1) been there, done that

2) we're as concerned about illegal immigration as any American, but seriously folks if 160k of the best fighting forces ever, and 300 billion dollars to equip, are doing ther damndest to catch a small but determined bunch of insurgents, how do repubs pretend they support a fence and 6 thousand national guardsmen (and how many billions??) to seal a 1000 mile border with Mexico??? We need a smart and really effective strategy, and the right policy.

3) the Iraqi security forces under the great command of the great new government and the vast majority of the great determined people *are ready to do the job themselves, and if needed a small force of special ops (and a lot less money)to assist, than 130k - or will it be 160k, our Defense Secretary can't seem to make up his mind (or our deficits) waits to hear from our great generals who by now, frankly, are a little scared for their jobs etc. etc.

Wouldn't ya rather have a real politics where you can debate fairly and honestly in Congress without dirty tricks, demagoguery, phony blah, taking billions money from sleazy lobbyists etc. etc...

There's a new challenge for the GOP looming--the bill appears coming due for fiscal irresponsibility.

Check the markets lately? The slide is in its second week.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Strong positions  wedgies

Talk about IRAQ - the happier you'll be

That's skinny from the Democracy Corps. 

DCORPS: Dem Challengers Must Nationalize Election

Democracy Corps has an important new study directed to Democratic congressional candidates challenging GOP incumbents. The survey is available here, and the analysis by Stan Greenberg and James Carville can be read here.

Carville and Greenberg say their survey numbers indicate that Democrats must “nationalize” the election to recapture the House or the Senate.

Disillusionment with Bush has grown so strong that our tests show that a Democrat who runs against Bush and the Republicans performs better than one who runs only against the Republican incumbent.

They stress the importance of Democratic challengers stating clear, strong positions in confronting GOP “wedge” issues, such as immigration, national security and Iraq, while advocating equally lucid policy alternatives regarding energy, American jobs, drug prices and congressional pay raises. The DCorps survey also shows that proposals to make college tuition tax deductible and to inspect 100 percent of containers coming into the U.S. also inspire broad support. They urge Democratic challengers to reassure voters that they oppose “precipitous withdrawal” from Iraq (to avoid GOP “cut and run” accusations), and articulate instead a more credible option, such as “phased redeployment over the next 12 months.”

Greenberg and Carville urge challengers to make a strong effort to engage and turn out African American and Latino voters, and especially unmarried women who tend to support Democratic congressional candidates by a large margin (29 percent in the survey), but who also have an unusually low turnout rate. There are many other interesting recommendations in the DCorps study, backed up by solid opinion research.

Posted by EDM staff at 04:54 PM | link

The memo is excellent.  The Democracy Corps, bete noir of the left blogosphere, has seen the light.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Lugar appeared with Biden on the NewsHour last night to discuss the stunt.  The discussion followed a report in which the correspondent, in answer to a question from Lehrer on the Iraqi reaction basically said that this was a downer for PM Maliki; the Iraqis hated Bush and the US almost to a man, and that Baghdad was a horror of anarchy.

 Illustrating then power of the I word and echoing the DCorp's recommendation, "listen" to Lugar on Stunt II, The Turkey Has Landed:

JIM LEHRER: And now, how the president's hours in Iraq and beyond look to the Republican chairman and the ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and Joe Biden of Delaware.

Senator Lugar, how do you see the value of the president's trip today?

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), Indiana: It focused the attention of the Iraqi people and the American people, and in the most personal way, on our support for the new government, and clearly questions could be raised by the president and by the cabinet people.I suspect that it also was a boost in morale for our Armed Forces in Iraq. Clearly, they're cheering the president. It was resounding. They were pleased to see him. The issues, obviously, go well beyond the boost of today's appearance, but it was dramatic, surprised, and probably very successful.

JIM LEHRER: Successful and positive, do you think, with a positive effect?

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR: Yes. I think it was positive. I heard your correspondents indicate that the president is not popular and Americans may not be particularly popular in Baghdad. That, I suspect, is always going to be a matter of speculation as to where we stand on those fronts.But, in any event, it must have been impressive, I think to most around the world that the president went to Baghdad and was in the Green Zone today, physically visiting with the new president, and reassuring him that we have confidence.

 

Perhaps the Democrats should both ignore the issues the Republicans want to be the battle grounds and leave for 2008 the meta-issues that Bush's presidency raises.

At this moment Home prices are leveling off or heading downward. Mortgage rates are rising. Thus home affordability and the ability to use ones home as a piggybank are both at risk. Other interest rates are also on the rise.

