What Al Gore Should Have Said - A Follow-up to Checkmate '08
From Newsweek. During the 2000 Presidential debates, Bush attacked Gore for claiming that a visit to a Buddhist Temple was not a fund-raiser. In Bush's opinion, that wasn't a responsible position. Gore 'fought' back with an unemotional notion about wanting “to spend my time making this country even better than it is, not trying to make you out to be a bad person.”
This is what he should have said:
“You have attacked my honor and integrity,” ... “I think it’s time to teach you a few old-fashioned lessons about character. When I enlisted to fight in the Vietnam War, you were talkin’ real tough about Vietnam. But when you got the call, you called your daddy and begged him to pull some strings so you wouldn’t have to go to war. So instead of defending your country with honor, you put some poor Texas millworker’s kid on the front line in your place to get shot at. Where I come from, we call that a coward.“When I was working hard, raising my family, you were busy drinking yourself and your family into the ground. Why don’t you tell us how many times you got behind the wheel of a car with a few drinks under your belt? Where I come from, we call that a drunk.
“When I was serving in the U.S. Senate, your own father’s government had to investigate you on the charge that you’d swindled a bunch of old people out of their life savings by using insider knowledge to sell off stocks you knew were about to drop. Where I come from, we call that crooked. So governor, don’t you ever lecture me about character. And don’t you ever talk to me that way again in front of my family or my fellow citizens.”
For all that the electorate decries negative campaigning, a new book called the Partisan Brain details how it wins elections, while appeals to reason go unheard.
Deanie Mills gave us an excellent summary and provided much more analysis on Drew Westen's work several days ago in her blog entry, Checkmate for '08, Beating the Republicans With Their Own Game. The blog rolled off the front page quickly, but it really needs to be read and will help to understand 'What Al Gore Should Have Said'.
I could have used Deanie's word expertise when I was trying to explain the impact of Hillary's Sopranos video in the comment section of another post.
Good post, Seashell.
Tish
June 28, 2007 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Ticia. Too many lattes keeping you up?
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 28, 2007 4:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Night patrol. ;D
June 28, 2007 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see the need to attack the REPUBLIKLAN party verbally and viciously as long as you tell the facts.
For example the MYTH that Bush or any of the other leaders in the REPUBLIKLAN party appear strong on national security and defense EXPLODED and died with the passengers that hit the world trade center and the pentagon. 9-11 happened under Bush's watch.
I see the need to tell people that the policies of the REPUBLIKLAN party kill people then cite Ford Explorer/Firestone tires, Enron, Vioxx, Celebrex, Sago Mine, New Orleans, 14 dead astronauts, 500,000 innocent Iraqis.
Somehow the die hard members of the REPUBLIKLAN party overlook the above deathly incidents caused by Gingrich and Bush and Delay, but you have to tell the independents and tell them over and over that the REPUBLIKLAN party causes unnecessary death of innocent people and they will eventually stop winning elections.
You can change America today! Go to http://dmocrats.org and look for the statement with the title Send this letter to congress today!
June 28, 2007 3:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know what you're saying, but I've mixed feelings. One reason is just timing. I'd hate to waste too much time rehashing such fine details that I myself had forgotten. It becomes like sports fans who can tell you the pitch called to the winning home run in a series decades ago.
A second is that the judgment was no doubt truly hard to make, and it depended not just on toughness but on calling the poiltical wind. Remember that the decision, after all, is about political strategy, not principle. At the time, it was not unreasonable to believe that a successful incumbent could campaign on achievement and vision, as he seems to state here. That slime bucket GOP moves like Cheney's adoption of seashell's strategy in his debate against Edwards, to turn a positive comment about gays and parenting (and a justifiably negative comment about Cheney's hypocrisy) into false umbrage, would actually work must have seemed implausible at best. That it worked still angers me. Conversely, now there's some evidence that the public is sick again of attacks, and Obama is exploiting the mood with something more like the "let's move on and be positive" strategy. I don't know, but maybe he's on to something. I'm not a campaign manager.
