The over-the-top NARAL anti-Robert’s ad unleashed a firestorm among the left.
Kos expressed disgust with “single issue organization” and claims that those like NARAL "with the insistence that their issue be ... the most important issue on the face of the planet. That is what's killing us." <salon>
"Until NARAL (and the rest of the single-issue groups) understand that building a movement is more beneficial to their causes than singular devotion to their pet causes, I can't take them seriously," he wrote on Aug. 9, the day after NARAL released its ad.
The comeback - Salon
Wow – now it’s the single-issue organizations that are to blame for Democratic electoral losses. (Almost makes me long for the four years when the Greens/Nader 2000 voters were responsible for the demise of the Democratic Party.) When I look across the aisle I see lots of single-issue organizations that boost the fortunes of the GOP. The NRA is the one of their grand-daddies and they’ve been ruthless in running ads and pushing voters to the GOP for decades. The SBV was not only single-issue, but single purpose – and they ran ads that were over the top, claiming that somehow the Navy awarded medals to John Kerry that he didn’t deserve. Didn’t see those Republicans running from them, now did we? And Dobson and Robertson aren’t over the top? GMAFB.
Here’s the difference. The GOP doesn’t run from their single-issue organizations. At most they offer a delayed mild criticism. Robertson says on TV that Chavez should be assassinated and they treat is as if Robertson had burped. They know that for the most part that their single-issue spokespeople energize their single-issue voters and nobody else pays much attention to them. They don’t sweat the details.
Democrats fret and worry, are afraid of their own freaking shadow. Afraid that the Party will be tarnished forever by one ad, one statement, one movie if they don’t get out there and join the rightwing chorus and condemn the offending party. IOW, they look like wimps. And then wonder why the public views them as weak.
The most effective political ad ever was what became known as The Daisy Ad. Few people saw it before it was pulled. It was too honest. Yes, Goldwater and many in the GOP back then thought nukes should be used more frequently and it was correct to call them on this. The most effective political ad in 2000 was the NAACP Byrd ad. How much did that ad motivate African-Americans to show up enthusiastically to vote for Gore? Fortunately, they tuned out all the fretting among Democrats over this and let it run. Like the Daisy ad, it was over-the-top but honest. I didn’t see the NARAL anti-Roberts ad, and will accept that it was over-the-top. But was it dishonest? I can’t imagine how it feels to go to a women’s health center and be confronted by belligerent anti-abortion protestors. To be personally confronted and called names. For all I know the experience may feel like being bombed. Should they have run an ad with a young woman being accosted and called “whore” or “murderer?” Wasn’t that what Robert’s argued was acceptable? Isn’t it the true that those who go on to bomb women’s clinics and murder doctors that perform abortions were affiliated with anti-abortion groups? Groups that suggest stopping abortions by any means possible is acceptable? Maybe NARAL did go too far over-the-top, but if they did, the reaction from Democrats to it was even more extreme and unnecessary.
Dean is muzzled by these same Democratic wimps. Durbin is forced to apologize for a factually correct statement. And I have to listen to Dianne Feinstein praise Condi Rice, Salazar praise Abu Gonzales, Biden – oh, just about everything that comes out of his mouth. Clark gets praised for saying the he knows how to win the war in Iraq when any rational person knows that it’s lost and perceptive people like Billmon knew that it was lost before it began. Schumer tells us that henceforth the Party will not criticize one another – translation, no criticism of DINOs, but hunting season is still open on the left.
Kos “doesn’t take seriously” organizations that have been fighting for rights since before he was born and takes it upon himself to dismiss those who may have been hippies and anti-war protestors decades ago. Kos isn’t “anti-war” only against the Iraq War. What does he think “anti-war” meant thirty odd years ago? It was shorthand for against the Vietnam War – pacifists were among that group but hardly formed a majority in the movement. Some days it’s insulting to be lectured to by thirtysomethings who didn’t experience the events under discussion and have only a superficial knowledge of them. Who cavalierly suggest that supporting a DINO that in very important ways not only doesn’t represent you but would join the GOP to pass legislation that you oppose.
While not strictly single issue, unions were for decades loyal to the Democratic Party. Manning GOTV and funding campaigns. What did they get for this loyalty? NAFTA, CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill? What have Democrats done lately for poor women and children? “Welfare reform” – now there’s something to be proud of. And what about African-Americans? We can’t even be bothered insure that they can cast their ballots and have those ballots counted. Since when is democracy first about Party loyalty?
The GOP bullies that we saw in the Miami-Dade election office in the FL 2000 post election period is the image I get when I think rightwingers. For them it’s all about winning – they don’t care how they do it and what it means – winning is everything. They are more than enough to have to deal for those on the left who had to fight for our rights (or gained them through the efforts of their mothers, fathers, grandmothers, et. al). We don’t need more of that from those on our side of the aisle that are perfectly willing to sell out or subordinate our legal and legitimate rights in a misguided formulation of what it takes to win an election. Who dismiss us as inferior to the boys in the club. Particularly offensive are the gay men who show up to tell us that abortion is “icky.” We don’t concern ourselves with what you do with your bodies – only your right to fair and equal treatment under the law and personal privacy – so leave our bodies alone. If you want to bully anyone, there are more than enough GOP bullies for you to tangle with. IOW, and to borrow from Jeneane Garafalo, stop being dickheads (and wimps).