So, the Big Boyz are telling lies. Well, they’ve been bought and paid for to do this so we aren’t surprised, are we? The blogosphere is now the incubator for the lies to go viral, spread from blog to blog, blogger to media, media to blogger, media to voter, blogger to voter, voter to voter. It’s ugly and contagious. And, just like my mother said last week about Wright, people tend to forget. They will remember the last thing they heard when they step into that voting booth. Well, the undecideds will anyway. Committed Clintonistas usually see past the lies. But what will we do about all the undecideds in PA?
Let’s brainstorm this. Here are the lies, as summarized by Tom Rinaldo at MyDD:
Current Attack Meme Lie Number One:
“Hillary has no chance of winning” feeds into…
Current Attack Meme Lie Number Two:
“Hillary must now only be in this to make Barack Obama lose the election” (so she can run in 2012) which feeds into…
Current Attack Meme Lie Number Three:
“Hillary really wants McCain to become President and hopes to be in his Administration”
These are the current talking points being used to take down Hillary Clinton. They have been seeded into the echo chamber. It doesn’t matter that they are lies, they are good ways of tearing Hillary Clinton down.
Please read all of Tom’s post as well as Turkana’s at TheLeftCoaster. (I have to resist thinking of the name as a place I put my highball glass)
Here’s the challenge: Using what is written in these two posts as examples, construct a refutation of the lies in 50 words or less. The goal is to be able to persuade an undecided voter to ignore the lie. If you can do it in 50, can you do it in 25? Here are some of the things I would try to suggest:
- Why is Obama trying to make the voter feel like their vote won’t count? Hillary values their vote.
- Why does Obama want to propagate the “Resistance is useless” meme?
- Why does Obama want you to think the only choice is between him and McCain?
- If Obama can’t trust the voters of Florida and Michigan to vote correctly, maybe he’s thinking that *you* aren’t capable of making up your mind either.
See where I’m going with this? I know you do.
Go!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Media, Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: 50 word challenge, innoculation, lies about the current state of the race, Tom Rinaldo, Turkana, undecideds. |
The Confluence 
If Hillary “can’t” win, then why hasn’t Obama won yet?
Answer: Because she can win and she will win if you vote for her!
Myiq2xu: You really are smarter than me. That was great!
tytyvm
I even had a word to spare.
If it’s over, why does the Obama campaign attack Clinton daily?
Obama is suppressing the votes in FL and MI, and he wants to suppress yours too.
Obama thinks states that voted early matter more than your state.
With the media on his side and five times the money, why hasn’t Obama closed the deal yet?
Don’t believe the hype (always a classic, I think)
If it’s over, wouldn’t you know?
>Obama thinks states that voted early matter more than your state.
Ooo, that was good. (except for MI and FL who voted *too* early)
Hear! Hear! It’s like a basketball game. Obama is ahead 80-79 with 8 minutes left to play, and he’s trying to run out the clock–not a particularly dazzling strategy, trying to “back in” to it and all.
I don’t get where all “The Math” stuff is coming from. Hillary has 3 really good states coming up in PA, KY, and WV. The last potentially big Obama state could be NC and thats a big question mark right now. There’s also the wild card of Puerto Rico where Hillary could hit a voter gold mine there.
The remaining states not counting MI and FL are OR, MT, and SD. OR and SD are closed primaries while Montana is an open primary.
Oops, I forgot about Indiana and that is a true battleground right now.
Here’s my first attempt: “Do you feel like your vote for Hillary doesn’t count? I’d be mad. It’s like telling you to stay home. Why would he do that? Maybe he can’t win after all.”
31
Just make sure to remind them that:
Neither can win on pledged delegates alone; superdelegates will decide the nominee. For Clinton to be the nominee, she must slash his (horribly tainted) popular vote lead. So every single voter is the ultimate superdelegate.
Or if that’s too long:
If Obama didn’t think each vote mattered, he wouldn’t be campaigning–let alone registering new voters!–now would he?
Once people understand that fact, they’re much more open to realizing how crucial these primaries are. And that there’s no way the Democratic convention can discount MI and FL (i.e. the only way Obama can “win” on the first ballot is to guarantee a GE loss).
Clinton knows what is happening right now in Russia; Obama says he hasn’t “had the time” to find out.
With regards to sport references: Obama cannot run out the clock: he must win. He knows that he can’t. Only with you, can Hillary win.
Here it goes:
You need a real fighter to correct the mistakes of the past eight years. As John Edwards said, “You can’t nice these people to death.” The GOP isn’t going to throw in the towel before the election and we don’t need a candidate who thinks that’s the only way to win. Every last vote needs to count so make yours count too.