Finally, maybe neither would have worked! At the time, the outcome seemed to be not that Gore had been outsmarted or wasn't bold, but that he was perceived as lying and really had been crooked. If that's not fair, and it's not, maybe the problem really was media bias and media acceptance of GOP spin, not Gore's wishy-washy stance.
Sure we should fight hard, for progressive policies. But that's different.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 28, 2007 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, if I can expand on one point. I can see the media spinning seashell's statement now. Oh, gosh, it's that snotty, sneering, high-handed Gore again, the same one who raised his eyebrows at our dear, cuddly Bush during the debates.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 28, 2007 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree completely, as long as Gore's response would have been delivered as a spontaneous reaction to an insult. As practiced as the "You're no John Kennedy" response was, it had the ring of an ad hoc response to it. It lives on today precisely because it seemed -- SEEMED unrehearsed
I don't think Seashell is suggesting that Gore jump up on stage and declare he do a do-over using her suggestion all these years later.
I believe her point is to be prepared, and to show outrage and also to have the courage to confront rather than express disbelief and shock when confronted by slurs. If you want to go farther back, if someone asks you a question about what you would do if someone raped and murdered your wife (Dukakis), to respond that the question is below any bar of taste and civility, and that you are resisting the urge to break the questioner's nose, but that that is exactly why we have impartial juries.
GREAT POST, Seashell!
Jan
June 28, 2007 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for getting the central thesis of the post, Jan. And I hope everyone realizes that this is not MY strategy. It is Drew Westen's, author of the The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, strategy. It is based on studies in neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry.
...if someone asks you a question about what you would do if someone raped and murdered your wife...
Exactly. You can see a video of the Dukakis question here, along with the passionless Dukakis laundry list answer.
GREAT COMMENT, JAN!! :-)
June 28, 2007 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
That slime bucket GOP moves like Cheney's adoption of seashell's strategy in his debate against Edwards, to turn a positive comment about gays and parenting (and a justifiably negative comment about Cheney's hypocrisy) into false umbrage, would actually work must have seemed implausible at best.
Speaking to both posts, John, what Westen is advocating has no resemblance to Cheney's slime tactics against Edwards. In Westin's own words :
Westen surmises that Kerry's (non) reaction to the Swift Boat debacle was, in the voters eyes, the reaction he would most likely have given if the US came under attack under his Presidency:
In reality, Kerry was operating under his advisers' beliefs NOT to react and go negative, because voters were tired of it. But, as Westen points out, Bush won the election by spending 75% of his budget on negative campaigning. Voters might say they don't like negative campaign ads, but they also don't recognize the influence the ads have on their own election decisions.
Once again, to distinguish between the hateful ideological propaganda that Republicans use to smear the Democrats, and Westen's approach of using the truth to appeal to the voters emotions in place of reeling off laundry lists of policies, Westen clearly states:
When Democrats remain silent on the hot issues, guns, abortion and gay marriage, the effect is to give all the power to the other side. For instance, in response to abortion and rape, the Democratic candidate might say something like:
Or like this on parental consent:
As far as the media spin, this year the Democrats have garnered the lion's share of the media's attention. The difference between this election and the last ones are that if the Republicans spin, the Democratic response won't be ignored.
June 28, 2007 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Using the GOP campaign ... no, PROPOGANDA tactics against them may be very effective in the short run, but in the long run they will come back to bite the Democrats in the ass.
It reminds me of a poster I once saw hanging in the teachers' lounge at a middle school: "Arguing with teenagers is like wrestling with pigs; it doesn't get you anywhere and everyone gets dirty."
To win the hearts and minds of the American people, to motivate them to become re-engaged in the political process, our leaders have to find a way to communicate a message that says, in effect, "join me in rising out of the 'swill' that has become our political process" without coming across as arrogant by standing on the backs of those still wrestling in the mud, nor sounding patronizing by claiming to have all the answers.
