Are Obama's People Aware Of What Happened To Kerry?

[Me.]

To hear Robert Gibbs on KO right now, one wouldn't think so. Talking about a strong response not really needed to counteract the McCain ad. Get the facts out he says and that will do it. McCain is being dishonorable.....

Wow! I went into a deja vu tailspin. What happened to Obama's rapid response team? Wasn't this why it was formed?

[babylonsister]

1. And if we have to depend on the m$m to get 'the facts' out, we're doomed. nt

[writes3000]

2. Because they do NOT want to encourage the media to keep talking about this.

If they send out people whose sole purpose is to discuss this one point, guess what happens just before they talk.

They play the commercial. Again and again and again.

I predicted this whole flap would be over by tomorrow.

I still expect that it will. Unless someone gives it new life.

[bullwinkle428]

5. Unfortunately, a lot of us were saying the same thing about

all of the Swift Boat horseshit that came out during the '04 campaign. The counter-arguments have to come stronger and faster now...

[Me.]

7. That Ship Has Sailed

Without any help from anyone they have been playing the ad all weekend, practically non stop. Some have said it's awful, and untruthful, but you counter images with images. Obama's people are going to have to have more incisive reactions than the tepid ones I heard from Gibbs tonight.

[Gabi Hayes]

18. hey, writes! looks like we'll find out, won't we?

I thought yesterday that I was wrong, and it was blowing over, but after what I've seen here WRT mass coverage, including Larry King's lavage of McCain going on right now, this has the potential to turn into a game changing event, just as I said might happen

again, I really hope you're right

let's see

[Virginia Dare]

51. They don't have a choice, because the media will keep talking..

they've GOT to throw this right back in McCain's face. If he gets away with this, it's trouble ahead.

[geckosfeet]

3. The McSame ad has been played over and over on television and radio.

I am sure that Obama's people have tried to get a venue for a response. But who owns the MSM? Who decides whose story gets told?

I don't see the MSM giving Obama ads free air time.

[Kahuna]

4. Hopefully they are compile all of McNasty's flip flops and LIES..

to serve him up in one very devasting ad. Let us pray.

[salonghorn70]

6. I Have Been Thinking The Same Thing

I think that Obama is going to have to counter this. The best way to me is to attack McCain on his record on vet benefits.

[Me.]

9. Fire With Fire

As they say, this ain't bean ball. Obama needs strong surrogates out there in droves and they need ads of their own, say like on McCrothethy's voting record and it wouldn't hurt to mention Obama's ratings by vet groups as opposed to McSame's.

[cottonseed]

8. I always get worried about these things too.

But it seems I'm usually wrong to do so. Watch for this thing to be turned on McCain over the next few days.

[Connie_Corleone]

10. I'm thinking maybe the strategy is to stay on message about the economy.

The economy is the number one concern of voters and McCain is still throwing a fit about something that happened last week. McCain was supposed to be talking about the economy last week and he spent most of his time fussing about Obama's media coverage and THE SURGE!

McCain can't seem to get his act together as far as messaging and he's got Obama on his mind 24/7, while Obama is talking about issues that concern voters.

[RamboLiberal]

13. Yeah Kerry thought the same thing - ignore it, stay on message

And look where that got us!

[blm]

20. Kerry DIDN'T ignore it - the left blogs and Dem pundits ignored Kerry's counter to

the swifts and few even discussed it - all you have to do is go to Aug 19 and Aug20, 2004 on the biggest Dem blogs and you'll see NONE took up Kerry's counter to the swifts at the Firefighters Convention speech or his challenge to Bush to debate their services publicly instead of hiding behind swifts.

The Dem PUNDITS blew it - the Dem spokespeople blew it. The Dem lawmakers who were too cowed to get in front of a camera and publicly back up Kerry blew it. The left blogs blew it. And corpmedia laughed their asses off as most every one then turned and claimed Kerry never countered the swifts at all.

[politicasista]

26. **crickets**

I hear them chirping after this fact-filled post. Excellent one. :thumbsup:

[karynnj]

29. Not to mention that in addition to Kerry responding

Kerry did pretty much survive that attack and without the OBL tape he would have won even with the cheating in Ohio. By the election, most people who ever would have considered voting for Kerry knew that the Navy gave him those medals and they were deserved.

Do you remember what happened when McCain was attacked with less? He blew up and imploded immediately.

With Obama, he needs to get people out there with the facts. Even reading here it is tough to know the real truth - it is clear that the Pentagon had problems with him going with campaign staffers. There seems some question of whether he could have gone absolutely alone - with no press.

