Nailing Jello to the Wall

There is no doubt that Mitt Romney is a well skilled, very smooth liar on the debate stage. It vexed his Republican challengers and it astonished President Obama and the rest of the thinking public during their first debate. So what to do about it?

The first thought is to prepare a brief, but finely tuned assault, that would simply list the “top ten” postions that Romney changed just for the debate or outright lied about. It may well be that it was beneath the dignity of the office for the president to have to do this, but that could, in itself, be used as a way to demonstrate that Romney is not up to the office.

After Ryan’s convention speech, he was widely regarded as Lyin’ Ryan. Now Mitt repeats the tactic in the first debate…Mitt the Mendacious. It does no good to attack the press for not fact checking, most journalists are content to simply repeat what has been said without vetting for veracity.

It might work, however, for Democrats to repeatedly ask the public to do their own fact checking. Most people will not take the time, but repeatedly hearing that it is their duty and obligation to do so, might cement the notion that this “victory” came totally at the expense of honesty. It could be used to lock in the notion that is it NOT RIGHT for a Republican candidate to run hard right then change or lie about positions at the last minute. It should be drummed relentlessly, that if we accept that type of campaign, then that’s the type of representation we receive.

But there are other ways, too! From now until the end of the campaign, the President and all democrats should tie their Republican opponents to two things…absolutely incontrovertible and totally indefensible. The first attack should TIE EVERY REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE TO THEIR PLATFORM. No matter how shifty Romney is, his party, his base ADHERE TO THEIR PLATFORM, and they WILL enact it into law if given a chance…even if Romney suddenly decides to become a democrat!

The second strategy should be to tie Romney and all other Republicans to the actual positions of the party members and the real devastation caused by this Republican congress. From legitimate rape, to comments that evoluton is an idea straight from hell, to comments about slavery being good for America, to climate change deniers, the war on women, the suppression of voters, holding the nation hostage during the debt crisis…these ideas are NOT popular with thinking people. But most importantly, the reality of these positions cannot be denied. The platform is fact. Democrats should use it as a bludgeon.

A Word from the Author

In a way, I really admire Republicans. It NEVER ceases to amaze me how they manage year after year to get SO MANY Americans to vote against their own self-interests again and again. They are brilliant, though cynical. I am afraid they are on the verge of doing irreparable harm. In the name of patriotism, they want to dismantle our government. They have taken Ronald Reagan's words as gospel, believing that government is the casue of all of our problems and that can remedy none of them. They have politicized nearly every aspect of government, orchestrated assaults on the separation of church and state, science, attorneys, the courts, higher education and even the Constitution itself. We have allowed ourselves to fall victim to the propaganda that led to war in Iraq without a critical analysis of arguments in support of the decision. Global warming appears real and is worsening while we fail to act. Our economy is in shambles. The housing crisis deepens. Our currency has lost substantially in value, and our manufacturing base is a remnant of what is was only a decade ago, with our jobs leaving for foreign lands, while big business sits on billions of dollars and giant corporations in banking, oil and energy remain largely under-regulated. We seem to have surrendered our future to a political discourse that descends to the lowest common denominator, usually influenced by fear, personal attack and destruction, rather than dispassionate consideration of the merits. If we are going to thrive once again, something has got to change. Here is my small contribution to that end. I will try to respond to what I read in the news, but I am NOT a scholar. I leave it to others to fact check, follow up and support my points, but I refuse to continue to sit quietly while our demacracy is subverted and turned to the support of wealthy, powerful and cynical interests.