Your post makes a very good point.
There is an old Doonsbury cartoon where Duke asks somebody in the NRA whether they are very busy over some proposed bill or other. The guy says, "Not really. It's pretty much a given that the NRA is unbeatable so nobody really tries anymore." Duke says, "At last, the perfect lobby!"
I think it's sort of that way with the Pubbies and the media. They don't even bother trying to get their message out anymore because the MSM will just twist it.
Maybe if more people like us wrote more letters to the editer, and the papers published them...
On the other hand, I've done a fair job of slamming my imaginary opponents in an imaginary debate during an imaginary run for office using techniques such as...
Oh, and I suppose your great idea for stopping terrorism would have been to apologize to Al Quaeda and drop the embargo against Iraq so Saddam Hussein could have even more money to build torture chambers with. You're supposed to be the party of the oppressed. What do you say to the formerly oppressed people in Iraq, the ones who used to see their wives and daughters taken away to rape rooms, the ones who used to see their loved ones fed feet-first into meat shredders, the ones who can't even visit the graves of their loved ones because their whole town was gassed and the bodies dumped into mass graves? What do you say besides, "I'm sorry we invaded your country and deposed the monster who made your daily life a horror?"
<Add a little righteous indignation here.> When I was young I was taught right from wrong. Maybe we can debate about abortion, maybe we can debate about homosexual marriage, but I sure hope you would not debate with me that using wholesale rape and torture to subjugate the innocent Iraqi people was an evil that had to be stopped. And if you would, I hope the people watching this debate right now would know better than to ever let you hold public office. Shalom.
As for your example, two problems. One, relentlessly negative scary does not work, people tune it out. You can't say we are doing everything because the enemy is so incredibly evil etc. You can refer to it, you can't harp on it. Two, American republican hawks are not the spokesmen for this stuff. Don't pretend to speak for Iraqis, put actual living breathing unhypothetical Iraqis in front of microphones.
It is easy as pie for a commie-lib to slander a republican hawk. It is another thing entirely to slander an Iraqi politician working for his country's freedom who explains how his sister was murdered by their friends last week because she tried to buy bread in the market one fine summer morning. Followed up with graditude to protectors and indignation at defeatists who want to turn him over to the murderers. Point blank, in their face, 24/7, "you want to kill me, you haven't the right to say these things" etc.