This is going to require a leader who has the social, emotional and political intellect to articulate this message without a teleprompter or by regurgitating memorized "sound bites" that are strung together like chunks of food on a bamboo skewer.
Gore and Obama have shown each possesses a high degree of intellect ... now if they were to combine their talents ... we just might have the leadership that possesses the natural skills to pull the entire nation out of this hog pen.
Morgan
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)
June 28, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
...our leaders have to find a way to communicate a message that says, in effect, "join me in rising out of the 'swill' that has become our political process"
This is going to require a leader who has the social, emotional and political intellect to articulate this message without a teleprompter ...
Morgan, these are exactly the points that Westen makes. There is an excerpt in The American Prospect about the issue of gun control, where he believes voters want both the freedom to buy guns and gun regulations, and where Democrats routinely stay silent. Again, during the 2000 debate, Bush and Gore were asked about their differences on gun control. Gore recited a laundry list of policy technicalities -- licenses for new guns because too many criminals are getting guns, but nothing to restrict hunters, sportsmen and people that already possess guns. Bush was against any restrictions and tied that short list into one with a 'culture of life' message that was incoherent, but activated his base.
What if Gore had drawn on his Columbine experience, where he had recently delivered a moving eulogy and said something like this?:
And after the VA Tech shootings, when not a word was heard about gun control from Congressional Democrats. Westen believes this is what they could have said:
Lastly, Westen addressed the unprincipled propaganda and lies that characterize Republican politics today, or what you call the "swill". A Daily Kos diarist's review of the book brought out, "People without conscience ... respond to aggression, not to appeals to the conscience they don’t have.
Perhaps someone should tell Elizabeth Edwards that for the next time she takes on Ann Coulter. But at least she is taking her on.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 28, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your 2nd amendment analysis is exactly the sort of thing that has and will be turned against the Democrats time and time again. Firstly, there was at least one Democratic Senator, who proposed legislation, and his proposal was obscene. It was Lautenberg, and he proposed using the terrorism list, that is known to be filled with errors, and comes with an association of guilt which has never withstood due process of law scrutiny. The proposal is worse than the ill.
Another reason that this method of gun control will be used against anyone attempting to institute it is that the 2nd amendment delineates a minority right, which takes a super-majority to change. It is an illegitimate act to effectuate change in American private gun ownership with anything less than a Constitutional Amendment. This is the same crap that the two party system has been doing to America for most of my life. If an exception is made to agbrogate the 2nd amendment, because of safety concerns, then the same method will be used against the 4th, 5th, 6th, 13th, and 14th Amendments in the future. It's ping-pong tyranny.
An even more important line of reasoning needs to be made here; firearm availability was not cause for Columbine and Virginia Tech. It was only the methodology. The real cause for these massacres is the high tolerance Americans have for allowing truly insane humans to walk amongst them without either anxiety or compassion. These were sick individuals who desperately needed psychological care which has been non-existent in the USA since the Reagan Administration. Americans have more compassion towards a rabid dog than they do for an person afflicted with insanity. To remove the availability of firearms in America, but to not address the horrendous lack of mental health options for our afflicted is to assure that the next time an insane person decides to attack a school, the lethality of the methods used will make Cho look like a piker. I think you are able to understand what I am driving at, and I am loath to detail specifics, but it goes back to what I stated in a different thread a few days ago: it is always easier to destroy than to create. There will always be methods of bringing mayhem into reality, regardless of what a society attempts to do in an effort to mitigate it.
June 28, 2007 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
PseudoCyAnts , it is NOT MY 2nd amendment analysis (as voice rises). IT IS Dr. WESTEN'S analysis and he used it as an example of where the Democrats go wrong with hot button issues. I used it here for the same purpose, not to start a 2nd amendment debate, even though I agree with Dr. Westen's take on gun control.
