Backstage w/Supak: organic, progressive, environmentalist

Republican Strategy: avoid the issues and lie about the other guy

Here's part of a letter to one of my union "brothers" who voted for Bush. We've been going at it for a few days now, and he still refuses to talk issues. I think that pretty much sums up the Republican campaign tactic. Lie about the other guy, and don't talk issues.

The really sad thing here is that you, like many Americans, vote against your economic interests. For instance, on election day, the Republican party paid for a phone message where a woman acted like she was from the Democrats and she was saying please get out and vote for Kerry so we can make gay marriage legal. Now how can voters make an informed choice when the Republicans lie like that? How can a voter like you, who's lost his health care, choose a candidate when one side lies? Republicans sent out a mailer claiming Kerry wanted to ban the Bible! How can a voter choose between candidates when one side lies like that, and refuses to debate the real issues.

On health care, Bush said he's making it more affordable. That's a lie. But people like you are convinced for some reason that Kerry wanted to take your guns (a lie), make gay marriage legal (a lie), raise taxes on the middle class (a lie), and give veto power to the world on our security (a lie). How on earth can we have a fair election, based on issues, when Republicans have to lie like that to get elected? How can we ever expect working people like you to vote for someone who cares about them, when the people who want to screw you lie to you and you believe it?

The one thing that really pissed some people off is me saying, hey, anger works for them, let's try it! Coulter has suggested killing liberals. So, I had a better argument. I said I hoped that Bush voters got cancer.

I hope that anyone who voted for Bush, who thinks that stopping assisted suicide and medicinal marijuana are good ideas, should have to die of cancer in pain without pot or the option of going peacefully... George Bush actually had cancer patients at medicinal marijuana clubs arrested. What do you think should be the Karma Bush should receive for that kind of sick behavior? You call me sick for wishing on Republicans that which they wish upon the sick and helpless? Please! I'm only hoping that they get to see, before they die, how horrible the situation they put others in actually is.

I think doing hate is bad, but they do it and it works for them. So, I think at least some of us on the left should do it, provided we always do it better than them. I really hate people that would wish such pain and suffering on people. I don't want to wish it on anyone. That's the point. I think people dying of cancer, or any horrible disease, should have the right to kill themselves peacefully with a doctor's help, without having their insurance not pay out because it was a suicide instead of a horrible death from the disease. They should be able to use marijuana as a medicine. But when there are people who support Bush and Ashcroft for stopping assisted suicide and smoking pot as medicine, I think it would be fitting that those people have to suffer that which they have caused others to suffer. Eye for an eye, right?

Stem cells, for example. I hope that every person who thinks that using a clump of cells to cure horrible diseases is killing babies gets one of those diseases themselves. That would be fitting, wouldn't it? I wonder how GW Bush would feel about stem cell research if he was stuck in a wheel chair, or if he had Parkinson's. I wonder how George Bush would feel about smoking pot after Chemo.

Just one thought on the future of the Democratic Party. We need to seriously look at straight-talkers like Howard Dean. We need to, as Dean did, give up a wedge issue they beat us on: Guns. Take the Dean position on Guns. Then you can hold Wisconsin and win Ohio. We need a guy who will point out the lies from the other side. Come right out and say, hey, that's a lie. Al Franken does this beautifully. Don't be afraid of it. Paul Wellstone had conservatives vote for him. We should study how he did it. Arianna has a good point today about swinging for the fences with a big, detailed plan. Senator Schumer from New York said that too, on the Daily Show. But that won't even work when the other side lies about you and gets away with it. If the press won't call Republicans for lying, then our candidate should. That'll make the news!