Atwater, a Roger Ailes, a Mary Matalin, or a Karl Rove do, when an election is upcoming and Republican popularity is so low?
Hurl as much slime as possible at opponents in the hope that some of it will stick. Each slime time consists of a slightly different menu of vileness, with choices designed to solidify the fundies and peel off Democratic votes. This year's menu: gay adoption, a flag-burning amendment, the Federal Marriage Amendment, a ban on human cloning, a bill on fetal pain, a bill banning gays from being foster parents, and so on.
For Rove, deciding where to serve up these yummy choices may prove to be something of a challenge. The Federal Marriage Amendment is easy - it is an amendment that will be put before the entire country. And because we all know about this amendment already, it having failed to get out of committee by a huge margin, its reintroduction into the Senate constitutes the hurling of the most slime in the (relatively) quickest time.
Some other wedgies, though, cry out for more bigetically strategic placement. In states where a particular race is exceptionally close in an "off" election year, Rove will (as he has done already) place the bigetic wedgie/encourage placement thereof on the state, rather than national, agenda - in the form of, say, a state constitutional amendment, or state referendum. Doing this allows voters of the state in question to feel more personally engaged with the issue. Gay adoption is one of the issues that is being placed on the ballot in several states where races are close. The idea is to draw out foamy fundies who would not otherwise vote, so that they can vote their bigotry on this issue (and in the process, vote for the Republican candidate). This strategery can be infinitely more successful than wedging the shit out of the gay adoption issue by making it the subject of federal legislation. One can imagine Republicans coming up with a bill that proposes the following: "the federal government need not recognize the adoption of any child by two homosexual parents, nor need any state other than the state in which the adoption was consummated." (We can call this bill the Defense of Adoption Act - why not, since, when we substitute the word "adoption" for "marriage," the wording of the bill is identical to the Defense of Marriage Act). Nationalizing a bill can have unintended consequences vis a vis the fate of a particular candidate. If, say, bigetic bill A is voted upon by both Houses in October, foamy candidate/incumbent B who votes for it will not be able to criticize Democratic challenger C for not having voted for it, if challenger C has never been a member of Congress before. The most foamy B can do is try to goad challenger C into saying the bill was a bad idea. This may draw out some fundies (after the appropriate bigetic commercials are placed on television saying challenger C opposed bill A, and the commercials have saturhated the state) who might not have otherwise voted, but it's easier to criticize someone on a voting record than on a hypothetical voting record. Also, the more foamy A attacks challenger C about national legislation, the more challenger C can use this to his advantage, by throwing foamy A's curve back at him, in effect stating, "You want to make this about national issues? Well, let's talk about George Bush..." So, the strategy has some risks.
Can the entire scheme work well enough to keep Republicans in power? Who knows? It didn't in 1992, when George Bush senior reached a 29% approval rating, and people voted their economic concerns. There are enough economic concerns in the miraculous jobless recovery we are experiencing (one which, apparently, is so buoyant that the Fed just raised interest rates yet again) so as to have these concerns ultimately win out over the wedgies Rove will throw at us, but, I think, more than utter passivity on the part of Democrats will be required to drive home the point that voting against your economic interests has always been the game of the likes of Bush and that most of his wedge issue agenda never gets enacted (it's not that people don't recognize this; they do - they hate the Democrats so much that they believe the Democrats are responsible for the failure of the enactment, even though the failures are either bipartisan or come about as a result of the wedgie in question being abandoned once it has served its purpose and the election is over).
Oh, and the grandest wedgie of all this time: a stylistic on - the false choice (don't forget, of course, all of the other logical nonsense we are subjected to by the Rove crowd, including the ad hominem attack, the circular argument, the flawed deductive and inductive reasoning, the incorrect assumptions, the red herrings, the improper analogies, the straw man argument, and so forth. All of these will get another set of stretch marks in the next six months): "either you support the terrorist surveillance program, or you support the terrorists." Of course, one can support a surveillance program, but also support the idea that it is done legally - this "third choice option" is considered "nuance" to Republicans - because it requires a grain of thinking, and because it is "unpatriotic" (the friend stabbing in the back device will be employed this season too), so Democrats must be able to drive home the point that it 1)is not nuanced; and 2)is patriotic. How can they do this? Perhaps by reframing the argument - by throwing the question back at the Refoamundies: "Why does the President believe that surveillance can only be conducted illegally?" "If you care about spreading freedom abroad, help to protect it here. We can do both, and protect ourselves, by conducting legal surveillance. Let the other side tell us why this won't work, and let them tell us what wonders their system has wrought."
If I were the Democrats, I'd drop the impeachment and censure talk until after the election (whether they win or not), and yes, would speak to the issues of faith, of homosexuality, and so on, but speak to them in a manner that points out the hypocrisy of Bush's so-called desire to spread democracy abroad. What message is he sending to the rest of the world - to a world where homosexuals are stoned - when he wants to treat them in a similar manner? Why does Iraq need him when it can stone these people itself? Why does it need a "democracy" pushed upon it by a religious extremist from abroad when it can have one pushed upon it by one from home? Oh, and for crying out loud, Democrats, engage the hateriots who say that if you breathe the wrong way on the Iraq issue, you don't "support the troops." Read them the riot act. Don't wait to get the go-ahead from the DLC as to how to do this. Ask them where theirpatriotism was when they agreed with Bush that billionaire's tax cuts were more important than body armor. Ask them where their patriotism was when they cut veterans' benefits.
It's time to go nuts. To defeat - the wingnuts.
posted by EnterCenter at 9:19 PM
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