Gasoline prices, perhaps the single most important political price continue to remain high. According to CNBC people are already making choices between gasoline and other activities.

The stock market, markets all over the world have been hit very hard. This has cost pension funds, retirement accounts millions of dollars. On top of home price declines it hard to image Americans feeling very secure in their economic welbeing.

With the budget deficit so large and the tax cuts continuing this leaves only the Fed to fight inflation. If the Fed does what it often does, raise interest rates to the point of driving the economy into recession it is hard to see what Republicans wil have for an answer.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Is it comments like this one she's talking about? If so, she's right.

Your three As aren't quite as catchy as "Acid, Abortion, and Amnesty", but they'll do for a start.

My three might be "Action, Attack, Aggression", but that's a personal matter.

That's easy - we should just present our plans in broad terms. There's lots of good ideas laying around - energy independence, national health insurance, a new industrial policy, tax reform, etc.

I will admit that Iraq is tougher. I'm leaning to the "declare victory and go home" approach.

I tend to agree. As someone from the lower middle-class I'm quite concerned about how much say the corporations have in legislative manners and the way pols bend over for them(both parties).

If the Democrats want to win back working and middle-class voters to their side they ought to start taking up issues relevant to them. Things like free trade, off-shoring and out-sourcing, stopping companies from importing workers(H1-B and L1 visa holders) that drive down wages for native born workers, affordable health care for folks who work, etc. .

They do need to address the war and getting our troops home. Peter Beinart has it right though, democrats have to address the need to defend our nation and to protect national sovreignty.

This is the Democrats achilles heel. It killed Kerry in '04 and probably will hurt the Dems bad this Nov. Whether it is Iraq or selling off large chunks of our national infrastructure to foreign interests. Or even securing our borders and having a intelligent immigration policy. The Democrats are either hostile, indifferent or offer no solution worth mentioning.

In closing the Dems need to do better if they want to convince folks to vote for them and put them back into the majority. Otherwise it'll be Busby vs. Bilbray across the country.

This is the Democrats achilles heel. It killed Kerry in '04 and probably will hurt the Dems bad this Nov.

What killed Kerry was his unwillingness to fight back against the swift boaters. It's not the positions on issues as much as the perception of whether they'll let Republicans walk all over them (and, therefore, terrorists).

Otherwise it'll be Busby vs. Bilbray across the country.

Running Busby vs. Billray across the country would be a WONDERFUL thing.

A longshot Dem building our brand name and taking the fight to the GOPs in heavily GOP districts? We need more of that, not less.

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At this moment Home prices are leveling off or heading downward. Mortgage rates are rising. Thus home affordability and the ability to use ones home as a piggybank are both at risk. Other interest rates are also on the rise.

Yes. And foreclosures are on the rise as well. Seems like the economy is in the pitts, whether it is mortgages, gasoline or stocks...that pretty much covers all demographics.

ThinkProgress has the goods on those three points:

EXCLUSIVE: Majority Leader Boehner’s Confidential Strategy Memo For Thursday’s Iraq Debate
On Thursday, the House of Representatives will hold a debate on the Iraq war. Media reports say Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) “hopes to match the serious, dignified tone of deliberation that preceded the Gulf war, in 1991.”

ThinkProgress has obtained a “Confidential Messaging Memo” from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation. Here’s a quick summary:

1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as “imperative.”

2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush’s policies in Iraq as “sheepish,” “weak,” and “prone to waver endlessly.”

3. Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush’s policies and hoping terrorist threats will “fade away on their own.”

You can read the confidential memo for yourself HERE.

http://www.thinkprogress.org/confidential-boehner-memo

And, Congress gives itself a raise. Via Huffpo:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

House Lawmakers Accept $3,300 Pay Hike

By ANDREW TAYLOR
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 13, 2006; 7:33 PM

WASHINGTON -- Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.

Since it is in the interest of the comfortably deregulated news business to frame our political discourse favorably toward the party of privatization and deregulation, perhaps the best way for Democrats to take advantage of the situation is confrontation.  Nothing drives ratings better than conflict.  Of course, the hard part is sustaining the counterattack long enough to crack the conservative frame all the way until November. 

As long as elections are indeed "more like boxing than chess," we will do well to understand that the rope-a-dope game won't work within the metaphor.

Your link is screwed up. I looked at the url--it combines two urls--and the first is simply the "Reader Blogs" page of TPMCafe--where it takes the reader of your comment, hence cscs' thinking you were talking about him--his blog entry was probably at the top of that page when he clicked on your link.

