comMITTed to Romney!

Defending against dishonesty

How do you defend against attacks that are purely dishonest? Barack Obama had to struggle with that issue last week when the Clinton machine went after him. Perhaps we can take solace in his resounding win in the Democratic contest that took place yesterday. But I believe the short answer to that question is: control the message (i.e., change the subject).

Readers here know what McCain said about Mitt’s comments weren’t true. I’d seen the clip McCain was referring to weeks ago, and there was nothing in there about Mitt proposing or supporting a timetable for withdrawal: it was about whether there may be a Bush administration timetable and how if there was one it was important not to share any such timetable with our enemies. So why the manipulation of the facts by McCain? As others have said here, it’s likely that he’s seen his lead slip in Florida and felt he needed to do something to change the subject. So let’s change it back.

Unfortunately, as Senator McCain likes to say when he’s not the source of the attack, “you don’t mud wrestle with a pig, because you both get dirty and the pig likes it.” Of course it’s quite hyporcritical for McCain to be doing what he did today (e.g., abandoning “straight talk” and his “principles,” going negative, criticizing Mitt for a position McCain endorsed, etc.). But it’s apparent a discussion of any topic but the economy would be an improvement for him.

So let’s remind ourselves of what Mitt’s message is:

1. Washington is broken. Nothing serves as better evidence of this than McCain’s recent attacks. If we want more of the same we can send the same sorts of people back to Washington. McCain has been there 24 years; now he wants to be President. If we obliged, it’s hard for me to see how things would change, in particular given McCain’s legendary inability to work well with others in the Senate and the vendettas / back room favors he’ll owe if he goes back.

2. The economy needs Mitt. Since the days of Clinton and before, it’s always been about the economy. You can’t have a strong national defense if we dont have manufacturing and a strong economy at home. You can’t be a strong nation if you have to buy all your equipment from your enemies. And the American economy won’t be strong if we can’t keep the jobs from flowing out to our overseas competitors. So we need to send someone to Washington who has an intimate knowledge of the economy and can fix the many manifestations of problems we’ve had recently: stock market crashes, surging oil prices, real estate collapse, mortgage melt down, etc. Unfortunately, John McCain does not have the requisite experience, and has repeatedly said he’d have to find someone else to help him with this issue. McCain didn’t support the Bush tax cuts, then he did. Then he said he wanted to cut government spending to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately in the short run cutting spending would harm the economy and make it more likely to push the country into recession, or at least offset the benefits of any tax rebates. Unfortunately, as he’s said himself, he just doesn’t know enough about economics.

3. Mitt stands for strong families, and he wants to appoint judges to the Supreme Court that will read the Constitution as the framers intended it, not in a manner that creates new laws without a democratic process. Not all the other candidates have this same priority. McCain in fact has gone up against his own party on the issue of judges being appointed, and has a very spotty record on issues of family values.

4. Mitt stands for legal immigration, but “turning off the magnet” on illegal immigration. McCain very recently proposed a bill that would have allowed illegal aliens to stay in the country indefinitely. His own party rejected this stance only a few months ago, but he seems ill-at-ease saying he was wrong.

We’ve got lots of positive parts of our own message to spread without getting distracted by McCain’s attack. I’m positive that staying on message will benefit Mitt incredibly (as it’s done in Florida so far), while indulging in mud wrestling allows the media to just report on the wrestling match. I’m hoping that the media really gives it to McCain today for his intentional misrepresentations, but even if they don’t, let’s keep on task and keep spreading our own message.

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