[depakid]

47. The Kerry campaign had PLENTY of opportunity to respond with its own ads

and don't give us a bunch of revisionist apologias about "not having the money" -the Kerry campaign was sitting on tens of millions of dollars in November.

[blm]

48. They DID run counterads in battleground states. And the PRIMARY money you count at the end of

campaign was not used because it is ILLEGAL to use it in the general. Thought you would be familiar with election law, depakid.

Remember Gore had 8 million left from the primary he couldn't use in the general?

That's what happenes when TOO MUCH money comes in right before the shift to general campaign. McAuliffe knew it, too, though he expected many would be ignorant about FEC laws and would buy his spin that Kerry could have used that money.


The 'not having the money to spend' you call apologia is re August when DNC was supposed to pick up the slack....how did they do?

[depakid]

50. The Kerry campaign made a very public decision to "go black" after the convention

which all but invited the swiftboatrs ads AND the predictable coverage they would get

If ads were run at the time- I didn't hear about them- and that may well be because they were ignores. However, what did hear a LOT of was every excuse under the sun as to why these folks should have been ignored.

Needless to say though- I agree with respect to the DNC and others who could have made a difference. They didn't have his back.

Then again- lots of Dems in other races claimed the same thing with respect to the unspent campaign funds. They could surely have used the money in those accounts, even if Kerry couldn't- to the same effect:

Daniel Mongiardo, who lost a US Senate race in Kentucky by slightly more than 1 percentage point, said he would have loved to combat negative advertising by his opponent, Senator Jim Bunning. Mongiardo was unable to afford either mailings or a door-to-door effort to get out the vote, he said.

''We lost in the west, where they were running an ad against me that tied me to Kerry and accused me of being liberal, and that was far from the truth," said Mongiardo, who estimated that he was outspent 4-1 by Bunning. ''But we didn't have the resources to combat their message. We definitely outworked the guy. We just were underfunded."

Gordon Fischer, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said Kerry should not have withheld so much money from an election season in which so many Democrats were locked in close races.

''There's going to be a lot of soul-searching about this loss, and this needs to be added to the mix of what went wrong," said Fischer, who saw Kerry lose in Iowa by 10,000 votes. ''Several million dollars left over -- it seems like that shouldn't happen. It should be much closer to zero."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/articles/2004/11/19/some_democrats_decry_kerrys_unspent_16m/

[blm]

53. They should work to change the FEC laws.

Besides, swifts didn't cause Kerry to lose - McAuliffe's failure to secure the election process at every level where the votes are allowed, cast and counted for the four years after 2000s theft is what gave the RNC the free pass to steal elections from Dems in 2002 and 2004.

[Renew Deal]

52. Obama seems to be very good at arguing on his terms.

Obama's camp doesn't get too wrapped up in what others say. They just drive their message.

[Median Democrat]

11. Key Difference Needs To Be Grass Roots Organizing Not Some Media Response

I think your premise is wrong. You assume that Obama should respond by responding to media spread lies through the media. This is a losing proposition, because the MSM is biased. For exanple, the problem with kerry was that the media began playing and replaying the Swift Boat attacks under the cover of debunking them.

The real issue will need to be grass roots support on the ground. Obama will need to counter the MSM spread lies, not by relying on the MSM alone, but by getting volunteers and activists to spread the word person to person with face to face contact.

[RamboLiberal]

12. Wrong - grass roots alone aren't going to do it

There was a helluva lot of people working the grass roots for Kerry as well. Kerry failed to counter the Swiftboaters via ads and surrogates plus himself getting out there and calling the BS. Obama needs to get an ad up NOW showing how in vote after vote McCain didn't support the troops. And he needs surrogates and himself with military background out there on the air countering McCain and BS!

[Median Democrat]

14. Where Did I Say Grass Roost Support ALONE? Are You Saying Some Ad Will Win It?

I did not advocate that Obama should suddenly drop his ads and rely on grass roots support ALONE.

Obama has surrogates out there if you haven't noticed, but whether they are shown depends on the MSM. The real issue are the pundits who often just talk among themselves spouting these lies. Kerry did respond to the swiftboaters, but how do you freakin respond when ABC decides to broadcast clips of Stolen Honor? Yes, Obama needs to run ads, but ads alone are not going to win it. The key difference needs to be grass roots support.

