Democrats know how to Govern, Republicans know how to campaign

[SirBrockington]

And nothing is off limits. Looking back, I don't think that when "Republicans go low, we go higher" is necessarily, or has necessarily been a winning strategy. Its brought about by good intentions, humanistic and Judea-Christian values of
turning the other cheek etc. Republicans don't play by the rules. Since 1968 there have been only 20 years of Democratic Presidents and 45 years of Republican Presidents. We seem to have all the ammunition, but they know how to frame the discussion. We win not when we go higher, but when they/we play smarter and have a unified gameplan.

When I look back at each Republican win since Eisenhower in the 1950s, each win was either a manufactured scandal;

1. Willie Horton..! 1988
2. Swift Boat..! 2004
3. Benghazi..! 2016

Elements of outright manipulation/cheating

1. Nixon promises to pull out of Vietnam while sabotaging Paris Peace accords 1968.
2. Reagan secret deal with Iran to keep the hostages until after the election 1980. 1980 Hostages freed day of election.
3. Supreme court stops Gore recount in 2000. 60,000 voters mysteriously taken off registration rolls in Broward county.
4. Over 300,000 "missing" electronic votes from Ohio. Kerry in 2004. Day of testimony into possible theft, key witness dies in a plane crash.
4. Russian interference and hacking vs Hillary 2016

etc. etc.

Or a single semantic issue that they were able to use throughout the entire campaign
1. Dukakis looked silly in the tank..!
2. Gore said he invented the internet..! 2000
3. Kerry was a flip flopper..! 2004
4. Emails Emails Emails! 2016


And they won with that.

Imo, outside of everything else, Gore never clarified the stupid "invented the internet" meme. That should have been stated over and over. IMO Kerry thought the American people were smart enough to see through the Swift Boat slander... nope, not smart enough. How that party could take a war hero, and win against a draft dodger, with the war hero being the one critiqued, is/was really amazing.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. It's incredibly frustrating

that Republicans seem to keep getting away with stuff like everything that you mentioned. It seems like people have to be desperately tired of Republicans to go and elect Democrats (Clinton in 1992 and Obama in 2008) and then 5 seconds later go right back to electing Republicans. Democratic Presidents have had a grand total of 4 years(!!) to really accomplish anything legislatively (i.e. with a Democratic Congress) since 1992. Then the people go and elect Republicans to Congress to "check" the Democratic President. Wash.rinse.repeat. Meanwhile, George W. Bush got SIX years with Republicans running Congress and Trump was gifted a Republican Congress along with his election as POTUS. And Republicans did NOTHING but obstruct President Obama for an entire 8 years and prevented him from filling a SCOTUS seat.

[SirBrockington]

2. And after the enevitable crash

They'll get a democrat to "fix everything" just to have it ruined again in 4-8 years. Things were so bad in 2008 that I
figured the US would be in a recession/depression rivaling the 1920s for the foreseeable future.

Democrats also don't seem to be able to, or willing to talk about their accomplishments for some reason.
Bill Clinton, at the Democratic convention, killed it when he broke the raw numbers down between
Democratic and Republican administration on so many markers. Things Democrats do, they dont even run on ffs. Obama
may have saved 1 million people following the Ebola outbreak. It was mentioned in passing. Economy excellent, housing prices excellent, highest DOW in history, gas at $2 and on and on and on. Gezus H. Run on that stuff. Remind people that can't recall, what $4 gas was like etc. etc. etc.

Imo, its not enough to just think that Americans will be smart enough to see through the bs, or have facts and figures handy.