Monday, January 2, 2012

Lessons for Liberals from Iowa

Newt Gingrich was flying high a couple of weeks ago. Now, well, not so much.

What happened?

Negative advertising -- that was not responded to because Newt was 'above the fray'.

Does this sound familiar?

The Conservatives watch America very closely. Whoever is our next Leader will be attacked hard -- we cannot afford to sit back. We have to respond.

And this time we have to attack them.

Remember the old Reform Commercial with a dump truck of taxpayer money? It was a rough attack but, well, the Conservatives have taken on all the worst attributes of a Party in power -- all those attack ads apply to them and double!!!

Gingrich Says He Is Unlikely to Win Iowa Caucus - NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/uIwxLr

3 comments:

WesternGrit said...

James, I've been crying out for that for years. The so-called "high road" never led anyone anywhere. What you have to do is tell everyone - constantly - that the other person is in the gutter, and is not taking the "high road", while you constantly slam them. As long as you cover this with enough advertising you will succeed. When you stop doing this, you fail.

We need to ensure we have enough funds to cover the advertising campaign it will take to slam Harper hard.

AT THE VERY LEAST what we need to achieve is the weakening of the Harper Party enough that they are a minority. Once that is set in place, we need to constitutionalize laws that place VERY tight spending caps on elections and off-election advertising.

Right now, we are at a distinct disadvantage to the issue-driven ideologues on the right. The "center" needs to embrace some issues strongly - and hope we have the demographics/constituency that supports those issues, which has the financial means to support us. Seniors, working women, immigrant entrepreneurs, are good examples. The left on the other side of us will also generate finances to do battle, and being issue driven, they can do well. Thing is, the left has always been representative of the "less-monied" in society.

We have a ability to cultivate loyalty from particular "monied" groups in society, and should work at that: professionals of all sorts - particularly in healthcare, teaching/college, research, etc.; small business people (we need to force a wedge between the right wing and small business - need to reassert our ties with that group); women's groups; minority professional associations and business owners; small farmers and organic farmers;

Once we have the money, we can crank up the ads... And DON'T save them for the writ...

One more thing: Make sure we keep putting out there how much we HATE all the political advertising, and how the public is getting sick of it. Start cultivating the hatred of the whole "year round campaign", and become the champion of the public on this issue.

WesternGrit said...

James, I've been crying out for that for years. The so-called "high road" never led anyone anywhere. What you have to do is tell everyone - constantly - that the other person is in the gutter, and is not taking the "high road", while you constantly slam them. As long as you cover this with enough advertising you will succeed. When you stop doing this, you fail.

We need to ensure we have enough funds to cover the advertising campaign it will take to slam Harper hard.

AT THE VERY LEAST what we need to achieve is the weakening of the Harper Party enough that they are a minority. Once that is set in place, we need to constitutionalize laws that place VERY tight spending caps on elections and off-election advertising.

Right now, we are at a distinct disadvantage to the issue-driven ideologues on the right. The "center" needs to embrace some issues strongly - and hope we have the demographics/constituency that supports those issues, which has the financial means to support us. Seniors, working women, immigrant entrepreneurs, are good examples. The left on the other side of us will also generate finances to do battle, and being issue driven, they can do well. Thing is, the left has always been representative of the "less-monied" in society.

We have a ability to cultivate loyalty from particular "monied" groups in society, and should work at that: professionals of all sorts - particularly in healthcare, teaching/college, research, etc.; small business people (we need to force a wedge between the right wing and small business - need to reassert our ties with that group); women's groups; minority professional associations and business owners; small farmers and organic farmers;

Once we have the money, we can crank up the ads... And DON'T save them for the writ...

One more thing: Make sure we keep putting out there how much we HATE all the political advertising, and how the public is getting sick of it. Start cultivating the hatred of the whole "year round campaign", and become the champion of the public on this issue.

Anonymous said...

Canadians hate Americans.

Canadians are jealous of American politics.

Canadians are a mentally retarded bunch.