[RamboLiberal]

31. My bad - but I still think it has to be countering via the media

with paid ads, getting you people on every dang media outlet you can find, smacking the media when they present only one side (Hillary did an excellent job of this in the latter months of her campaign). It's damn hard at the grassroots to counter this crap that is being spoon-fed to the low-information voter who hears and sees this crap day-after-day from the media and your opponents ads. Hell, just like the swiftboaters McCain doesn't even have to spend that much money - the media is playing it over and over free for him.

[politicasista]

32. Exactly! We the grassroots have to be the media

Obama is not a machine.

[Bonn1997]

15. Obviously not

I heard the Obama campaign response and almost puked. You don't win elections in the US or anywhere where humans are voting by crying foul and asking the other person to be more honorable. Honestly, if I'd known Obama was gonna be this soft, I would have voted for Hillary.

[TheDonkey]

16. McSame is running a rebooted Rove/Bush 04 campaign

looks more dissorganized but it is turning out to be the same, fear-based campaign completely built up of straight-out lies and misinformation. OBAMA MUST BEWARE. Kerry felt that these tactics were so ridiculous that Americans would laugh, well, Americans ate it up and believed ever lie.

[niceypoo]

38. Bushes third campaign

McCains ads make him look desperate and without an issue to run on.

[H2O Man]

17. There are some

differences that are important.

Kerry failed to respond to the Swift Boat Liars' ads. They were not Bush's ads. Obviously, they were related, but not the same.

McCain is attempting to draw Obama into an argument over nonsense. He wants to put himself on stage with Obama. He wants/needs the Obama campaign to react harshly.

Instead, the Obama campaign is responding by remaining largely silent. They deny McCain the opportunity to share the stage with Barack. Instead, McCain has people looking at his commercials, and few people think they are good.

Always remember the "three groups": those who support you; those who won't; and the undecided. McCain's commercial only appeals to a very small sub-group of those who support McCain already. It will not help with the undecides.

[Gabi Hayes]

21. this is the first time I've thought you're completely wrong on the importance of image/media control

it was shown conclusively that Kerry 'lost' in Ohio because of the Swiftboat ads, which the media trumpeted for three weeks before they decided to bother to check on their veracity

by then it was too late, because of the saturation coverage

the scary thing about this deal is it's a lose lose situation, because the propaganda is JUST as effectively catapulted by the debunking process; the false image is implanted whether it's proven false or not. the mere fact of its presentation is all that's necessary

that's why they throw all those lies out there....twenty five of twenty seven Obama stories (maybe 27 of 29) were shown on Snopes to be LIES (the other two were undeterminable). they throw EVERYTHING up, and the least outrageous stick around long enough to imprint on the sheeples' consciousness. it's genius, in a way, but very obvious

it's all "you deserve a break today".....the more you repeat, the more ingrained a message becomes. the truth, or lack thereof is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. repetition is all.

the only way to counterract such garbage is to REPLACE the image with something that will distract the morans who are swayed by this crap (read: typical voter). they're going to have to hit McCain HARD and long about his own negatives, with the advantage of having not to lie about him (not really that big, but important, because the M$M CARES if dems lie, not the other way around). if they don't, and soon, I predict that Obama will be seen as another Kerry: a victim of taking the wrong road.

there IS no other way to fight the likes of Karl Rove

ask Bernays, Goebbels, Haldeman, Deaver, Atwater, Rollins, etal

how do you think they became so 'successful?'

[Me.]

22. I Agree About Obama Not Sharing The Stage

and am glad he didn't let McSame goad him into weekly town halls, though in retrospect he may be doing McSame a favor, as his performances have been so poor. And I saw an interview where Obama said, "McCain says I think this and them on the other hand, McCain says I think that. McCain needs to decide what he thinks I think," which was a great retort. But the campaign seems distracted. Last week they came out and said McCain was angry, which I also thought was great. Paint him as an angry man.

However, this ad has been receiving a great deal of free play. The media is still giving McSame a pass according to the research recently done, and other research says that even after these 8 years of *, low information voters haven't changed. Images can play a crucial role with undecideds. The ones of him last week are fantastic, but now there is another lie based attempt at branding Obama and McCain is plastering it all over the place as media wallpaper.

I saw Gibbs twice today and when I heard his tepid response, alarm bells went off. I may be wrong but it seemed to me like even KO was trying to goose him. For a good 24 hours + McSame has been controlling the message. Obama needs to take the control back.

[politicasista]

33. Here you go

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x2555

Interesting how people here complain about the media, yet buy into everything they fabricate. But hey, as long as the media doesn't diss my candidate, it must be true!

