Okay, Democratic Party, I'm fargin' tired of this. The Republicans are beating the crap out of us and you seem to be indifferent. You send out long emails refuting talking points with actual facts, which is good. It's a step up from before. But you've forgotten the one lesson the Republicans have relearned.
The best defense is a good offense.
I want you to get out there and scrap it up. The opposition has more outlets for their voices, and they love to shout. You don't need to out shout them, but you do need to be on the attack.
The opposition paints the healthcare reform bill as having "Death Panels" or "Pulling the plug on grandma" and you roll out "Well, you know, that's not really in there, what we're trying to do..." CLICK! Wrong Approach!
You come back with, "The Republican idea of control cost it to throw sick people out on the street to die. They don't even want a panel because that costs too much. Not insured? Toss. Immigrant? Toss. Don't speak english? Toss. That's their idea of reform." And once that's out there you can explain how insurance companies spend $.20 out of every healthcare dollar to deny claims, practice rescission when people get sick, and refuse to cover people with pre-existing conditions (which should have been said at the very beginning, but you all believed that the healthcare insurance companies really wanted change this time, suckers). Then if people are still listening you can start with, "End-of-life decisions are some of the hardest choices we'll make, that's why we want insurance companies to cover the costs of discussing this with your doctor. The Republicans would have you make those decisions without being able to discuss it with anybody."
You think that's disgusting? No, this is the disgusting part, I want you to roll out the body of Terri Schiavo and say "this is the Republican ideal of healthcare." She's the ghost elephant in the room. Pull out the coroners report, and then roll the Republican Leadership statements about how we need to keep her body going (including having the Republican Florida Legislature passing legislation that the Republican Governor wanted). And then say, "This is the Republican Ideal of Healthcare." And then finish with how much it cost to keep her body alive for all those years. Does it matter that it contradicts what we're saying in in the previous paragraph? Our opposition are getting seniors to agree that Medicare is a bad program, got worse when "Gov'ment" got involved, and also fearful that Congress is also going to cut it back. Does it sound like we're dealing with logic here?
The US Chamber of Commerce is going to sue the EPA over "this whole global warming hoax." And you come back with, "It's a frivolous suit"? No, you should come back with, "We shouldn't waste the tax-payors money to have a judge come to the same conclusion the majority of climate scientists already accept as settled fact."
They want to reinstate prayer in schools? Don't fire back with, "It's against the First Amendment," you say, "Republican's want you to leave your church and join their's. They want their church to be compulsory" (and note, you're saying "church" not "religion"). Then you can say, "Oh, BTW, it's also a violation of the first freedom."
When Republicans say "The government ruins everything they touch," you need to stand up in righteous indignation and say you "won't tolerate them besmirching the honor and service of all our fine men and women in uniform."
That's how you fight. The other side is not using logic or rational thought. They're using fear. Fear is not countered by facts or long arguments, fear is countered by anger (the two are closely related emotions). Get indignant. Get smart. Play the sound byte game better. And when the other side says, "they're just spouting sound-bytes" you counter with, "no, we're telling the truth" (just like they did).
Call them on using their bully pulpit of the media and their spokespeople of Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Hannity, and Rush.
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