Democrats Switch From Operation Rush to Operation Palin
Rule #4 in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals says “pick the target and personalize it.”
Rush just isn’t getting the job done anymore for the democrats… their new personal target is…drum roll please….
SARAH PALIN
James Carville, the long time progressive liberal strategist for the DNC has the following to say:
“Her name conjures up all kinds of reactions in people’s minds,” Carville told me, adding that her association with the campaign will be used to portray the GOP as hidebound and to alienate moderates.
“She’s an uncomfortable figure for a lot of Republicans,” Carville says. “They want to move beyond her. We like her.”
“Luckily, she seems to present us with an opportunity every few days,” added a senior Dem strategist. “You could say it’s a turkey shoot.”…
Such efforts are aimed at the Dem base. But House Dem strategists hope she can be used to damage the GOP’s image with swing constituencies in the 2010 elections. “When she was campaigning, she rubbed suburban and independent women the wrong way,” one House Dem strategist says. “They are generally very moderate, and she’s a reminder of the extremism of the party and other aspects of it they dislike.”
The problem I see with his statements is that Palin is not an extremist, she never has been. If any of these moderate or suburban independent women actually read her record they would find that she is a federalist or a constitutionalist, not a religious extremist. She holds socially conservative beliefs, herself, but does not force those on other people and that is obvious if people would just open their eyes and get beyond their own personal insecurities and bigotry for those who may be different from them.
The democrats were handing out fliers for Scott Murphy for the special election being held today up in New York vs. Jim Tedisco.
This same strategy used on Rush Limbaugh has backed fired on the democrats and has actually boosted his ratings. For example, I was young and somewhat influenced by the media from time-to-time, so I was still under the false assumption that Rush was more of an extremist, until I heard him speak at CPAC personally. I am now a huge fan!
The reasoning of the democrats for their defeat in the Rush war and their reasoning of why they feel it would work better against Sarah Palin is the following:
(a) Rush has the time, platform, and incentive to fight daily skirmishes with Democrats while Palindoesn’t and (b) don’t forget that boosting Rush’s profile was the point of the White House’s strategy, on the theory that the public’s antipathy to him would bleed over to the GOP. Surely Emanuel et al. knew that a media war would increase Limbaugh’s ratings; they simply calculated that the political benefit of rebranding Republicans as Team Rush outweighed the cost of making his megaphone bigger. Maybe they’re wrong about that, maybe they’re not, but evidently they’re willing to double down and try the same strategy out on Palin.
I think this will also backfire for the Democrats. I think that normal people will become incredibly tired of seeing all the negativity fired at this woman when she is no longer on the national scene and is simply trying to do her job as Governor up in Alaska. There becomes a time when people just pick up on the fact that this was all a ploy in the first place – if they are continuing to go after her – she must have been effective and surely was a threat, otherwise they would just let this go.
Meanwhile, it will also help her nationally, if and when Obama does fail and falls from grace, which he is doing on a daily basis. People have already started to realize how in the tank the media has been for Obama and how they treated Sarah Palin- many are questioning and doubting their initial opinions of the woman. Some won’t due to pride and ego, but others have been willing to concede they may have been wrong and are willing to take another look. We already know that a poll was taken after the election and the majority who responded agreed that she was not given a fair shake by the MSM. Imagine what they will think when Obama flounders and they continue to bash this woman when she has done nothing.
Keep it up Dems – because this will ensure this woman will be thrust into the White House in 2012!