Guess apples and oranges is fun for everyone here.

[karynnj]

37. Kerry did respond and all Democrats

should have tried to help Kerry get the truth out - especially if they thought he was not doing enough. What he had done was already provided more than enough ammunition to use for people to defend him - and it was in Democrats vested interest to do so. I think that there was a sense -everywhere that this was so unbelievable that nothing needed to be done. The Navy awarded those medals - he didn't steal them or make them up.

The MSM did not do his its job. In reality the media condoned character assassination of Senator Kerry. Then there was a second swiftboating after the narrow election loss by people with vested interests, either because they did not live up to their journalistic standards or they supported someone else in 2008. The problem was that Kerry could not get his response out through the mass media - his message was heavily filtered.

The campaign's immediate reaction to the August attack was to put out 36 pages listing lies and discrepancies in the book. This should have been sufficient to spike their attack. How many lies are people usually allowed when they are disputing the official record, offering nothing - not one Telex, photo, or record sent upward discussing Kerry as the problem portrayed in the book - as proof. They also later proved the links to Bush - in funding, lawyers, and in one case the B/C people were caught passing it out. That was done within ONE DAY of the book's emergence in August. In addition, Kerry surrogates including some of his crew, Rassman and Cleland countered it.

That was far more proof countering the liars than the Clinton machine ever put out on anything. The problem was that it went to the media and they refused to play the role of evaluating who was telling the truth - the Washington Post's editor even saying they wouldn't. The broadcast media was worse. Would Obama have done as well if the networks and cable TV failed to give coverage to his speech on race in the furor over Reverand Wright? We need to be prepared to help Obama, if the media turn back to 2004 mode now that we are in the general election.

It wasn't that we had no ammunition to use. There was an abundance of proof - far more than would be typically available as they hit against a well documented official record. Even before the August re-emergence, the Kerry campaign had already provided the media with more than enough backup for them to reject the August attack out of hand.

It should also be mentioned that it was not Kerry's accounts they disputed, it was the NAVY's official record. Backing the NAVY account over the SBVT, Kerry had the following:

he had 120 pages of naval records - spanning the entire interval with glowing fitness reports - all given to the media and on his web site from April on. That alone should have been enough.

He had every man on his boat for every medal earned 100% behind him. That alone should have been enough.

He had the Nixon administration on tape (that they thought would never be public) saying he was both a genuine war hero and clean, but for political reasons should be destroyed. (SBVT O'Neil was one of those tasked to destroy Kerry in 1971.) That alone should have been enough.

He also was given a plum assignment in Brooklyn as an aide to a rear admiral. From the naval records, this required a higher security clearance - clearly his "employers" of the last 3 years (many SBVT) had to attest to his good character. That's just standard. That alone should have been enough.

The then secretary of the Navy (John Warner) said he personally had reviewed the Silver Star Award. That alone should have been enough.

Saying Kerry did not fight back simply swiftboats him again - compare this list of proof to Carville & Co response on Clinton's Flowers or draft problems - this is far more comprehensive and completely refutes the charges. The Clinton responses in these two instances did not completely refute the charges - in fact, after changing his story a few times in each case - conceding that earlier statements were not completely true - parts of the charges were conceded. The difference was that in 1992 - even in the primary - Clinton was given breaks by a media that wanted him to win. The fact is that we KNEW in those two cases that he was willing to dissemble and scapegoat others when he was called on his actions - two things that later hurt his Presidency.

In any previous election, calmly and professionally countering lies by disproving them would have been the obvious preferred first step. It is only when there is no open and shut case (as there is here) that the candidate would try anything different.When this didn't work, Kerry did speak to the issue - and he did so before the Firefighters as soon as it was appear that the attack was beginning to hurt him. Many here - all political junkies didn't here this. Why? The media that gave a huge amount of free time to people they had to know were lying didn't think that it was important to give the Democratic nominees response air time. Now, it was - I think less than 5 minutes long - so there is no excuse.
http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/08/jk_the_fire_fighters.html
click on little photo of the Senator.)

In 2004, there were no You tubes - if there were, getting this out could have been done. I hope the media will play fairer - but if they don't, we need to help Obama.

[politicasista]

43. Nice factual post.

:thumbsup:

[Peregrine Took]

19. They are driving me insane. Did they ever hear of "history repeating itself?"

Bring on Begala and Carville and recreate "The War Room." These Obama folks are sounding like losers to me.

[Me.]

23. Oh I Don't Want Them Back

They helped create this problem. Obama gas a smart team, they just need to be wound up some.

