The next 10 weeks will decide the fate of our country.
Will we give into the nativism, bigotry and I've-got-mine-you-are-on-your-ownism that has characterized the healthcare, immigration reform and Cordoba House debate or will we be voting for Democrats?
With the economy going two steps forward (GM is back and better than ever!) and two steps back (existing home sales are down 27%), the White House has come under relentless attack by the GOP to replace the 8 million jobs that vanished when they were in charge.
No Republican has repeated the "jobs, jobs, jobs" mantra more than House Republican leader John Boehner, (R-Coppertone).
His speech in Ohio on Tuesday has been well-diaried here, here and here.
My take on this is how the White House has clearly begun playing offense as we are 10 weeks away from protecting the fate of this country.
Rather than waiting to react to John Boehner, the DNC dropped an ad on Monday evening that framed him and the Republican party as backroom Washington insiders, who "invented the ways of Washington."
Here's the ad. What's interesting to note is that 1) the old clips reveal that he wasn't always orange and 2) that much of the framing that Kossacks call for in diaries and comments are contained in just this one ad and we have 10 full weeks to inculcate these themes into the American consciousness. (A transcript of the video is below.)
VOICE OVER: John Boehner wants you to make him the next Speaker of the House. He's railing against the ways of Washington - backroom deals, special interest favors, partisan rancor - to drive his point home. Funny thing, though, it was John Boehner and Republicans who invented the ways of Washington.
JOHN BOEHNER: That's all a bunch of Washington talk.
VO: Funny thing though, it was Republicans who invented the ways of Washington. It was John Boehner after all who handed out campaign checks from cigarette companies on the House floor.
JOHN BOEHNER: Ryan asked me to give out a half a dozen checks quickly before we got the end of the month and I complied.
VO: John Boehner and Republicans met behind closed doors with Wall Street lobbyists to plot the defeat of Wall Street reform. And accepted Big Business campaign cash.
And it's John Boehner and Republicans who want to take us back to the Bush era economic policies that nearly sank our economy.
DAVID GREGORY (MEET THE PRESS): The tax cuts are not paid for is that correct?
JOHN BOEHNER: I am not for raising taxes on the American people in a soft economy.
DAVID GREGORY: That's not the question. The people want to...(cross stalk)
JOHN BOEHNER: The President wants to.... (cross talk)
DAVID GREGORY: Are tax cuts paid for or not?
JOHN BOEHNER: ....
VO: So when John Boehner and Republicans talk about the ways of Washington. You can bet this: they know what they're talking about.
JOHN BOEHNER: That's all a bunch of Washington talk.
The Democratic National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertisement.
The Christian Science Monitor highlighted how the White House has segued into doing a "prebuttal" of Boehner's pro-Bush policy mantra:
By the time House Republican leader John Boehner stood up to speak at the City Club of Cleveland at 8 a.m. (Eastern time) Tuesday, his speech had already been criticized by the Democratic National Committee on Monday during a phone-in press conference, triggered a sarcastic Monday afternoon response to the DNC conference call by a Boehner spokesman, and been the subject of a blog post at 6 a.m. Tuesday by White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer.
snip
The White House prebuttal early Tuesday led with the charge that Boehner wanted "a return to the economic policies that turned a [budget] surplus into record deficits and helped create the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression."
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
Campaign ads like this are good for sharpening the contrasts with the opposition but everyone knows the difference between winning and losing comes down to who can get out the vote.
Having been so thoroughly humiliated in 2008 but the unprecedented ground game of the Barack Obama for America campaign, the Republicans have now decided to spend more money and resources on GOTV.
The RNC official said the total funds it sent to state parties -- $4.3 million this year -- actually exceeds the DNC's $3.5 million, though the DNC plans to give $20 million out from its coffers to the campaign committees and states before the election.
The RNC also bragged that they've opened 294 "victory" offices across the country and have phoned 5.7 million voters this year, which is up substantially from the 1.9 million calls made in 2008.
"When you look at what we've done with the money we've spent, we've put ourselves in strong positions to help bring the party back from where it was a year and a half ago," spokesman Doug Heye told TPM.
Going from 1.9 million calls to 5.7 million calls is I have to say is very impressive.
But I also have to say what is more impressive to me is having a pool of 5 million volunteers who started receiving letters in email like this from David Plouffe:
In 2008, volunteers like you broke every record in politics -- you knocked on more doors, made more calls, and had more conversations with voters than any campaign in history.
Those conversations are what brought 15 million people to the polls for the first time, propelled Barack Obama to the presidency, and won majorities in the House and Senate.
snip
But now we need to protect those gains and keep moving America forward -- which means we've got to get back on the doors, talking to voters about how important it is to vote this fall.
So we at OFA and others working to elect Democrats to Congress circled this weekend on the calendar and set a big goal: 200,000 doors knocked across the country in 48 hours.
OFA California has set a goal of getting 14,087 of them -- and that means we need 470 volunteers in California next weekend.
This is how Democrats are going to win. By going on offense rhetorically and strategically.
If I have to pick a team--and I do--I'd rather be with the group who are trying to move this country forward and who already have 5 million volunteers. If each of them made just two phone calls they would exceed the entire GOP phonebanking effort they've built over 2 years by 5 million phone calls.
Shorter: I'd rather be us than them and the Game Is Officially On. Let's do this. Let's go change the world.