I think you are able to understand what I am driving at...
I think I probably do understand, and personally, I can't see where you would have much to worry about. But whether Westen's analysis is correct or not, the gun control issue is one that the Democrats would prefer to ignore, rather than taking it on and dealing with it effectively, and that's what I was driving at...:-)
June 28, 2007 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apologies, I am well aware that it was not your position, but this strikes at a very sensitive place in me, and that is not really about private gun ownership, but is instead about legislative overreach stated to be for the good of the country and in the need of expedience that tears at the fibre of the Constitution.
I have placed several remarks on Pro-2nd Amendment boards right after Lautenberg proposed his legislation in regards to reaping the whirlwind by supporting just one of the Bill of Rights, while they acquiesced to the others being stolen by the Bush Administration. I took great pleasure in pointing out to them that their hated ACLU is right 9 out of 10 times, while their beloved NRA is only right 1 out of 10 times. I mercilessly pointed out the vanity and futility inherent in their use of a pistol as a codpiece. Very few listened. As long as you're one of the chefs, the egg-breaking to make omelettes analogy seems proper, but when you suddenly awaken in a nightmare as a member of the basket of eggs, everything you knew is now wrong. It is an ugly thing to experience the 'unlawful combatant' strategy on the receiving end. This is the same lesson not learned by the right from the Duke Lacrosse Rape episode, as Contemporary Conservative pundits hammer 'leftist professors', but leave Nancy Grace unscathed to continue on broadcasting her unAmerican points of view of Guilty When Charged.
On the opposite side of the Political BiPolarity lies the situationalists of the left, who hammer the NRA's support for 'terrorists'.
All I can see are hypocrites leveraging their pet issues through the governmental theft of liberty.
In my quick and heavy response, I implied this was you view, but I have no knowledge of you playing this vacuous game of political ping-pong, so again, I apologise for my unthought out reply.
June 29, 2007 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, PseudoCyAnts, and the apology is accepted. I could tell the subject had hit one of your buttons, and since you have always been a straight player, I tried to signal that it was OK with the smiley at the end of my response.
Previous posters may have gotten me a little sensitive as it seemed they had also attributed to me what belongs to Dr. Westen.
All is well. See you on the next post that catches our attention.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 29, 2007 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may be interested by this, and it should be visible for anyone who happens by, because of a deep 2nd Amendment websearch, so I posted here.
8/6/2007 - Special Bill of Rights Edition available for viewing at Bloggingheads dot tv.
A faceoff between two Law School Professor Blog principles:
It's a rather long video of a two-way phone conversation; the first 18 minutes of which cover the 2nd Amendment. Both Balkin and Volokh show themselves as misfits within the normal binary ideation of liberal/conservative, because Balkin accepts that the 2nd is a protected individual right, and Volokh does not believe it to be an absolute.
A redundant observation, since this is in regards to two 1st tier Law School Professors: the content is verbose. It's interesting though.
August 20, 2007 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK. You want to know how I, as a liberal Democrat, would advise Gore/Obama on how to address the issue of gun control?
I'll give you my personal experience. My father, who is a flaming Liberal with a capital “L,” once was a card carrying member of the NRA.. He has always been a strong advocate for the Constitutional right to bear arms, especially for sportsmen.
And because he wanted his children to respect the lethal force of guns, he took me and my siblings out to the gravel pits for target practice. He taught me that guns have two very necessary purposes -- to provide food and to protect life and property – the same purposes our forefathers had in mind when they drafted that part of the Constitution, "... the right to bear arms."
I guess that’s why I felt very comfortable having a .38 hanging on my bedpost when I lived for a brief period of time in a neighborhood infested with meth-tweakers and felons.
However, my father dropped his membership to the NRA after that organization convinced Congress to allow armor-piercing bullets for “deer hunters.”