I think that’s over the limit. Sorry.
You know, this little exercise has reminded me of something. Bush’s administration was characterized as permanent campaigning. Hmm, maybe that Obama’s approach to governing as well. Ducking the hard votes, blowing off the boring duties so that people will like him for the next election.
Evidently some politicians just don’t understand the difference between campaigning and governing.
Yet another reason not to vote for Barry.
I found the following comment somewhere but I don’t know if it’s true.
Anybody here at The Confluence has the numbers? I will be checking later on because I am still quite busy.
If it’s true, that would be very intriguing.
Obama’s plans for the voters of FL and MI – and you, if you let him – mirror his flawed Health Care Plan; they leave people out.
not a big sports fan but if confronted with sports metaphors from the Obama side, something along the lines of:
Obama wants this primary race to be short, like the Preakness, but it isn’t; it’s longer, like the Belmont; and he’s showing signs of fatigue.
MABlue, yeah, most of Obama’s vote lead is because of his Illinois and GA victories. The vote lead is inflated because it doesn’t count the 294,000 votes Hillary won in Florida. Still, a Florida revote should still happen so that it will be seen as “fair” (the FL primary was after Kennedy’s endorsement and Obama’s huge SC win btw).
Six words: Obama is scared he’s gonna lose.
I’m remembering something about brevity and wit. Or something.
My dedication to the Blog Boys. I had originally documented some of their misdeeds, but were all elsewhere because we are already aware of them.
WS, as I said last night, if Obama didn’t think the FL and MI votes were valid, he’d allow revotes. Logically, by denying the revotes he thinks the FL and MI votes were valid.
He thought he could force Hillary out by pretending he wouldn’t count FL and MI. She’s still in it. She and the rest of us called his bluff. FL and MI count.
To win Obama has to suppress votes in FL and MI and in the remaining primaries. If he were confident, he wouldn’t go negative and he wouldn’t be afraid of the voters. Hillary is a loyal Democrat and has stated that she would work hard for Obama if he wins.
That’s exactly 50 words.
Earth to DNC: It’s Hillary or bust!
myiq2xu, on March 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm Said:
If Hillary “can’t” win, then why hasn’t Obama won yet?
Answer: Because she can win and she will win if you vote for her!
Myiq, can I borrow that one?
fantastic!
It’s official: Obama supporters are resorting to extortion:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ACUDP2/petition.html
Maybe someone could draft a similar one for Clinton?
MABlue:
Wikipedia – Cook County 2006 population 5,288,655
CNN – Cook County results
Obama 728,328
Clinton 308,921
Edwards 13,960
All republicans combined 172,980
Total PRIMARY turnout: 1,224,189
Oh, and I ran across this too, but I can’t really tell if it means total Cook county or just the part not including Chicago. If it really was “more than” 1.3 million registered to vote in all of Cook county – then that would be around 90% turnout for a PRIMARY, so I think that *can’t* be what this means:
“Officials in Cook County expect people to take advantage of the 18-day program in larger numbers than before, especially since it is the first time that early voting is available in Illinois during a presidential race. Plus, with more than 1.3 million registered voters, suburban Cook County has its highest registration level ever, including all eight McHenry County early voting locations. ”
http://cbs2chicago.com/campaign08/illinois.early.voting.2.629052.html
Here’s a petition to count MI/FL
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/seatourdelegates/index.html
In 1993, when she tried to fix healthcare, Hillary Clinton brought to the table verve, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas.
They weren’t enough then, either. And they won’t be enough now.
Hillary’s learned. Do you want to wait around for Obama to learn what she already knows?
50 words. . .
Remember 2000?
Some in Florida were denied the right to vote. Whose vote matters?
Al Gore was cast as a boring policy wonk. Who do you want to have beer with now?
He was told to stop the vote count for the “good” of the Country. Is Iraq good? The recession?
STOP THE TAPE!!! STOP THE TAPE RIGHT NOW!!!
jjmtacoma: Thank you for the confirmation.
60% of Obama’s margin (without MI & FL) come from one single county in Chicago? And Cook county of all places? That story has to be put out.
I thought Obama had this great support across the country.
MABlue: I thought they were just looking at Illinois, not all of the primaries. Unless I’m not reading this right.
riverdaughter:
You are not reading it (W)right. Just take the 1st sentence:
This story has to get out there, as part of our haka.
Ohhhh, *I* see. You’re saying that almost all of his lead in popular votes, excluding Florida and Michigan, can be attributed to one county in Illinois.
I get it now. Duh!