I think maybe you meant to link to this Kos post which is the second half of your combined url?

I agree with the gist of your comment, BTW. (Was going to rate it a 4 but had second thoughts because of the messed-up link.)

I'd like to add that your mention of thinking of effect on readers is a crucial one to me. I truly am puzzled by blog denizens who react angrily to anyone mentioning they see ugly or juvenile triumphalism, i.e. "power tripping," in the blogosphere.

It simply doesn't make sense, if you are trying to have political effect or reform media or whatever, to argue with someone about what they see. What they see is what they see. If you want to have an effect as a blogger, or "net activist," you will think about what all of your readers see, especially what turns them off. For example, if more than a few find you arrogant, and you don't think you are and aren't trying to be, the problem is with your writing and presentation, not with those readers. In fact, it's a "kill the messenger" attitude when someone complains about what they see on blogs that proves the point of triumphalism and immaturity, Also a "protect the club" or "circle the wagons" attitude is like a defacto admission to many that a group can't take a challenge, is weak, needs protection.

To perhaps put it more simply, it's like this: someone says something like "I can't stand a lot of the blogosphere, it's so immature and goofy." It doesn't make sense for blog triumphalists to argue "no it's not!" You are not going to change that person's interpretation by arguing or calling for them to "prove it." If there are significant number of people thinking that, and you want to capture a bigger audience, the only way to do that is to change your ways to make it appeal to those folks. If you don't want to, all you will get is: a group of like minds, a clique. In the political world, a clique can end up being a highly successful PAC, it can also end up being a clueless echo chamber that slowly loses reality-based awareness of how the rest of the world sees them.

This is quite different, of course, with the post you point to by Kos, if that is what you are doing. I am sure that in the case of Kos that he knows exactly what effect he wants to have on readers when he writes something like that. It is meant to get some people angry and some people to act, to influence political action. It might be about a power trip, but it is not ignorant of politics...he's moved beyond blog triumphalism.

As artappraiser notes below, I got this link wrong, twice.

My apologies! I hope this makes what I'm saying more clear.

Don

The gay marriage debate is one which is being truly promoted, and lobbied for, by a relatively small section of conservatives. What's more, we saw last week that the more traditional GOP Congress has very little interest in passing any such measure. As has been the case each and every time President Bush has mentioned the gay marriage ban, it is an election year and in election years parties tend to pander. This is no different than the Democrats promising more funding for schools or equal treatment for minorities. Once the election is over this banter simply disappears for another two years. You know this.

I can see the GOP riling the base with the two of the three arguments - gay marriage and "soft on terror", "cut and run" on Iraq, but I don't agree that immigration will be the third prong.  I can't see the GOP sucessfully nationalizing the election on immigration, which is a wedge issue within the party. 

The third prong will be what its been for a generation - Dems will raise your taxes, based on a misinformation campaign centered around the Bush tax cuts and Democrat opposition to extending them or making them permanent.  The GOP tax cuts aren't even popular - but the Dems need to be aggressive in hitting back on this issue.  John Edwards showed the way with his "work v. wealth" rhetoric. 

The only tough issue is Iraq.  Politically, the Dems need to convince the American people that they'll bring the troops home sooner, but not too soon.  Dems also need to counter by not allowing the national security debate to get reframed as solely about troop withdrawal.  Bush is vulnerable in other areas, especially after Katrina and the ports deal.

Re: This has cost pension funds, retirement accounts millions of dollars.

Relatively few people actually live off their dividends and most of them vote GOP anyway. For most folks the stock market is a long, long term thing and falling stocks today can be shrugged off with the knowledge that what goes down today may go back up tomorrow. Back in 1987 the market crashed big time, with choruses of gloom and doom all around. But the following year that played exactly zero role in the election. And when the market went south in 2000, I recall thinking "Oh, crap" but then pretty much focusing back at the issues of the day as far as the 2000 elections went. The GOP ballyhoo about how Americans are turning into an investor class is a lot of bunk: at the end of the day most of us will still be voting our paychecks and our credit card balances no matter what happens in the stock market.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

This is no surprise.  The Baghdad visit, which, if anything, harmed his host's position, was plainly a stunt.  But what would really be news - the Democrats mounting a challenge.

It will not stop folks and Hillary's head-in-the-sand Bush lite approach is doomed to fail a third time.

Three strikes

[Tim Grive Salon reports]

The subject is Iraq, but it's all about 9/11 again

Asked this morning about polls showing that Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake, George W. Bush said that he "fully understands" that people may have forgotten "the lessons of September 11th." Given the president's track record, it was actually a pretty constrained conflating of Iraq and 9/11: He mentioned the attacks only twice during his hourlong press conference today.

