Monday, September 15, 2008 Dems Must Give Voters Explicit Permission To Like Palin Because they already do. That ship has sailed. When facts are used to discredit Sarah Palin, emotion trumps facts. The instinct is to defend against the facts. Consider: you meet someone and like him or her on a gut level. A stranger – someone who doesn’t have built-up personal credibility with you – gives you a list of reasons not to like that person. How do you react?

On an emotional level, you want them to be wrong, and you will take every possible favorable inference on the likable person’s behalf. Using facts is pushing a big rock uphill. You might get it to the top with a few voters, but you’re going to expend a lot of energy for only a little return.

There’s a giant disconnect between all the gleeful Democratic claims of this or that magic bullet and the genuine, instant “Blink”-style emotional connection Palin has made with so many voters who see themselves in her. The Sarah Palin Phenomenon is not about facts – it’s about an emotional gut reaction to someone who has charisma and reflects something essentially common and real about themselves.

Emotion is something Republicans have understood for many cycles. George Bush’s Ohio 2004 closing “argument” Ashley ad, which simply featured Bush hugging a teenage girl who’d lost her mom on 9/11, underscored this expertise in emotional messaging. Re-watch that ad and notice the line toward the end: "I saw what I want to see." You can't talk people out of emotional certainty.

To defuse the Sarah Palin Phenomenon, Democrats need to explicitly give voters permission to both like her as a person and then also not vote for her.

Palin is not regarded as an introspective or intellectual type—not the sort who likes to mull the deepest nuances of every issue. In that sense, she's the anti-Obama. While Barack Obama of Hawaii, Indonesia, Hawaii, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Cambridge, Mass., Chicago and now Washington has been on a well-chronicled lifelong search for his identity, Sarah Heath Palin seems just fine being a woman of Wasilla.

Down-home, plain-spoken, down to earth, just fine being a Woman of Wasilla.  Can there be a more transparent parroting of McCain's own fluff in introducing his new VP pick to the nutbase?

She's got the grit, integrity, and good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today. She knows where she comes from, and she knows who she works for. She stands up for what's right, and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down.

When Sarah and Todd were first married, they shot, butchered and cured their own meat. She doesn't have much time to cook now; that's usually Todd's job, though the kids complain about his elk stew.

We find McCain's ad is careless with the facts and could easily leave a false impression....

It's untrue that Rezko got "$14 million from taxpayers" for himself, as the ad seems to be saying.

Moreover, the ad's claim that Obama wrote the letter as a favor to Rezko is without factual support.

Can support for a low-income housing project be a "favor" to the developer if the developer didn't ask for it? You decide.

As for that claim about Rezko helping Obama buy his house, well, we've dealt with that one before. ... McCain's ad... says Rezko "helped him buy his million-dollar mansion" by "purchasing part of the property he couldn't afford." That's true, but only because the seller wanted to sell the two parcels as a unit and the Obamas couldn't afford both. Rezko did not make a gift of any property to the Obamas. Furthermore, the fact that his wife sold her lot for more than she paid for it contradicts any suggestion that the Rezkos overpaid for their part of the deal as a way of getting the seller to lower the price to the Obamas for their part.

What About That Obama Ad?

As we mentioned, McCain's ad was prompted by an Obama attack ad released earlier in the day. In that TV spot, Obama criticizes McCain for not knowing just how many houses he owns. The answer depends on what you count as a McCain-owned home. We're going with our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who decided that the McCain total is eight.

Today, August 8, is the day Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency of the United States in 1974 to avoid impeachment and conviction for high crimes and misdemeanors.  Today is the day that Holy Joe Lieberman was driven from the Democratic Party.

Today is also the day the Strangebedfellows Moneybomb is set to go off.  Back in June-July when the FISA fight was roiling, pissed-off civil libertarians raised over $300,000 to run ads targeting Democrats such as Steny Hoyer who colluded with Congressional Republicans, the White House, and the telecoms to pass the corrupt and dangerous 2008 "FISA Amendments Act."  The Strangebedfellows aim to continue and broaden that campaign, and they need our help.

The Strangebedfellows are a left-right coalition of civil-liberties-minded activists and bloggers, including Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald at Salon, and Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman of BreakTheMatrix.  Those are the founding members as far as I know.  The full list of supporters from the blogosphere is here.

Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman organized the Ron Paul moneybombs at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, one of which raised over $6 million in one day.  The goal of the moneybomb, which goes to AccountabilityNowPAC, is as follows:

The AccountabilityNowPAC was originally formed by our leftist Strangebedfellow members as a fundraising vehicle to block a Congressional leadership "compromise" on the corrupt FISA reauthorization bill now pending in the Senate. Over $300,000 has already been raised by the PAC, but we can do so much better than that! The goal of AccountabilityNowPAC is to become a permanent entity on the Washington DC political landscape which will let our politicians know that civil liberties MATTER. Our message to politicians in Washington is loud and clear: uphold constitutional rights and we will support you; abridge freedom in America and we will not be on your side. Democrat or Republican—it makes no difference to us. Our standard will be the same for all, so let’s end the surveillance insanity and take our country back.

