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Turning The Tables: Democrats To Run Against GOP Record On National Security
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
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In the wake of the botched attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas day, Republicans are seeing dollar-signs. But the returns may be fleeting.
In an interview with Huffington Post, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says that going into the 2010 mid-term elections, Republicans will have plenty of questionable national security votes to answer for.
For starters, House Republicans opposed a Homeland Security funding bill that included funding for airport security. But it goes beyond the House, too. "I think we are going to be very interested in the rationale for those votes," Van Hollen said. "I mean in the Senate you have the situation where Republicans were delaying a vote on the defense appropriations bill for the purpose of slowing down health care reform and I think the American people don't want our national security to be held hostage to Republican procedural gamesmanship on health care."
In other words, Democrats hope cheap shots like those taken by Republicans this week will backfire. We'll know soon enough.
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Viva!America!
December 31, 2009 3:00 PM
Go Hard Dems! You have facts on your side, start using them for heaven's sake. I don't care what analysts say, there should be no fear of the GOP in 2010. For all of 2009 they have shamelessly shown what their priorities are and it is not the American people or the future of this country. Crisis after crisis, they just sat on their hands and refused to do anything. It's despicable.
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Icon
December 31, 2009 4:33 PM in reply to Viva!America!
What analysts seriously think the Republicans have any probable chance of retaking either chamber next year?
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Michael A
December 31, 2009 3:06 PM
I really don't understand how the dems lost the National Security Mantle. It makes no sense. All of the great war time presidents were dems in the 20th Century. Also, based on what repukes have done and are doing, I would submit that Lincoln was clearly more of a dem than a repuke.
Dems just allowed the incompitence and fear mongering of the repukes to take over. What have repukes done other than screw up and hurt our National Security.
Some examples:
The b-movie actor gave the terrorists a huge victory by pulling out of Lebanon. What kind of message did that send?
The b-movie actor invaded freaking grenada. Gee, that was really hard ass.
The b-movie actor's Afghanistan policy created the taliban and al queda. We didn't have to do a gd thing. The russians would still have lost in afghanistan. Look at what is happening today.
The b-movie actor sold military hardware to the iranians for pete's sake.
The b-movie actor made a deal with the terrorist regime in iran to free the hostages.
Nixon and ford bailed on the south vietnamese.
The king was grossly negligent and incompetent in the lead up to 9/11.
The king screwed up afghanistan and left obama with a huge intractible problem.
The king lied us into invading and destroying a country and killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
How on earth can repukes claim the National Security Mantle? They are incompetent and keeping the country unsafe for political purposes.
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ericf
December 31, 2009 4:45 PM in reply to Michael A
The short answer: Vietnam. The little longer answer, conservatives attacked liberals for decades as being communist sympathizers, portrayed war opponents as traitors, making the public predisposed to believe the success of the anti-war movement within the Democratic Party meant Democrats were untrustworthy. The impression has been far more powerful than the record.
So I'm pleased as punch the Democrats want to go after Republicans on this instead of making some stupid gesture to show they're as bomb-happy as the Republicans. Karl Rove always struck me as less smart and clever than merely being wiling to break rules, but there's one thing he has right: it can be a winning strategy to attack your opponent's strength. If the Democrats can't erode the Republicans' strength on national security, they can kiss 2010 goodbye, regardless of anything else.
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MyMy
December 31, 2009 6:52 PM in reply to Michael A
I most certainly agree! The Republicans are the 'guilty' party on national security, trading with the enemy, encouraging the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, Iran Contra--not to mention 9/11. What the right has always done, at least from McCarthy and the anti communist waves that hit the country after 1917, is make the claim that Americans on the left are internal enemies, and all the more pernicious if they are in government (remember the attacks on the State Department in the 1950s?). They 'win' by never actually having to go to war to prove their courage, they simply string up their opponents with a few falsifications and put themselves in power. Recently they've gone one better and started what they thought would remain 'phony wars' a la Grenada to show off their military might-- but Iraq was one big mistake, and it was their Waterloo with this strategy.
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Chris
December 31, 2009 3:06 PM
It would be the easiest thing to run on. Plus, it smacks Repubs right where they hate it most. The WH response yesterday to Cheney et. al, was superb if you ask me. That's exactly what Dems should be running on.
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mJJ
January 1, 2010 7:30 PM in reply to Chris
In most ways, I appreciate Bush more now than when he was President. As a Republican, I was often so embarrassed when Bush just opened his mouth. But his silence instead of always complaining about Obama is the classiest thing he has ever done. It is actually a great lesson in statesmanship and no doubt his best effort in that area. Of course if he could get his big mouth Vice-President to shut up, that would be a real accomplishment. Cheney is the world's first class motor-mouth and always shows how mean and hateful he is. Poor thing just seems to not be able to make good judgments.
