http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6588489Oh my.
I didn't know that; that there's no similarities between the Democrats in 2008 and in 1988.
RoyGBiv Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-05-08 04:30 AM
Original message
Obama is not Dukakis
This is a re-post of a comment I made in another thread that a couple people suggest I offer as an original post, so I'm doing so. I would like to preface it with a few more words.
I'm starting to see this comparison of Obama to Dukakis in the manner they are running their campaigns a lot. I think reasons for this exist out of our view and that some of us are responding to it out of a sense of dread that we're going to see a repeat of 2000 and 2004, that we are in danger of becoming self-defeating because we just don't think we deserve to win. After all, if our candidate won't fight, why should we?
I submit this is precisely what the opposition wants to happen -- they want us to stop believing, to stop seeing how our candidate is fighting by blinding us with withering racism and outright lunacy that simply screams for an equally venomous response. That's what they've always wanted to happen, for us to lose hope. That's why they mock it. They know, clearly, that Democratic candidates rely on heavy turnout, and heavy turnout requires inspiration. Voter apathy is an even bigger danger to this nation than election fraud. (We've always had election fraud. We have not always had apathy.)
I ask, simply, that those of you who truly are concerned and who are not terminally self-defeating think clearly of the comparison being made, understand that the thrust of Obama's message is that "change" is about "us," not him, and that is we who must work hard to elect him President and have any hope of beginning to turn this country away from the course it has followed for far too long.
Regarding Dukakis's Presidential Campaign:
I was heavily involved in that campaign, and the "concern" then was not that Dukakis wasn't fighting back but that all he was doing was responding to criticism and not working on his own message. Further, his defensive maneuvers were horribly mismanaged, hastily put together, and in the end opened Dukakis up to more and more criticism. This later morphed (or merged really) into Dukakis sitting on his hands and doing nothing, which is precisely the opposite of what he did. His problem was that he played all-defense, all the time and did so extremely poorly.
Examples:
The fabled "tank incident" was a response to a criticism of Dukakis being soft on defense, not ready to be commander-in-chief. So, some genius thought up making him look like Snoopy while riding around on a tank. The campaign at the time, somehow, saw this as imagery that would paint Dukakis as a tough guy who was going to run that tank straight down Bush's throat. Well, we all know how that turned out.
Taxachusetts: An early front for the war of words, going back to the primaries even, was Dukakis and taxes. George Bush came out with his "read my lips" bullshit and hammered away at Dukakis's record on raising taxes as governor. The facts of the matter didn't support the assault at all, but never mind that. Dukakis went on the offensive, claiming there were good reasons for the tax increases he signed and suggesting that Bush would find the need to raise certain taxes as well. (He was right, but that was a piss poor way of putting it.)
Sewage Bay: In an attempt to attack Bush where Dukakis thought he was weakest was on the environment, so he went all-out ... and then had to turn around and wither under the assault by the Bush team that point out how polluted the water in Dukakis's own state was.
The Horton Ad: The way Dukakis responded to this was inexplicable. He defended it, then he turned around and went all intellectual and claimed he wouldn't want someone who killed his wife to be executed. Yeah, it was a bullshit question that had no "right" answer, but there were better ways to do damage control, and even once he'd given the answer he did, there were better ways to address it later.
The point here is not to suggest that Obama is in full-on attack mode himself nor that Dukakis ran even a competent campaign (he didn't), rather to highlight the problems with fighting back the way so many seem to want Obama to do. Every last one of these attacks on him are being offered by people who know what they're doing and know well the damage they can cause. That's why all the "concern" is out there, right? If the ads were so ineffectual, no one would care, but they aren't ineffectual. They're pulling Obama down a bit.
The problem, though, is that the manner in which Obama returns fire must be carefully considered, not shot off the hip. Dukakis walked around with his gun on his hip, never took aim, and shot himself in the foot more often than not. Meanwhile, while Dukakis spent all his time responding to attacks, the Bush team defined the campaign entirely. All of the assaults on Dukakis were traps, and all of the assaults on Obama are traps, some of them so intricately woven traps that he will not be able to devise a way to get out of them completely. But, he can minimize their damage by not addressing them the way his opponents want him to.
franksolich remains, uh, highly skeptical.
Anyway, it's a big bonfire, the Obamaite primitives frothing at any suggestion Barry "Goldwater" Obama is less than perfect.
dkf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-05-08 05:16 AM
Response to Reply #4
8. People don't vote on the rational. They vote on the emotional.
Sad but true.
Hmmmm......oh, never mind.
BlooInBloo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Tue Aug-05-08 07:16 AM
Response to Original message
17. It's only Clinton supporters who think/hope he is. No worries.
