Posted on 10/03/2008 8:24:16 PM PDT by markomalley
First, knock it off with the "corporations are evil" bit. Stop it. Just stop it. That stuff is for Progressives and Populists like Bill O'Reilly. I don't know if you really believe it, or if you think it plays up to the middle, but it's not helping the situation. Wall Street could not - would not - have done what it did if Congress had not first pursued bad policies and ideas that made the problem possible, then made it promising. Knock it off with the bipartisan foolishness. Congress is the prime mover here. It created this mess. The Media has been lying to you all these years. They don't care about you, and they only care about bipartisanship when it gives Progressives cover for stupid policies. Nobody cares. You care, maybe. But absolutely nobody else. Moreover, your base - which you desperately need - is not amenable to hearing you trash Capitalism. Not at all. If I wanted to hear a bunch of Mini-Me Communists rant about the evils of corporations, I'd go back to being a Progressive and I'd sign up for one of Bill Ayer's classes. Too many of us left that swamp too long ago for us to want to wade through an acre of the decaying filth of discredited ideas to come vote for you on the other side. So quit it. ++ Now, I just read this article from U.S. News. If this is the case, and you're doing it because it's what your strategy team advises, keep them on board, hire new people and listen to the new ones. Because your old ones are wrong. If this is your idea and it's why James Pethokoukis says it is, get a coach to fix it. Because you are going to lose. The article states that Every single one of these ideas is a mistake, and wrong to boot. Let's start from the top. The people will be informed one way or the other. They can be lied to - which is the intention of your opponent and his Mainstream Media arm - or they can be told the truth. But you're going to have to do it. The truth does not win out unless you make it win out. So, here it is; internalize it: THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM IN 5 EASY STEPS That's it. That's the whole story in a nutshell. I wrote that in 3 minutes off the top of my head. You can memorize it in 15. It's the structural framework of everything. Everything else is just a detail. Try it. Find a detail and you can almost always find a place in that structure to hang it on. And you can tell the American public to go online and look it up for themselves. They don't know. They don't even know to look because the Media is concealing it as best it can, and your opponent is flat-out, bald-faced lying about it. And I don't use the word "lie" lightly. Lesson: the problem wasn't deregulation, it was the wrong kind of regulation. The Democrats in their role of Philosopher Kings - built this golem. They nurtured it and coddled it and now that it's gone loose all over the countryside, they want to blame it on the rest of us. No. Do not let them do this or you will lose. And you will deserve to lose.
You want a military analogy? Here: Island-hop. Don't fight battles you can't win. Go right around them and starve them for resources. The simple fact: this is not about race, it's about fooling the poor into over-extending themselves, then taking pay-offs in Congress in political support and actual currency to keep the whole putrid affair running. Congress let them down, and it doesn't help anyone to pretend otherwise. If Obama wants to call this a race issue, call him on making it one - loudly and clearly, so that everyone else can hear it - and get back to the fact that it hurts poor people of every stripe: Caucasians, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Women... Everyone. YOU THINK IT'S MORE IMPORTANT TO TALK ABOUT TAXES, ENERGY AND HEALTHCARE No. It's not. Because if the economy goes south, the rest of this doesn't matter. If we let a Democrat control the White House and the Democrats control Congress, America will be on a spending Bacchanalia the likes of which it has never seen. The institutional problems at the heart of our economic unrest will not be fixed and this will happen again, likely as not when the bill for Social Security comes due, another foolish Progressive pyramid scheme nobody has the guts to face.
Now, if you think the economic crisis is hard to explain, then you haven't looked at the tax code lately. Moreover, if Obama and you go back and forth on his, nobody will know the difference. Nobody knows all the differences. Taxing, tariffs and the economic effects of bad legislation are such byzantine issues you cannot inform anyone of anything. They think the only taxes are income and corporate taxes. They don't realize that shifting interest rates and costs from one group of people to another or increasing inflation are also taxes. And you aren't going to educate them. Here are your talking points on taxes. "As a rule, the Republican party has always been for reduced taxes and reduced spending. We lost our way under Bush. But the thing to remember is that this is the Democrat's way. They love to take money out of people's purses and spend it. It's what they do. Traditionally, they were tax-and-spend. Even if you can believe that net balance of all taxes under Obama will fall - not just income taxes as he is trying to lead you to believe, but the net balance of all your taxes - Democrats will only have changed to less-tax-and-more-spend. Their complaints about Bush are that we are in a deficit. They have no complaints about the taxing or spending other than that we're not doing enough of it. That's not the Change America has been Hoping for or needs." That's it. That's all you need to say about taxes. If you want to provide details, send them to the website or give up a detail. Stick to the narrative and move on to more important problems. ++ Here are your talking points on energy. "Let's face it. Like all Progressives, Barack Obama has an ideological dislike for the Petroleum Industry. (Did you get that? Petroleum Industry. NOT oil.) He even said once that he has no problem with the kind of high gas prices that disproportionately hurt the poor and working Americans. He'd rather have China, Russia and other less-than-ideal partners