Get Smarter, Mad Money, & the 2008 Election
June 23, 2007 5:01 AM   Subscribe

Money's flying, but can we be smarter about it? Worth a read, and a second thought. Now what to DO?
posted by crunchee (2 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Self-linking is a capital crime on Metafilter, and it will get you banned, Terry. Especially if you do it twice. -- cortex



 
Would creation of the Political Vault aid our opponents? Probably, but not as much as you think. Republicans – who micro-target their customer and have a well-regarded system for re-distributing the talent and knowledge from campaigns (what Rob Stein called “The Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix”) – are, frankly, way ahead of Democrats in terms of political investing.
Compared to the GOP, the Democratic party has essentially been a collage of ideological fiefdoms since at least the '60s. What this article is essentially arguing is the creation of this "Political Vault" in order to serve as a best practices knowledge base.

He's wrong. It's the message, stupid:
We have been struck, for example, by the challenges faced by many Democratic Congressional and Senate candidates during the 2006 election cycle (particularly challengers) to formulate a coherent Iraq policy. And then a North Korean policy. And then an Iran policy. Surely a site like the Political Vault could aggregate and evaluate that information, and then allow campaigns to assess and select policies that reflect their already informed views.
The GOP's network of think tanks and their noise machine has created a political landscape where a Democratic politician can be on the right side of polling when discussing the abstract notion of pulling out of Iraq, but is on the wrong side of polling when it comes to legislating that notion (the fraudulent "defunding the troops" argument). In the 2004 and 2006 elections, Democratic candidates thought they didn't have to stand for anything at all, so long as they were seen as being against George Bush. It didn't work for Kerry, but it did work in 2006.

Now, with Congress polling lower than the President (much to the glee of righty pundits), it's the Democratic leadership's responsibility to find a message, frame it, EXECUTE IT, and pound their accomplishments into the heads of voters leading up to 2008. The Democrats have been on the rhetorical defensive for too long, and if they want to have any credibility with voters in 2008 and with Beltway pundits thereafter, they've got to step up and tell people what they're for, using language that speaks to the values and morals of the average American.

It's not about knowing what ads work, or where to find a good phone bank to use. It's about getting the right sales pitch out there and making the GOP explain to America why they don't care if you've got health insurance.

Side note: title of the article is "How Democrat Donors Can Realize a Better Return on their Election Year Investments." What's up with the weaseling? It's "Democratic Donors."
posted by peacecorn at 5:25 AM on June 23, 2007


Your post implies that we're all democrats here. Some of us are not bound by your american definition of political parties. It's possible to be conservative and believe in universal health care, just as true liberalism allows for complete capitalism, and no publicly funded healthcare.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:51 AM on June 23, 2007


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