Below is something a blowhard with my name and my face and my keystrokes mused about in May.

It occurs to me as I watch the nonstop cable coverage that as smart as we all are, we are still so dumb.

Why do we do this to ourselves, election after election?

The tactics of Rove, as deplorable as they are, work because they have no morality to them.

Sometimes you write something based on assumptions. You know what happens then? It makes an ass out of you and umption. Yesterday the Dog wrote a dairy (well the typist wrote it, I just spoke it) talking about breaking Repug frames, specifically on taxes. Unfortunately the thread got hung up on policy, which is not a bad thing of itself, but it is really not what the diary was promoting. So, the Dog thought (what the Dog thinks?!? Who knew?) that before trying to lay out more frame breaking talking points, it might be worthwhile to talk about the actually tactics and strategy that should be used to do this.

For most people saying the word "blitzkrieg" conjures up WWII and the german sweep of Europe. The term itself means lightning war and was adopted by the U.S. after WWII. If war is politics by other means then it could be said that politics is war by other means and for Obama, this week has been a definite blitzkrieg.

How so? Follow over the fold.

In an astute and dead-on editorial posted at Huffington Post, Paul Jenkins precisely nails the traditional Republican meme and the media for resorting to old negative political plays against the success of Obama.

McCain's lack of enthusiasm by his base and generally the American voters, the game plan to spin Obama's popularity into a negative seems to be the tactic du jour.

Progressives need to engage directly the argument that John McCain has some kind of "experience" that somehow outweighs Senator Obama's.  This is the only argument he has that seems to have much traction outside the narrow world of the Republican faithful and the Republican Party's corporate sponsors.

Fortunately, it's easy to do.

TO:  ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN
RE:  HOW TO HELP US ELECT JOHN MCCAIN

As the weeks have turned into months, and the election draws ever nearer, it has become all-too-apparent what strategy the Republicans will be using this election cycle.

They can't run on their own policies: their policies have been the ones that have taken this country perilously close to the cliff's edge.

They can't run on their track record: see above.

The only tactic they have left is to throw enough shit to see what sticks.

However, they can't do it out in the open. The word 'Republican' has become as unsellable as a Ford Pinto (or in today's economic climate, a Hummer). So the Conservatives and Libertarians and Republicans (whatever they're calling themselves nowadays) are going to the shadows. They have to pretend to be Independents and Liberals and Progressives, and then throw their shit in a passive aggressive manner.

And that, gentle readers, is Concern Trolling. How do you spot it and combat it? More, below the fold.

This is the technology age and a technology election.
Youtube is not John McCain's friend.
Nor is the actual record of McCain.

I want to float something so obvious that it is probably already in place.
Even the existence of the remotest possibility that this isn't in place makes me want to put the thought out here.

From the gaseous bowels of the deepest swamp arises the grim visage of the Legion of Doom headquarters! Into the night sky it climbs, lit only by the moon, and the eerie, ever-present glow of pure, unadulterated evil.

"All of you, failures!" Screamed Lex Luthor from his towering chair, perched menacingly at the very mouth of madness. "For years we have struggled, for years we have failed! And now, out of freaking no where -- no where! -- comes this - this, this JUNIOR SENATOR FROM FREAKING ILLINOIS! I mean, c'mon! Solomon, you've taken a punch from Superman, why is it that you can't crush this guy?!"

Solomon shrugged, looking at his enormous toes in anguish.

"And you, Braniac! What's the deal? Your CPU out of gas today or what?"

"His 50 state strategy does not compute," replied the sinister sentient.

"Well -- honestly, I'm out of ideas. I've... I've never been stumped before today. This is a first. Take a picture, Scarecrow -- come on, let's all get together and take a picture, in memorial of the day we failed."

Suddenly, from the deepest, darkest crevice in the void that is the gnarly room of doom, a soft, crackling voice resounded...

I interviewed (YouTube) the Freeway Blogger today after videoing him posting antiwar signs on San Francisco freeway overpasses. He posted over 6,000 such signs and has thus gotten the message out to millions of drivers.

In the interview, in addition to giving useful tips about how to make the signs, he discusses the Left in general. We organize too much and do to little, he says, something most of us have no doubt thought after yet another interminable meeting.

There's six idiots like O'Reilly out there, he says, and they can reach 50 million. So we of the Left need to find ways to reach that many people too. Freedom of Speech may be all we have left.

Well, it looks like the battle Reid has decided to choose is over stripping amnesty out of the main PAA bill or leaving it in.  So be it.

Now, how should the Senate Democrats (led by Reid, Obama, and Clinton perhaps?) avoid getting Rick-rolled by their GOP comrades on this particular one?

A simple tit-for-tat game ...

BarbinMD has posted on what he perceives to be the McCain campaign’s hypocrisy on the issue of his age: BarbinMD is shocked, shocked that the campaign objects to our mentioning McCain's age while they don't mind it if he himself does. But they are not being hypocritical; we are. First of all, this community has a rich history of not just mentioning McCain's age, but mocking it - his and Fred "Grandpa" Thompson's. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous. Even BarbinMD's first line, which describes McCain's campaign as "cantankerous" - the ageist equivalent of "uppity" - is mocking.

While doing the daily business of my grinding, thankless job, I noticed two guys I worked with having an animated discussion and ducked myself into it.

The subject, of course, was Barack Obama and why my "perfect example of an American" friend did not want him in office.

First of all, he just doesn't think a black guy should win.

(Cross-posted at http://metasailor.blogspot.com/)

The end of her campaign also means the beginning of GOP divide-and-conquer ops. Not at all surprising, but still interesting to see. If this email is genuine, of course.

From Wikileaks.org :

McCain's Plans to Wrest Clinton supporters from Obama

MEMORANDUM

To: *******

From: S. Schmidt

Date: May 15, 2008

Subject: Clinton Strategy

...the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly polarized along certain segments of its base...[There is a] growing bitterness between certain supporters of Clinton and the Obama camp in general...

I keep reading people writing that making fun of McCain's teeth is immoral.

It may very well be unwise.  It may make us look worse than any damage it does to him.  However, we have to put most moral considerations aside.

We need to concentrate on winning, as winning is so important for the nation.

The only two moral considerations we should pay attention to is, "Is it a lie?" (We shouldn't post lies) and "Is it legal?" which more has to do with tactics than posts, but could be applied in a few cases to posts, or posts advocating illegal tactics.

"If you want peace, understand war."
B. H. Liddell Hart

Once a Marine always a Marine and Scott Ritter trained as a Marine.  Now he wants to apply that training to the peace movement.  He  is not content to write books and make speeches and then go home with a moral victory.  He wants to win.  He wants a real antiwar movement that can stop the Iraq War and prevent an Iran War from happening.

To do that, he believes the antiwar movement, the peace movement, the social justice movement must be organized, unified, and able to project political power from a core set of beliefs.  Ritter believes those beliefs should be the Constitution which he took an oath to uphold.  He would like to replace the flag lapel pin with a pocket copy of the Constitution and counter "Gods, Guns, and Gays" with "Freedom and Justice for All" plus the rest of the Bill of Rights.  He wants the people who march on Washington to go far beyond a Sunday demo and Monday lobbying.

Waging Peace:  The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement by Scott Ritter
NY:  Nation Books, 2007
ISBN-13:  978-1-56858-328-0

bruisedmuse on outrages of tactics vs. policy