supply us with oil than have America produce more. And that's dangerous. I, John McCain, am all for alternative energies, and my plan supports them. All of them. Oil, gas, coal, hydroelectric, solar, wind, tide, nuclear. But unlike my opponent, I want to make sure that we don't crowd out new technologies. Government isn't as smart as my opponent thinks he and it is. So we want to make sure that innovations we haven't thought about have room to grow." Learn it. ++ On healthcare. The simple fact is that you cannot out socialize Barack Obama. He's to the left of Congress' only Socialist. So if they zig, you're going to need to zag. You need to differentiate in the public's mind, and counter with a proposition that sells to both their worries and their values. Here are your talking points on healthcare. "The biggest cause of the economic meltdown wasn't the market. It was the government. Now they want to take control of your health. The free market brought us tens of thousands of new drugs that save lives. It brought us the MRI. It brought so many innovations that the rest of the world - including Europe and Canada relies on us to do most of it's R + D. Right now people from Canada and Europe flock to America for treatments. Socializing healthcare - which is what the Democrats and Mr. Obama want - will ensure that the system stagnates. Again, the problems we have aren't from deregulation. They're from bad regulation. You all know that government rarely solves one problem without creating at least one new one. Our problems are mostly financial. Our solutions should deal with finding smart market solutions to rising costs for Americans today, while keeping innovation alive in America so that our children don't just have healthcare, they have better healthcare than we could have imagined at lower cost. That's what America does. And that's why the world depends on us to make healthcare and healthcare innovations available to it." Attack. Attack, attack, attack. But do us all a favor. Point the gun at them, not us. We're tired of friendly fire, Mr. McCain. We're sick of having our own party shoot us in the foot.
THERE IS A RACIAL COMPONENT TO THIS ISSUE
Who cares? There's a racial component to this entire election. And you are not going to fix it, change it or alter it. It's there and you can do nothing about it. Nothing. You lost that hill the moment the Democrats went from Hillary to Hopey-Changiness. Go right around it. Americans are already being called racists for not supporting a man who chose race for himself, so there is no tangible evidence you will lose anything by telling the truth. The people who were already preferring race over substance and the facts already cast their vote months ago. You are not ever going to get them back. Ever.
++
Palin did say on Thursday, nor has McCain said, that “corporations are evil.” You cannot find that anyplace.
They have said that the corporations and individuals behind the bailout fiasco are corrupt. Since they are speaking in terms of ethics, morals, and legalities, then it’s fair to say that those corrupt corporations are evil.
They are.
They have robbed millions of people with their gambling, ponzi scheme.
And what about bringing BACK on the table foreign policy/energy issues and HIGHLIGHTING the strong links between foreign policy AND economy...
Sensible people(including sensible conservatives)should recognize that McCAIN have had a very nice idea with his LEAGUE OF DEMOCRACIES...This original and good idea should be emphasized and it would make a clear difference with OUSSABAMA meanwhile it could have also a big economical impact(Democracies MUST protect their economies from countries which are not respecting the rules)...
I like the article.
One suggestion, “THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM” needs talking points. The 5 steps is too long to be a sound bite.
Hi - I was doing some thinking which I hope is from God and had some advice to Mr. McCain.
This is also addressed to Christians wary about the breakdown of his first marriage.
Your biggest failure is _not_ the failure your first marriage to Carol Shepp. The spirit behind your admission is admirable - it shows that you are frank and your heart is in the right place - but it is misplaced.
According to Jesus in the Bible (Mark 10:12), your first marriage was wrong because your first wife had divorced _her_ first husband, Alasdair E. Swanson, your classmate in the Naval Academy. See Mark 10:12 (KJV): “And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.”
So by a strange sequence of events, your latter marriage, not your former one, is acceptable to God according to His word.
Dr. Seussian junk tower — LOL!
bookmark
Amos gets it. So many others get it. Sarah Palin seems to get it. And yet, John McCain seems to be hell bent on electing 0bama and telling us how he reaches across the isle to work with the dims, the same dims who gave us the mess we’re in. If he is going to reach across the isle, then it should be to slap the sub humans, not work with them! About the republican primary election, can we have a do over? I nominate Sarah Palin.
Doesn’t McCain’s daughter have a blog? Get it to her and ask her to give it to her dad.
This is too good to let it go un-used.
Thanks for all you’ve done already.
DAMN! “BEST THREAD OF THE ELECTION YEAR” AWARD GOES TO.....!!
If only it were implemented.
ALL OF US should copy & paste this article in the comment field on McCain-Palin’s website,send it to him,then mass-email it to everyone you know who-and,yes,i’m serious here-may not visit FreeRepublic fequently enough to see it.
Email McCain en masse until the mailbox crashes. Send it to his daughter’s blog. FULL FRONTAL ASSAULT is called for here!
The contact form for McCain's web site is here. The comment box looks small so I don't know if the whole article could be sent, but a link to the article and a few bullet points should fit.
The comment box looks small so I don’t know if the whole article could be sent
I did it...it went through.
Thanks for the link to Meghan’s blog.
Good! I sent the link and some bullet points from the article and a few personal comments. I hope it helps the campaign.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.