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chimpale
December 31, 2009 3:19 PM
As I posted elsewhere:
Just for fun, go look up H.R.1 ("Implementing 9/11 Commission's Recommendations")from the 110th Congress, Jan. 2007.
It passed 299-128. No Democrat voted against it, but Hoekstra and Boehner did.
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kenga
January 2, 2010 10:25 AM in reply to chimpale
Glad I followed your recommendation.
No Democrat voted for it in the House OR Senate - not a single one.
The only opposition was from Republicans.
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runfastandwin
December 31, 2009 4:06 PM
Exactly, always go right to your enemy's perceived strength and hit hard. Once they are forced to defend what is perceived to be their strength, they have lost the argument.
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jdb316
December 31, 2009 4:26 PM
Interesting choice of tactics. My only concern is that, since it flies in the face of the prevailing political narrative, it's going to be a very hard sell. Many forget that one of the reasons the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry worked so well was that Democrats are perceived to be weak on national security and defense. If Kerry had been a Republican, those attacks likely wouldn't have stuck nearly as well as they did.
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Maritza
December 31, 2009 8:32 PM
Finally the Dems are hitting back.
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RhodaA
January 1, 2010 9:53 AM
ANOTHER GREAT ARTICLE ON SAME TOPIC from Daily Kos
Dems Use Karl Rove Tactics on the GOP
by DanK Is Back
“Without question, Karl Rove is the sleaziest, most despicable political operative of the generation. The litany of his corruptions of the American political process is so long, and so filthy, that I haven't the stomach (especially right now) to go into it.
But there is one trick from the Rove playbook that, properly applied, is not only honorable but extremely effective:
‘The intuitive way of attacking an opponent is to find his weakness and attack it. Karl Rove does the opposite: he finds his opponent’s strength and attacks it.’ BC Politics
And it works. The Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 is a classic example. Kerry decided to run on his record as a Vietnam war hero, in contrast to George W. Bush who spent the war AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard. Whether that was a workable strategy is both open to debate and irrelevant to this diary; the point is that the Swiftboaters seized on Kerry's strength and turned it into a weakness. They raised doubts, they made spurious claims about his awards, they mocked his heroism; in short, they made Kerry's honorable service and heroic actions useless as a campaign tool.
It didn't help that Kerry tried to rise above it and ignore it; that only made people think that if Kerry wouldn't defend his own record and his own honor, how could he be trusted to defend the honor of the country …”
OK, how can we honorably apply the Rove tactic in the 2010 elections? Simple: By attacking the Republicans on national security.
Continue reading:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/31/820970/-Dems-Use-Karl-Rove-Tactics-on-the-GOP
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Bloggin
January 1, 2010 10:59 AM
Dems are playing it smart. The GOP continues to offend the intelligence of the American public by consistently telling bold face lies. At this point their ineffective screaming and yelling has become 'noise'.
Understanding the only people following their message, is the tiny group of undereducated hate based fringe, right-wing extremists who would believe that the sun rises in the west if the GOP told them so, and promote their war against intelligence.
So instead of Democrats in power being seen as fighting in the mud with the GOP, they are letting the GOP further expose themselves as ineffective, childish, untrustworthy and hypocritical.
Very much like grade school children who love to watch other children fight, the news media that loves the conflict won't be able to help themselves, and will balance this out by constantly bring up the GOP hypocritical actions to keep the conflict going, even if the Dems don't jump in.
Letting the GOP conflict engine run free, they only provide more and more powerful ammunition for the Dems to use for the 2010 elections. It seems the more media time the repubs are able to obtain, the more they contradict themselves, react without thinking and provide actual footage available to the Dems to drive home the facts about the GOP.
We all know the repubs never came to the table to negotiate and work for the American people, but their only focus is their very desperate struggle for their own political survival.
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Silence
January 1, 2010 7:18 PM
"WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US capital paid prison inmates to shovel sidewalks, crosswalks and bus stops after the biggest December blizzard in the city's history, the Department of Corrections said Thursday.
Two work crews comprising some 20 prisoners convicted of minor offenses were deployed around the city December 18 and 19, along with two prison guards to watch over them, DOC spokesman Michon Parker told AFP.
Each inmate was paid 7.50 dollars per hour for their work, he added.
The December 18-19 snowstorm dumped 60 centimeters (24 inches) of snow on the city, the heaviest on record in the month of December.
The DOC did not say which Washington locations benefited from the snow shoveling service.
It said it was part of a rehabilitation program signed with city authorities in 2008 that pays inmates to clean buildings, remove trash and debris and mow grass."
No jobs for law abiding citizens. Nice.
/B lol
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RocketEngineer
January 2, 2010 5:15 PM in reply to Silence
The braying of a fascist jackass. Nice.
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jjdjjd
January 2, 2010 10:53 AM
in the end people vote their pocketbooks. if the economy improves the dems stay in power, if not it will get messy.
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