No Risk, No Reward

We're off to Venice this afternoon for a three day holiday. Should be fantastic. But, before I go, I thought I'd put a little post up, especially since I'm in a holding pattern at work at the moment.

I've been reading a good bit about the scandals currently rocking the White House and threatening to expand into greater imbroglios. As I've mentioned before, the GOP is having to face tough music on a variety of fronts that they have little answer too. Regardless of your politics, this is all good news because corruption in any form should be challenged and defeated. And yeah, I know that a good public whipping right now won't exactly help the GOP, but it's cyclical. The Dems took their beating in the late 80's and early 90's and suffered politically because of their corrupt ways. Now should be the time for the GOP to get their comeuppance as it would be nice if the country could return to debate about actual issues instead of a debate about cronyism, election fraud, and security breaches.

However, that being said, the Valerie Plame/Karl Rove scandal appears to be on the cusp of indictments. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal is reporting that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald is widening his inquiry from simply the question of "who leaked what" to questions of conspiracy: Was there a conspiracy to "out" Plame conducted by the White House Iraq Group? Was there an organized coverup? These questions, and more, a likely to be answered in the near future.

What's interesting to me, however, is not the micro-debates about leaks and coverups. Sure, I'll take glee if Rove is ruined politically. The guy is the worst that politics has to offer and should have gone down years ago. But that's not what I'm really interested in. No, I'm interested in WMDs.

For a long time, the Democrats have predictably fumbled the WMD/War in Iraq issue. Kerry couldn't come up with anything better than, "I voted for the war, then I voted against it". The nuance of his approach was entirely irrelevant. Voters weren't going to discern the nuance even if they could hear it over the cacophony of propaganda offered by the GOP on that issue. No, Kerry's strategy, much like the overall Dem strategy on this issue, was like a fish flopping on the shore - desperately hopeless.

The strategy that should have been adopted is quite simple. The Dems voted for the War on the presumption that Bush was telling the truth about WMDs. He wasn't. They lied. There is tons of evidence that the administration was not forthright about the "evidence", that the facts were manipulated, and that there was a specific decision by the Bush Squad to go to war as early as June 2002. The Dems should have taken this too Bush and the GOP early and often, but not the way the Dems usually do things. They should have been aggressive.

Here's a simple way my strategy could have played out at the Presidential debates:

Question: Senator Kerry, how do you explain voting for the war, then voting against it?
Kerry: When the President requested the Senate's approval to use force in Iraq that was based on a set of intelligence information that we now know to be false. My support for the war, much like the American people's support, was based on the idea that the President was telling the truth, that Iraq had WMDs, and that the President was going to work through the United Nations process to attempt to coerce Saddam Hussein to allow weapons inspections. We now know that the President was less than forthcoming about everything that he knew about Iraq. We now know that Iraq never had any WMDs. We now know that the President and his team sold the American people a pack of lies about the Iraqi threat. So, if you're asking me how could I vote for a war and then against it, perhaps you could ask the President, "Where are Iraq's WMDs?" I'm sure the families of the soldiers sent home in bodybags would like answers to that question.

That's called OFFENSE. Not wishy-washy safe politics. In your face, aggressive, hard charging politics.

Here's another example. This one for a TV ad:

[Roll The Star Spangled Banner or something like that.]

Picture starts of American soldiers at attention, marching, etc. [Music fades]

Voice over by Kerry: "As an American, I'm proud of our young men and women in the armed forces. They make sacrifices to defend the freedom of our great nation and never ask for much in return."

[Music becomes saddening. Scene changes to various elements of tragedy: coffins, explosions, crying families - what have you.]

Kerry continues: "Unfortunately, President Bush doesn't have the same respect for the men and women of the Armed Services. Mr. Bush thinks it's ok to send our troops off to fight unnecessary wars. Mr. Bush thinks it's ok to fight wars without just cause. But I don't think that's right. I understand the sacrifices that men and women make in the Armed Forces. And as President I would never send American troops into battle without cause. I promise I'll never engage in a voluntary war."

[Shift to angry parents with lost loved ones.]

Kerry: "We want to know, where are the WMDs, Mr. Bush?"

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You get the idea. A whole series of ads could have been planned with people asking, "where are the WMDs Mr. Bush?" I've got dozens of ideas (and had them all last summer) but no one asked me (no surprise there).

OK - Here's the reason why they didn't do this: The Dems are paranoid of alienating the public. It's never about just this election. It's about the next and the next and the next. The people who run the party would rather win 49% this time and hope for 50.1% next time. They see small margins of victory or defeat and know they only have to win a few votes here and there to win the day. So, they get conservative.

I think a football analogy is best to defeat this reasoning, so bear with me. In the Super Bowl, in several games, and in last week's game, the New England Patriots have found themselves with the football, with about a minute left in the game, and the game tied. The conservative strategy would have been to run out the clock, go into overtime, and take your chances. Guess what? The Patriots have never done that. Instead, they charge down the field, get in range, kick the winning field goal, and march off with trophies and rings.

And here's the point: The Dems should do that too. The GOP swung for the fences in 1994 and secured a landslide victory. For the first time in a long time, they got organized and unified, got aggressive, and banished the Dems to minority status in the House for over a decade. They didn't get there by being conservative. Aggressive strategies work. More experienced people could tinker with my ideas and hit home runs. It just takes a bit of courage.

But wait, what about alienating the public? I say they're already alienated. People just aren't enthusiastic about politics. That's the way it is. When they see politicians, they see corrupt officials doing what they do - helping themselves and their friends. People loved Clinton partly because he didn't appear to be a part of that group. Instead, he wanted to get out there, meet the little guys of the world, and lend a helping hand. I think they like Bush for similar reasons. Most people, I believe, like to envision what it would be like to meet the President. They liked Reagan because they knew he would entertain, Clinton because he was good for a laugh, and Bush II because he's folksy and could talk about the weather. They didn't like Bush I because he was serious and had bad glasses. They didn't like John Kerry because not only did he look like Skeletor, but he also just didn't seem like the kind of guy you would want to hang out with. He had no discernible personality. But the Crusader would have worked. People liked the Entertainer, they liked the Womanizer, and they like Big Country. They could have latched onto the Crusader. And lets face it, people were looking for every reason to vote against Bush last November.

Anyway, philosophically, I believe you need offense and defense to win an election. The defense is a personality. The Crusader sure tops the Golem, so it would have been preferable. The offense would have been continually hammering home the message: Where are the WMDs? That's one from Karl Rove's handbook, sadly, the Democrats were either too blinded or too frightened to act. I guess there's always next time.

(As an aside, I don't believe in the "carry over" effect of Presidential elections. The public memory is short term at best. Even if Kerry had totally alienated the public, the Dems could have spinned that onto Kerry and the public would have bought it. And even if they didn't, they would have forgotten the intensity of alienation. There are dozens of other angles about this one too, but suffice it to say, paralysis because of fear of losing the next election has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever seen - including the guy who drank a beer with his glass perched on his prosthetic foot that he swiveled around to put near his face.)