Democrats need to defend themselves from "personal attacks"...

[kentuck]

I saw two political ads this morning. One was against Bill Ritter, the Democrat running for Governor of Colorado. In it, the Republicans attacked him for "plea bargaining" and letting someone off with a "light" sentence. It was a typical Republican personal attack. It attacked the opponent as being unworthy or weak in some manner or another.

Another was a local political ad against John Morse, who is an ex-law enforcement officer from Fountain, Colorado running against a well-known local black Republican. The ad was almost identical. It attacked him being soft on criminals, etc....allowing criminals to "plea bargain"...

There must be some way for Democrats to defend themselves from these types of personal attacks without resorting to the same tactics. But, how do they do it? It's obvious this is going to be the Republican strategy for many elections this November - probably worse than in the past?

[Joanne98]

1. Dems need to start calling republicans Nazi. But they won't.

[Warpy]

2. That is counter productive

because it's still hyperbole.

Fascist fits, though, since the GOP has melded corporate power with government power and left we the people out in the cold and unprotected.

[Gregorian]

3. It's hard to build a house. It takes a match to destroy it.

There is nothing we can do unless we have an honest media and a truely just system of justice. We have neither. So there is nothing we can do.

Actually, it's not even that simple. We need honesty in education and history. Christopher Columbus discovered America, have you heard?

Otherwise we have an entire segment of our country running around without the facts. I talked to a friend yesterday who is still arguing that we're just seeing another form of natural ice age. And this fuckhead is an engineer!

Republicans are vandals.

[kentuck]

4. Nothing we can do??

Surely there is something??

[elehhhhna]

6. Yes there is. ATTACK THEM FIRST. With FACTS.

[Gregorian]

Nothing socially acceptable.

I made a couple of edits. Not that they changed my post.

But if there were anything we could have done, the last election would not have been so close.

Gore's speeches were on fire in 2000. But you'd never have known it. We have no voice. How does one communicate or even yell for help without it.

Of course there is something we can do. We're trying to figure out what it is, here.

[kentuck]

8. i noticed...

the changes.

Sometimes you have to make your own headlines.

[Gregorian]

9. I'm laughing. My ninja edit. Fear. FEAR!

This is the most obnoxious of times. We are so sick and tired of these total morons.

We are being vandalized and I really believe there is nothing we can do.

I think this is a very slow process. The truth will surface. But it may take many years. We cannot fight immoral behavior using immoral means. We become them.

We face an uphill battle. I don't have any answers. Noam Chomsky has all of the facts laid out. And there is the truth. But the vandals have hijacked the society.

I think the only thing we can do is to stay alert. I blame myself for where we are today. I dropped out when Reagan was elected. I woke up when Bush running in 2000. I knew he was the same creature who laughed at Carla Faye Tucker. That's all I needed to know.

[elehhhhna]

5. "He sucks more than I do" has ALWAYS been their tactic.

[dogday]

7. Democrats need to say that Republicans

can't argue on the issues that all Americans are concerned with so they sling anything they can find and try to make it stick.. Make the Republicans answer for their actions... We need to be on the offense and go after them for not talking about the issues....

[cyclezealot]

10. we've been through this before.

Swiftboating has been around for over a decade and it's news.

[Fleshdancer]

11. we have to remember that the attacks are going to get worse....

First, Republicans aren't very creative. If attack ads have worked for them in the past, then they'll just keep doing it over and over again. Even the attacks are boring and predictable but they don't realize how ridiculous it looks to whine that Democrats will spend too much, grow the government and won't protect Americans.

Second, Republicans are desperate. They have power, they have grossly abused this power and most Americans are sick of it. Republicans know their time is limited and they're scrambling to do whatever they can to maintain the current status quo. What more could we expect from a cornered animal?

I agree that Democratic candidates need to defend themselves. I really don't buy into the whole "don't respond because the attack is too beneath you" attitude I thought the Kerry campaign demonstrated with the ridiculous swift boaters. Yes, the attacks were beneath Kerry but they didn't stop and after a few months of hearing the same crap, people took it as fact. Just like people still believe Gore said he created the internet.

Bill Clinton showed us how it's done this morning and don't think for a second his comment was a spur of the moment response. My bet is that he prepared his words during the whole ABC fairy tale story fiasco and was waiting for the right moment to smack someone with it. After all, why talk to Fox News? How many times have you seen Bill Clinton on the Fox Sunday morning show over the past 6 years? That my friend, is how it's done because he not only defended his administration but now the Bush admin will be on the defensive for why they didn't search for OBL in the first 8 months of their existence. Beautiful.