[Bonn1997]

24. Begala and Carville created this problem?

Politics and power have been a dirty tough business since the beginning of mankind. Carville and Begala simply knew how to play tough. I've been thinking the same thing for a while as Peregrine Took. If Obama continues to play softie, he's going to lose and he deserves to lose (although the American people don't deserve to have to suffer through McCain).

[Me.]

28. Their Complaints About Obama

and his surrogates during the primary still ring in my ears. Further, they have done everything they could to undermine the DNC and Dean. I wonder how much more money the DNC would have, to run ads like the rnc, if they hadn't gotten up to their mischief.

Obama trying to take the high road doesn't mean he deserves to lose anything. My point is that as we've learned, to our dismay in 2004, is that such vicious negativity unchecked can acquire a life of it's own. And while Kerry had the swiftboaters the media is doing the job this time around for McSame.

[karynnj]

30. I would have thought the HRC campaign would show you that Begala and Carville

were not what they were cracked up to be.

In 1992, Clinton had much of the media totally charmed and behind him. That made a difference. GHWB was below 40% approval for most of 1992. Do you remember how often we heard of him vomiting in Asia? Go back and search old newspapers. You would find that the draft story went on for over a week - as Clinton kept changing his story, and finally conceding somethings, biting his lip. The same with the Genefer Flowers thing - where he clearly changed his story (lied), scapegoated her, and finally, with HRC at his side, admitted he "caused pain in his marriage".

Obama has done far better. His initial answers on everything were not later contradicted. Here, I do think they need to address it before it becomes common wisdom.

[Bonn1997]

36. Hillary losing had nothing to do with Begala and Carivlle IMO

Hillary lost because she is unlikable and has high unfavorability ratings. No strategist can turn everything into a winner.

[blm]

42. Begala and Carville WERE the Dem spokespeople on TV every day 2001thru2004. How'd they do?

They did what they always intended to do....just like McAuliffe did as the head of the Dem party from 2001thru2004. And Dems winning in 2002 and 2004 was NOT their goal. Hillary2008 was, and Carville had the added incentive of keeping his war criminal wife out of jail.

CNN (House of Saud/House of Bush) knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they tapped Begala and Carville - House of Saud trusts their interests to be served by Bush and Clinton loyalists.

[AtomicKitten]

44. and now it's all about

HRC2012 or bust

[Frank Booth]

25. If it's not this, it'll be something else.

The MSM will keep running with these fake stories until McCain has a comfortable lead. We've seen it happen before, and it'll happen this year as well. If Obama responds that'll just play into the fervor.

This political system of ours is so frustrating since the corporate control is so obvious, yet we can't do a damn thing about it. I'd almost prefer if they just came out and told us who our next president will be. Then I wouldn't get my hopes up only to have them crushed.

[politicasista]

27. Yes, only because people here still act like or believe that Kerry did nothing rather than something

Based the comments of people repeating the media lies and spin in a piece of this thread.

[Peacetrain]

34. ~sigh~

[depakid]

35. Grasping at defeat from the jaws of victory- what else is new?

The Beltway consultants haven't shown themsleves to be much different than the "leadership" in Congress over the past 20 years.

I guess it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to think that they're going to change now....

[Mass]

39. Democratic strategists not getting it. What's new?\nt

[President Decider]

40. YOU FOLKS ARE GETTING TOO PARANOID ...

Honest to Christ, don't you see what Obama's camp is doing? Obama has a motherload of cash their focus right now is stockpiling. He'sholding off on spending it until the perfect time. His camp knows 1) they're already leading in most polls and 2) most people aren't even tuned into the race yet which is why there is no need to spend like a drunken sailor on advertising.

I'm willing to bet you that as soon as the Olympics start and American families are drawn to their TV sets ... it's GAME ON!

You will see Obama's cash reserves that he's been building up go into overdrive against Grandpa McCain.

[Bonn1997]

41. He doesn't need to spend any money right now

That's a separate issue. Just stop being a wuss whenever you're attacked. You can fight back in FREE official campaign statements. As a Psych Professor who knows a lot about serial sequence and memory, I disagree with you on this time being unimportant. Enough people are forming first impressions right now, and first impressions are very hard to break. If anything, the middle innings are the least important.

[Cha]

46. Yeah, Obama was such a "wuss" in the primaries that

he won when he had attacks coming from all sides as now.

[polichick]

45. That lauded rapid response team is a no-show as far as I can see.

[RichardRay]

49. Yes, I believe they probably are. n/t