I think we can neutralize impeachment as a weapon against Democrats in 2008 by starting to use it as a weapon against Republicans right now.
Imagine a set of 30 second ad spots that all follow the same formula: known leaders of GOP condemning "the president" for "lying to congress", "lying to the american people", and mentioning "need for impeachment."
These ads run without context, without mention of Clinton, just totally blind. Last second is a splash screen with a "paid for by 527".
Could we create a 527 and run ads like this? It's way expensive, but maybe there are big donors out there...
This will infuriate the GOP, Fox, Democratic consultants, and the entire establishment. And it is fairly blatantly abusing the quotes about Clinton to mislead the viewer.
But suddenly the debate shifts.
The "victims" go on Sunday talk and condemn the ads. But by doing that, they are actively talking about impeachment.
And this naturally leads to discussion about "why was Clinton's crime worthy and not Bush?" With the public already at high support for impeachment, more exposure will drive numbers higher. And it gets very sticky for those GOP leaders to walk the fine line.
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Where did this idea come from?
The public has a fairly high support level for impeachment 45% for Bush and 55% for Cheney. But the Democratic leadership and elected officials are building up talking points against impeachment as quickly as they can.
But why?
In dday's diary, Consultant X mentioned statements about impeachment being used in 2008 ads. Can't we (the pro-impeachment portion of the netroots) neutralize this by attacking on impeachment now?
PS. Before reading dday's diary, I was going to post a diary about various options for giving up on the Democrats and the political process. But for some reason that diary gave me a desire to not totally disengage from politics. Thanks dday.