GOP to Hit Granholm's Values

[booksenkatz]

Did y'all see this in the Free Press today? What are we going to do about it?

http://www.freep.com/news/politics/future5e_20041105.htm

<snip>
Michigan Republicans plan to attack Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in the next gubernatorial race on the same moral issues that helped President George W. Bush win re-election Tuesday over Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

"The 2006 race has begun today, and we are laying the values debate at Gov. Granholm's doorstep," state GOP Executive Director Greg McNeilly declared Thursday, at a postelection conference of pundits and political leaders.

McNeilly added, "She's wrong on abortion, she's wrong on gay marriage and she's wrong on the war on terror." McNeilly referred to a brief televised interview last week in which Granholm said women would like to hear Bush apologize for mistakes made in the Iraq war.

He said Republicans need to get the Michigan Bush voters, who outnumbered the Granholm voters of 2002, "back out in 2006. They need to realize the threat she is to their beliefs." The GOP plans to pursue the same themes in running against U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow in two years.
<snip>

They already march on the poor woman in front of her church. They're primed for blood; are we?

[Journeyman]

1. BushCo's numbers have been steadily dropping for three years. . .

and there's no evidence they won't continue to decline. I'd say the GOP in Michigan is jumping the gun to believe the debate in 2006 will revolve around their manufactured issues of 2004. Let's see where the electorate's interest lies in a year or so before we begin formulating the debate. After what's going to happen in Iraq in the next few months, there may be very few people left in this country who believe what's going on there is somehow moral or indicate of some perceived value.

On edit: by all means, Democratic office holders must be defended against any ongoing attacks. My point was more to the next election and how life and politics can and probably will change in the next few years.

[booksenkatz]

2. True; but we need to make sure that we don't

sit and wait for voters to decide what's important before we act. Voters have to be TOLD what issues are important. Let's see how things are going in 2005-2006 and let us Dems frame the debate. Otherwise, the Repubs will fill the void. We make a mistake in thinking that voters care enough to follow issues and research them on their own. If that were true, then people would've voted their pocketbooks this year; they did not. The polls told us that voters were concerned about Iraq, and that the country is going in the wrong direction; but they didn't vote that way. They voted for "morals" because that's what the Repubs told them is important. The Repubs had the sound bites and bumpersticker-level ideas firmly in place. We can't make that same mistake again. I was involved with marketing for awhile, and I am convinced that you can sell anything to the public if you market it correctly. (Witness our president.) We have to learn how to do that, too. We can't rely on voter smarts to lead us.

[1gobluedem]

3. It begins with the party leadership

The state party leadership needs to be more proactive and stop letting the GOP define the issues and rhetoric for every campaign. For example, the GOP has successful changed 'pro-choice' to 'abortion rights' which carries an instant negative association, making it sound as though the Democrats are impatiently awaiting the day when they can abort healthy seven month fetuses at will. 'Pro-choice' is not necessarily pro-abortion; it's about women having the right to make their own informed decisions about their bodies. But we've allowed it to morph into a baby-killing issue.

Same with gay marriage. Had we been more on the ball with this; the issue should have been called 'Domestic Benefits' or 'Civil Unions' which sounds far less hedonistic and corrupt to the ignorant, small minded, and uninformed.

We can't let the GOP continue to define the rhetoric; we need to strike first, decisively, and proactively. That will put them on the defensive instead of us.

[noonwitch]

4. We need to strike before and hit the "Amway" morality

Is it moral to make your money from conning others in a pyramid scheme? Is it moral to recruit people to invest in the scheme by telling them "God wants you to get rich by selling Amway"? Is it moral to avoid paying taxes to a neighboring country's government and using political influence to get out of the criminal charges associated with it?

Is it moral to own all the hospitals in town, and use them to advance your anti-woman political agenda?

The DeVos family needs to be exposed for the ruthless manipulators that they are, and for the immoral manner in which they have built their fortune by dishonesty and religious fraud.