Greenwald has an extensive post up detailing the rationale and goals for the campaign here.   In the post he describes the current situation in Washington thus:  

Thirty-four years ago today, Richard Nixon was forced from office as a result of mounting public anger, which in turn fueled the bipartisan intent of Congress to impeach him, due to his involvement in the relatively minor Watergate crimes. Accountability of that sort for our highest political leaders is today inconceivable.

Rather than investigate and punish violations of the Constitution and other laws, our political class conceals those crimes for as long as it can, endorses them when they are disclosed, and then acts to protect the lawbreakers. Public opinion is steadfastly ignored, rendered virtually irrelevant. Congress has deliberately made itself completely impotent, while the sprawling Executive enjoys virtual omnipotence and freedom from any real accountability. Laws are written not just for, but literally by, the largest corporations and their lobbyists -- even including, as we recently witnessed, laws that have no purpose other than to immunize them from consequences when they are caught deliberately breaking our laws.

And on why getting a good start to this campaign is so important:

A successful start is absolutely vital for ensuring that this new organization's arrival is loud, aggressive, and taken very seriously. Funding is the only currency the political establishment recognizes as an indicator of strength. The more successful this kick-off campaign is, the more news it will generate, the louder the message will be heard, the more damage can be done between now and November, and beyond, to its deserving targets (and, therefore, the more constructive the progress that can be achieved). The magnitude of today's Money Bomb will determine what the reach and impact of our campaign will be between now and the election.

If you are one of the more than 3,300 people who have already pledged to donate to the Money Bomb, today is the day to donate, here. If you haven't yet pledged, all details of the campaign are here. Regardless of whether you've previously pledged or not, you are able, and encouraged, to donate today. Chronicling the fundamental corruption and serial outrages of our political class is one step. Creating and executing strategies for battling them, altering public debates, and changing behavior is the next.

Please kick in whatever you can.  Help raise $500,000 -- or more.  Sleep better tonight.  Madison, Jefferson and Washington thank you.

Specifically, the new legislation dramatically expands the government's ability to wiretap without meaningful judicial oversight, by redefining "oversight" so that the feds can drag their feet on getting authorization almost indefinitely. It also gives the feds unprecedented new latitude in selecting eavesdropping targets, latitude that could be used to collect information on non-terrorist-related activities like P2P copyright infringement and online gambling. In short, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 opens up loopholes so large that the feds could drive a truck loaded down with purloined civil liberties through it. So the telecom immunity stuff is just the smoke; let's take a look at the fire.

Who Are The Strangebedfellows? Strangebedfellows is a unique and diverse left--right coalition which has come together to put a stop to the eradication of civil liberties in America. Modeled on a similar group in Britain, the initial Strangebedfellows group encompasses Ron Paul supporters (BreakTheMatrix.com, Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman), leading bloggers from the left (Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com) and many more who share the view that warrantless surveillance, telecom immunity and other such outrages of the lawless surveillance state MUST END—AND END NOW. Our group of Strangebedfellows is organizing a moneybomb on behalf of AccountabilityNowPAC, and we’re reaching out to friends and colleagues from across the political spectrum who believe in the Bill of Rights and freedom in America. So join us-- become a Strangebedfellow! Add your name and group to our list of backers, and enter your pledge today to donate to AccountabilityNowPAC. Let’s reverse these police state sellouts by our political leaders—FOREVER.

Here’s What We’re Asking You To DoStrangebedfellows has retained BreakTheMatrix to serve as our moneybomb organizer and service provider for a massive donations collection effort on behalf of AccountabilityNowPAC. Remember the giant moneybombs from the Ron Paul presidential campaign? Well Trevor Lyman was the man behind those efforts, and he and his BreakTheMatrix colleagues are the leading experts in the world in online moneybomb fundraising. Here’s how it works:

You enter your pledge today—RIGHT NOW-- by clicking the “Pledge” button on the side of this website screen. This pledge becomes your commitment to contribute (maximum donation $5000) to AccountabilityNowPAC on August 8, 2008—the moneybomb collection day. Visit our website often over the next month to watch the pledges mount and to learn about the growing array of supporters and groups who are choosing to become Strangebedfellows with us. Then the key event—you COME BACK on August 8, 2008, and make your actual money contribution through our online collection service right here at www.AccountabilityNowPAC.com. The force and power of a moneybomb is simple and straightforward. We all donate on the SAME DAY, and working together we send our political leaders (Democrat and Republican) a freedom message they will never forget. So help us make it work. Pledge today; then come back and donate on the 8th. Let’s show our leaders once and for all that there is a POWERFUL movement here that will settle for nothing less than constitutional governance in America.

Why August 8th? That is the day in 1974 when Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office for his lawbreaking and surveillance abuses. That day illustrates how far we have fallen in this country in less than 35 years, as we now not only permit rampant presidential lawbreaking and a limitless surveillance state, but have a bipartisan political class that endorses it and even retroactively protects the lawbreakers.

Become a Strangebedfellow; and we thank you for pledging.

Christy Hardin Smith at FDL has all of the key information for pressuring swaying Senators to keep amnesty out of the FISA bill this week. Personally, I think the only remotely plausible pressure points are demanding that Obama complies with his filibuster promise and doing the same with Chris Dodd, and by "remotely plausible" I mean "something that is, in theory, not absolute zero." Still, even battles that are almost certain to end in a loss are worth waging until the bitter end.