While I respect American citizens’ efforts to preserve and protect our rights to “bear arms,” I part paths with the “fundamentalist gun rights” nut cases, who sound more like preachers than sportsmen, who are irrational about protecting our “right” to become as lethal as a terrorist in Iraq.
I seriously doubt that James Madison ever envisioned, even in his wildest fantasies, an America that required the NRA to protect our rights to manufacture guns or ammunition designed to pump multiple rounds-per second into a human body protected with a layer of Kevlar or a thin sheet of metal.
These are tools of war … not “arms” – and serve no purpose in feeding or protecting citizens living in a society governed – and protected -- by the rule of law and its agencies.
That being said, however, I must say: if ANY American administration were to declare Marshall Law based on anything other than a military invasion or attack within our borders by a RECOGNIZABLE foreign army, I would expect to hear my father say, "Morgan, grab your gun."
Morgan
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)
June 29, 2007 2:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do not have any Madison citations handy, but I do have a Hamilton, and he was a strident Federalist:
Also of note is the study done by UCLA Law School Professor, Eugene Volokh:
With a bit of digging, I can easily provide more citations which indicate that the 2nd Amendment had little to do with hunting, or even defense of personal property from the theft by common thieves, but was instead intended as a bar to domestic despotism arising as a threat to liberty.
Granted, in this modern era of quiet death coming through your chimney in the form of a hellfire launched off of a predator which is controlled by some former Nintendo whiz-kid from a secret underground bunker somewhere in the Nevada Desert, the concept is a wee bit antiquated, but antiquated is the same argument used wrongfully by Gonzales to justify the abrogation of the Geneva Conventions, and in my mind has even less justification if used to overturn a Constitutional Amendment by less than a super-majority.
There can be no equivocations here; if an exemption is made, more will follow, and the Dreamtime America will fade away.
July 1, 2007 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some suggest that Americans have become obsessed with prosperity - and mediocrity, judging by the 'quality' of our popular media.
Is it possible that the overall appeal of the Republican 'message' to the American people has been a guarantee that their prosperity will continue, no matter what, if they elect Republicans? (Perhaps the results of the recent election only reflected a fear that the invasion/occupation of Iraq was a threat to our prosperity?)
Personal attacks on the character of a political opponent, the bread-and-butter of recent Republican campaigns, evoke dis-trust of an individual which can and often does lead to seeing the individual as being of 'weak' character, which, given the vagaries of human 'reasoning' automatically makes his opponent of 'strong' character.
Seashell's what-Gore-should-have-said would have done a pretty good job of painting Mr. Bush as far from of 'strong' character.
If nothing else, it'd be great fun if the remainder of this eonian run for president were to be one long exercise in who can be made to seem the biggest wimp. (Since these people are all confirmed narcissists, we might see some major melt-downs. Certainly would break the monotony of a campaign that has turned into one giant yawn.)
June 28, 2007 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the wake-up call. You are (sadly) right:
Since these people are all confirmed narcissists
We are totally f**ked!
Jan
June 28, 2007 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seashell's blog entry exposing a fatal weakness of Democrats' approach to politics and campaigning is impossible to overestimate in its importance. The insistence of so many Democrats, rank and file as well as the self-annointed 'leadership', to "play nice" and not be "negative", *MUST* be overcome! Failure to get rid of this self-destructive mindset guarantees near perpetual minority status in the political arena. It is infuriating for me to constantly witness this cowardice. Far too many Democrats conduct themselves under the false assumption that "fighting back" means "fighting dirty". How galling and pathetic it is to hear someone whining about not wanting to sink down to the rethuglicunt's level. True, it is critically important to clearly articulate our ideals and vision as a political party. But all one has to do is look at how hard John Edwards slammed the New York Times in its recent article of shallow smear and sleazy innuendo. This is the kind of fighting back that Democrats are in *desperate* need of, and that so many of us in the hinterlands are starved for. The Michael Dukakis/John Kerry/Bob Shrum/Mary Beth Cahill/useless Democratic consultant (ad nauseam) wimpiness must be forever banished. And it must happen now. Otherwise, we can expect more maddeningly close defeats like in the past 2 presidential elections. We will have only ourselves to blame.
