Wednesday, September 13, 2006

"Even One Wrong Decision": Corker Campaign Leaves Itself Open

I have pondering the Republican's latest scortched-earth political ad against Harold Ford, and not because I am a Harold Ford devotee. I've been thinking about strictly on strategic grounds, and I believe it is a potential blunder.

I'm sure you have seen the commercial; it's the one where the narrator says starkly at the end that we cannot afford to vote for Harold Ford because "we cannot afford to make even one wrong decision." It is real ominous and scary with the typical foul-air-brushed, unflattering picture of Ford.

But do the Republicans really want to open the Pandora's Box of making wrong decisions? If the Ford Campaign is astute it will point out that under Republicans, our Homeland Security since 2001 seems to involve one wrong decision after another:

  • Losing bin Laden in 12/01 at Tora Bora
  • No Iraq WMD
  • No post-Iraq War planning
  • Failure to send enough troops to secure Iraqis from sectarian violence
  • Promoting corporate war profiteering
  • Abu Ghraib
  • Water-boarding in clandestine camps
  • War-time violations on the front lines, like the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family
  • Attempting to allow Dubai to run our ports
  • Losing Iraq's Anbar province (the size of Louisiana) to al Qaeda
  • Failing to send troops into New Orleans for days after the levees broke
  • Homeland Security's (via FEMA) continuing failures in the Gulf Coast post-Katrina
If the Ford campaign is smart they will stop trying to engage Corker and the Republicans in other distracting ways. They are wasting valuable time by fighting Republicans where the Republicans want them. The ideological crap just needs to be deflected and brushed off.

Instead, Ford needs to hammer away at Corker for desiring to do things the same way over and over again and expecting things to get better; this is a good start. But the Ford Campaign needs to keep asking Tennesseans if they have had enough of the security failures that have produced malaise at home and embarrassment abroad. Polls show that in spite of the Bush spin of "safer but not yet safe," Americans do not feel safer. All Ford needs to do now is show us the Republicans' "not yet safe," really means "never going to be safe" without a significant course change. And that is the course change that will restore America's stature as a world leader.

1 comment:

  1. Although I see where you're going with this, you gotta remember that most Tennesseeans identify with the Repulican party and many of them voted for Bush twice.

    You start pointing out all of Bush's failures, all thats gonna do is put many voters on the defensive. Not at all what you want to do if you're planning on reaching out accross party lines.

    My recomendation is to continue what they are doing. Stay positive. Most people can see through Corker's lies and the MSM is doing a great job of exposing Corker's false ads.

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