Don't expect such restraint from his supporters on Capitol Hill.

The House of Representatives will take up debate on Iraq this week, and Think Progress has come across what it says is a confidential message memo from House Majority Leader John Boehner. If the memo is authentic, the message Boehner wants delivered is clear: Tout the progress in forming an Iraqi government and the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then pound away at an Iraq-9/11 link.

As Think Progress notes, the two-page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. The Iraq debate will allow House Republicans to discuss "national security in a post-9/11 world"; to "re-examine the conditions that required the United States to take military action in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001"; to remind Americans that we can "no longer allow despots like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein to ignore international sanctions" in the "post-9/11 world"; to argue that, in a "post-9/11 world," we can't just "abandon our efforts against these threats in the hopes they will just fade away on their own"; and to make it clear that Democrats are embracing "troubling policies ... in a post-9/11 world" when they're not busy "sheepishly dismiss[ing] the challenges America faces in a post-9/11 world."

And then there's our favorite bit of 9/11 circularity: "The attacks we witnessed that day serve as a reminder of the dangers we face as a nation in a post-9/11 world."

We're not sure how something that happened one day can be a "reminder" of what came later. But before the week is out, we don't have any doubt that Boehner and his colleagues will tell us.

-- Tim Grieve

The real reason the Republicans attack anyone who suggests that now might be a good time to discuss when we should bring our soldiers home is, that having failed to win the war, the Republicans now do not have the faintest idea about how to go about ending it.

I keep looking for mention of the Republican strategy that trumps all Democratic strategies.

A lot of good strategies for Democrats are posted here. I do not see mention of the one strategy that trumps them all. The is the voter fraud possible (read:bet on it) via touch screen voting machines and optical scanners.

One Republican, sure fire strategy has already been used in three elections, allowing them to be stolen. (see Robert Kennedy Jr’s article) All the planned campaign strategies by the Neocons (not all Republicans) is to campaign hard enough to come close enough so the fraudulent results are not totally unbelievable.

I have posted an excerpt from an article and the email address. I encourage everyone to access and read the article and pass the word to as many friends and media outlets as possible. Try to make it virtually impossible for election officials to ignore the issue -- before the voting takes place, not afterwards. “08 will be too late.

Touch screen electronic voting machines and optical scanners are both corruptible. Insist on paper ballots and hand counting. Electronic voting machines can be programmed to record a vote for one candidate and give a paper receipt or print out showing a vote for the other candidate.

“In the worst case scenario, the architectural weaknesses incorporated in these voting terminals allow a sophisticated attacker to develop an ˜offense in depth' approach in which each compromised layer will also become the guardian against cleanup efforts in the other layers. This kind of deep attack is extremely persistent and it is noteworthy that the layers can conceal the contamination very effectively should the attacker wish that. A quite natural strategy in these types of situations is to penetrate, modify and make everything look normal."

excerpt from article in truth@freepress.org

Check the posts under 2006 Elections Table, such as my "Fool Me Twice".

Christie

RJK Jr's article has been thoroughly disproven on many different accounts. Besides, listening to a partisan voice like his is akin to trusting the Pope's version of creation over Stephen Hawking's.

The citizenship issue must be treated separately from the illegal immigration issue. Citizenship is something to be considered at a later time, after workplace enforcement and registration allow us to know how many people we're talking about. Only then can we design a citizenship policy with known consequences and one that makes sense in terms of long-range societal goals. To link these two very separate issues, as Democrats are being pressed to do, is electoral suicide. It's a trap that will decide many close races.

truly am puzzled by blog denizens who react angrily to anyone mentioning they see ugly or juvenile triumphalism, i.e. "power tripping," in the blogosphere.

The anger is, generally speaking, not because of the accusations themselves, but because they're not based in reality. They're strawmen.

Perhaps one day, a few years ago, these complains were valid. But, as your remarks about kos above demonstrate, times have changed. There's been a noted progress of thinking on the blogs. 

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adamsj, I realize that I owe you a bit of, if not an apology, at least an explanation.

No, I did not look at the link. I had no idea it was there. I'm colorblind, and I cannot easily see the hyperlinks here at TPMC. (I and many others have brought this to Josh and Company's attention, see here for my last effort at again raising this.)

So I had no indication that you were referring to anything other than my words, as the example of what "comments like this" was. Usually, I can tell there's a link somewhere just from the context, but I completely missed it in your post.

Hope I cleared up the confusion... 

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