Obama wants Hillary to drop out because he’s afraid he’s going to lose. What a wuss!
how many words is that? 16?
OldCoastie: Very succinct.
Actually, all of these answers are very good. But I think if I were crafting a message for undecideds in PA, I would want to point out that Obama’s message is one of reinforcing helplessness and that Hillary’s was one of empowerment. I think the emotional aspect of that is important.
On that petition to get Hillary to drop out, the number one person on the list is
Francis L. Holland, Esq. , http://francislholland.blogspot.com
Does anyone besides me recognize that name?
Do people still hate “the media?”
If so, how about
Obama’s gotten about half of the vote with the media’s help; Clinton did the same without it.
MABlue, I think you’re onto something. The Daley machine is well known for voter fraud, for dead people voting, and various and assorted types of thuggery. I would love to see the media take up this story, but they are so in the tank for Obama I can’t think of a single one who would.
More on Cook County – seems interesting but I’m not sure if this is just the suburbs or if it is all of Cook County… I don’t know the area.
http://cbs2chicago.com/campaign08/illinois.early.voting.2.629052.html
Officials in Cook County expect people to take advantage of the 18-day program in larger numbers than before, especially since it is the first time that early voting is available in Illinois during a presidential race. Plus, with more than 1.3 million registered voters, suburban Cook County has its highest registration level ever, including all eight McHenry County early voting locations.
I guess I could understand if this was the outlying area – but if it is Cook county proper, the PRIMARY turnout was 90%.
I have tried twice to post a link and quote from a Chicago station that says suburban Cook County has a record number of registered voters at over 1.3 million.
I might be doing something wrong on the link. I don’t know if the suburban Cook County is distinct from the Chicago part of Cook County. If it is not, then they got around 90% turnout of registered voters for a PRIMARY. (how do I add the link?)
Oh, I forgot, the vote total is still 20% of the TOTAL 2006 population. I think that would still be amazing turnout.
Perhaps make it a question? Allows people to answer the “Why her and not him?” quesition themselves:
-“Of course he’s pretty, but can he iron your shirt?” That’s a joke. A joke.
-“Do you want to get it done or stand around and talk about it?”
-“If all it took was hope to solve our problems, why do we still have them?”
-“You know Sen. Clinton has a record of working with Republicans in the Senate, including those who tried to impeach her husband? Even they admit she’s intelligent, capable, tough, and fair. And these are the people from the other party.”
Ohio .. Those are Fantastic !!! .. thank YOU .
MABlue:
It looks like suburban Cook County is somehow different than the Chicago part and the Cook County election department web page says turnout was 43% for the suburban Cook County voters.
The obama vote total for Cook County (Chicago) but not suburban is 457,993 according to CNN county numbers.
The Cook County angle is most intriguing… This might turn out to be the one accurate point of comparison between Obama and JFK. Repubs referred to it a lot when arguing the legitimacy of the Florida ’00 vote count fiasco. “The Dems did it in Chicago in 1960, nah-nah!”
As for what to say in support of Clinton: Why would you listen to people who are already making excuses for when their candidate loses in November? Why isn’t their candidate unifying our party, so when he wins there is no issue of a 2012 candidate or Clinton being in McCain’s cabinet? Perhaps they are hinting that McCain should find a place for Barack in his cabinet, returning the Hagel/Lugar favor.
MABlue:
I see what it is – some of the voters live in city limits and so voter registration and vote counting is done at that level. I just didn’t see the distinction with other counties, so it wasn’t obvious to me – and I combined them in the totals before.
Turns out the voter registration for Chicago is 1,277,591 (as of Jan 5, 2008).
CNN Numbers for Chicago only:
Obama 457,993
Clinton 159,308
Edwards 7,984
Briana, thank you. That ironing thing really was a joke.
I’m trying hard to make this about the people riverdaughter is talking with. (Note: Sen. Clinton talks _with_ people, not to them. A subtle, yet important distinction.)
riverdaughter, what are people asking you beyond “why her and not him?” What are they really worried about? What does your gut say is really bothering them?
It’s easy to get caught up in what’s happening today according to the chattering class—I’m the guiltiest of this because oooo, they piss me off.
The “experts” said the NY Giants couldn’t beat the Patriots in the Superbowl either.
That’s why they play the games.
That’s 20 words.
Specific to PA, especially voters familiar with Scaife newspapers:
“Sen. Clinton has a pretty good rep for reaching across the aisle. Richard Scaife, the guy who owns the big Philly paper hates her—he’s said some nasty things about her in the past. She sat down with this editorial board to answer some tough questions for an hour or so. Sometimes you have to talk with people who don’t like you in order to get things done.”