June 28, 2007 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Far too many Democrats conduct themselves under the false assumption that "fighting back" means "fighting dirty".
Exactly. Especially when, as Deanie pointed out in the Kerry campaign to show he was not weak on defense, the Democratic strategy for fighting back is by fighting back to prove negatives.
defiancedemon, read Deanie's blog from several days ago for the beginning of this story. You two sound a lot alike, and you will enjoy it, I promise.
June 29, 2007 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who ever the Democratic Presidential candidate is the first rule to follow is act like a normal human being. If someone insults you during a debate, act the way a normal human being would act - strike back hard at the insulter, immediately, not with tears, but with genuine anger. Bush, thank God, will never again have the stage to do his smirking insults, but there are plenty of Repubs running who could be just as insulting.
If you are out in public and are insulted grossly by a stranger, people do judge you by your reaction. Of course you don't challenge him to a duel, but you certainly do attack him verbally. People will judge a candidate the same way. If it is Rudolf doing the insulting even a candidate with below average intelligence can find lots of comebacks, given Rudolf's abysmal lack of character. No one respects someone who allows a bully to operate without responding.
If it were me in that position I think I would address my response to the audience, as if I were talking about the cretinish black sheep of the family. The obvious thrust of the comeback can always be based on the Repub record of the past 7 years, spoken of with total contempt for anyone running as another Repub. The contempt expressed is the important part.
Hoppy in Sacramento
June 28, 2007 10:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally agree. Contempt is very contagious. And I think you make a good point, if the other guy puts you in a place to have to respond, there's no sense in wasting it in responding to him, respond instead to the party that he is a symptom of. Make him the poster child of all that they stand for and all that they've squandered. Why, with a bit of finesse one could probably turn Fruity Rudy into Tessie Hutchinson (You remember Tessie, the woman stoned in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery") The country's in the mood for a stoning. Better one of them than one of us.
June 28, 2007 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
hoppy and kache, the underlying problem that evidently keeps the Democratic candidates from doing such commonsense acts seems to be the campaign handlers and managers. I can't tell you how many times I yelled at the TV while Kerry was speaking, because he sounded like a message instead of a President that the US desperately needed to avert the further disasters awaiting us under Bush.
June 29, 2007 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hector Wait a minute -- "This is what he should have said: 'You have attacked my honor and integrity'"
Was it, or was it not, a fundraiser?
June 29, 2007 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I'm still seeing this as a fundamental misunderstanding of the GOP mafia. The capo never shows anger or weakness, which is why the game works. Bush was ever so relaxed. The my honor stuff is what "an elitist who doesn't understand ordinary Americans" would say, like dear compassionate Bush or those prosecutors trying to break up our mafia homes and neighborhoods. Then you send the hitman off to invent stories.
Don't mask it as knowledge of psychology over issues. That just means it's politics not principle, and that means you have to justify it as workable politics. No shortcuts allowed.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 29, 2007 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, with apologies, let me try this one more time. The problem with the ridiculous charge wasn't that it made Gore seem weak. It made him possibly dishonest. It planted doubts. And no politician accused of corruption has ever won over the public simply by denying it. In fact, making it seem a matter of honor rather than of fact is a traditional strategy of a politician who's really guilty, and it confirms the charge or corruption.
The problem is that Americans and the mass media were too cowardly to deal with reality. But the real culprit is again the complicity of the media with the GOP hitmen. We can't take back America just by begging for a platform to righteously tell them to go away.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
June 29, 2007 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
John, in the abstract, I think I know where you are coming from, but in the specifics I guess we see the problem from different angles.
On the other hand, there are so many problems, that the more angles there are, the better.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. H.L. Mencken
June 29, 2007 11:39 PM | Reply | Permalink