Forewarned Is Forearmed: How Republicans Win was the real title of this diary, but I thought I'd let people know that it really has nothing to do with Sarah Palin. I think she's the least of our worries.
I was working on another diary about my views of the future, but I just finished reading this article on Truthout, titled How the Republicans Win by Robert Parry of the Consortium News. In light of the Democrats recent cave on the FISA bill and Nancy Pelosi's refusal to put impeachment back on the table, I think everyone needs to read this article if we have any hope of winning this election.
Now, I don't want to throw a wet blanket on the hope party, but information is a most important tool. One of the mottos I live by is; hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I'm always told that I'm "negative," or "Miss doom and gloom" because I like to look at worst case scenarios so that I can be prepared should one raise its ugly head. The result of this is that I'm usually ready to deal with these nasty situations, while those who called me names are often not.
I think Robert Parry is pointing a potential worst case right now. Apparently he believes in being forearmed as well. He writes:
Over the past four decades, Republicans have dominated the outcomes of presidential races by mixing negative campaigning in public with illicit dirty tricks behind the scenes, as I've recounted in my last two books, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep.
As a party, the Republicans have not only refined the art of the political smear - with such memorable moments as the Willie Horton ads in 1988 and the "swift-boating" of John Kerry in 2004 - but they also have defined the concept of the October Surprise, manipulating late-breaking events to drive the electorate toward their candidate.
FOUR DECADES - Forty - 40 years - you got that, right?
Of course, I knew about 2000 and 2004 because I was paying much more attention than I was 20 or 30 years ago. Back then I was definitely a low information voter. I tried to follow what was going on, but I listened to TV news and read my local paper. There was no Internet back then, unfortunately.
I have to admit it; I voted for Richard Nixon - he was my first time voter choice, because I thought he would end the war. I blamed the Johnson administration for getting us into it, and so I couldn't vote for Hubert Humphrey.
Sadly, I didn't know this....
So, although a half million American soldiers were in the battle zone and the war was tearing the United States apart, Nixon's campaign made secret contacts with South Vietnamese leaders, allegedly offering the assurance that if they refused to cooperate with the Paris peace talks, they could expect a better deal from Nixon.
That knowledge would have changed my vote. I was very surprised to learn that, according to Robert Parry's research, the Democrats - Johnson, Humphrey and their advisors knew and "they kept it secret apparently out of concern that it could further divide the country."
Now I know our present group of Democrats seem to be running scared, but I didn't know that this practice began all the way back in 1968. Kind of reminds me of the line in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
The Democrats have been laboring on their chain for 40 years. It is, indeed, a "ponderous" chain of caves and cover-ups.
For instance, they strongly suspected that the "Reagan-Bush brain trust" had tampered with Carter's negotiations to get the hostages released.
Though some Carter advisers suspected Republican manipulation of the hostage crisis, the Democrats again kept silent. Only after the Iran-Contra scandal broke in 1986 - and witnesses began talking about its origins - did the 1980 story get fleshed out enough to compel Congress to take a closer look in 1991-92.
Again, however the Democrats feared that the evidence could endanger the fragile political relationships in Washington that enable governing to go forward. Once more, they chose to ignore the GOP machinations and, in some cases, literally hid the evidence.
How many times can they shoot themselves in the foot, and still have a leg left to stand on?
Parry details other Republican tactics, the Willie Horton ad, the "Passport-Gate" scandal where they tried to prove the false allegation that Clinton had renounced his citizenship, the Swiftboating of John Kerry, and of course the 2000 Florida recount fiasco.
These were just tactics for winning, and there wasn't much the Democrats could do after the fact, but they need to know that the Republicans will certainly pull this and more on Obama.
We've already seen the smears - and there will be more. But what of the October surprise?
Been watching the developments in eastern Europe? Little country by the name of Georgia?
Lieberman's been there...
As previously announced, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham -- both strong allies of McCain -- are heading to Georgia, Poland, and Ukraine. They depart today, and they follow Joe Biden, who just returned from the region.
And Condi paid them a visit...
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, back from her vacation, is finally injecting herself visibly into the conflict over Georgia and South Ossetia. On the president's orders, she will be leaving at midnight tonight for Paris, the South of France, and Tbilisi.
And even more ominous, Cheney is scheduled to visit...
Next week, as Cheney visits Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine he will face an audience very different from the one George Bush faced when he visited the Georgian capital in 2005. Then, Bush promised an adoring crowd that "the path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone ... Americans respect your courageous choice for liberty. And as you build a free and democratic Georgia, the American people will stand with you." Yet as Russian tanks rolled into the Georgian cities of Gori, Poti and Zugdidi there was little that the United States could actually do to protect its erstwhile ally.
Somehow, I don't believe that protecting the people of Georgia is at the top of his agenda. Protecting the Republican control of American is more like it.
And even Cindy McCain got in the act...
Cindy McCain, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, flew to Tbilisi for a meeting with the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
McCain was also due to visit Georgian soldiers wounded in the brief conflict with Russia over the breakaway South Ossetia region.
She is travelling with the UN's World Food Programme on a trip first reported by Time magazine.
So do you see the pattern forming here? I think their plans for a war with Iran have been foiled - for now, at least, so they are poking sticks at the hornets' nest that is Russia. And the hornets are swarming. Just look at the list of warnings that have been issued. I don't think they are fooling around. Do you?
So as I said at the top, forewarned is forearmed. I don't know what we are going to do to convince those low information voters or those who are afraid of their own shadows, but I do know that if they are scared enough, they vote Republican. They won't care about Sarah Palin, or McCain's age. He's a hero, don't you know, he'll protect us from the Big Bad Russian Bear.
We need to stop talking about Sarah Palin (obligatory Sarah Palin mention), and get to work convincing these people that the very same people they will turn to for protection are the very ones who poked that nest to send the hornets our way in the first place.
We can't let it happen again. We can't get distracted. We have to learn from the past. We can't let the Republicans pull off this October Surprise, because, not only will we lose the election, we'll be at war with Russia as well.
The only solution that I can think of is that we have to work hard to get this information out there, and we have to work hard to get Obama voters to the voting booth.