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On Tuesday, TX-23 will have the runoff for their congressional race between Democrat and former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez and Republican incumbent Henry Bonilla. This ad by Bonilla is shameless and doesn't even post a newspaper source to verify its claims. It's completely false. Furthermore, it looks like we could win this race. Ciro is only seven points down in the latest poll, which only had 45% of its turnout model as Hispanic. But the district is 62% Hispanic and Ciro wins Latino voters by a margin of 70-30. I think Rodriguez will win in a nail-biter.

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Just when you think the election can't get any stranger.

In 1964, LBJ's re-election campaign ran the most famous political ad of all time: Peace Little Girl. More commonly known today as Daisy, the ad not-so-subtly implied that a Barry Goldwater victory would lead America to nuclear war. (If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend that you take a look. There hasn't been anything scarier on political TV since.) After the nuclear explosion engulfs the screen in all its horror, the ad goes black, and the narrator intones, "These are the stakes."

After one showing, the controversial ad was pulled off the air amid intense criticism from, among others, the RNC. Said the RNC chair of the time, "This horror-type commercial is designed to arouse basic emotions and has no place in the campaign." Fair enough-- I'm as devoted a Democrat as they come, and even I will agree that Daisy was a pretty dirty trick on the part of the LBJ campaign.

Which is why I could not believe my eyes when I saw the ad currently playing on the RNC's front page. Take a look; it's the kind of blatant plagiarism that would get you failed at even the easiest class at Georgetown. They didn't even bother changing the tag line.

Well, let me denounce the ad with some original words of my own. I'd like Ken Mehlman to know that this horror-type commercial is designed to arouse basic emotions and has no place in the campaign. That's one for Familiar Quotations, straight from Or Skolnik.

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The GOP has learned their lesson. Run on facts, and lose. Run on reason, and lose. Run on logic, and lose. Run on the truth, and lose. But run on fear, and win big. Run on scare-tactics, and win bigger. Run on making Democrats look like a greater threat to America than Al-Qaeda, and win huge.

It worked for them in 2002, it worked for them in 2004, and it will work again for them in 2006 if we don't fight back and fight back hard.

For months, I've been telling everyone I know that the GOP would use national security issues to instill fear and terror in the American psyche in order to win the midterm elections. This is exactly what happened. Just look at this ad from Progress for America Fund, a right-wing front group.

This ad is designed to do one thing, scare the crap out of people. Terrorists are trying to kill us. Flash images of Muslims in hejabs and other coverings. Flash images of crying Arab women (probably because a US bomb just killed their family members, not because they don't have rights, as the ad says). Flash images of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames. And then say that Democrats want to cut and run and imply that liberals and Democrats will give the terrorists the very bomb used to kill a housewife in Omaha, NE. This is sick right-wing trash and it disgusts me.

It's not just Progress for America. Look at this ad that corrupt Senator Conrad Burns is running against netroots favorite and Real Montanan Jon Tester in Montana. Burns basically says that Tester is happy that al-Qaeda is killing American troops and that if Tester is elected, he will single-handedly give Osama bin Laden the blueprints to the Pentagon and give Ahmadinejad an H-bomb. It's absurd, the ad is full of lies, but they'll get away with it if we don't stop them.

Take a look at this ad from Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH), running against progressive Congressman Sherrod Brown for the US Senate. Another ad from another Republican attacking a Democrat on security. The themes are the same; the GOP will run ads attacking Democrats on the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, the PATRIOT ACT, the illegal NSA surveillance program, and votes that members of Congress have taken on a range of defense, intelligence, and national security issues. And they are doing it all over the country. The same message and the same talking points are being handed down by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman to every candidate in the country.

And what is the Democratic response? A letter from Nancy Pelosi to Dennis Hastert on Thursday asking Hastert "not to inject any semblance of partisan politics into the 9/11 resolution." What a weak and sappy letter? If Democrats were competing with Republicans for an election to the Supreme Council of Care Bears, they'd win. But in the real world, they just look weak. No wonder the country thinks we're weak on defense, we're weak in standing up for ourselves.

Yesterday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released their second part of an intelligence assessment of the lead-up to the Iraq war. The report made one stunning conclusion, Saddam had no connections, passive, active, or otherwise, to al-Qaeda anywhere in the world. Well, this is actually not all that surprising, but considering that 43% of the American people still believe that Saddam Hussein had a personal role in the attacks of September 11th, according to the latest CNN poll taken August 30th to September 2nd, the propaganda campaign of Bush & Co. has been effective.

We should have hit back the moment the report came out, demonstrating how the President has lied since October 2005, when the CIA concluded the lack of any links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, juxtaposed next to the quotes of the President claiming links. The President said last week at his press conference that "nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack [on 9/11]." Watch this video proving that Bush & Co. made a little fib.

The point is that this administration lies about national security all the time, while bogging us down in an endless and senseless war in Iraq and compromising our laws, our Constitution, and our liberties with stupid, illegal, ineffective, and unconstitutional programs that are downright unAmerican. The Pakistanis just signed a deal allowing Islamic extremists in the region of Pakistan where bin Laden is reportedly hiding to be safe from prosecution and pursuit. We are losing the war on terror in Somalia, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, and throughout the Middle East, while we have destroyed our image, reputation, and credibility around the world. Our forces are overextended, our homeland security is underdeveloped, and our people are divided. This administration is endangering American security, plain and simple, and destroying the rest of our country and our values in order to make us less safe and implement an extremist ideology. But instead of fighting back, we cower in the corner on security. Yes, some like Harold Ford, Jr. and Diane Farrell are running security and Iraq focused campaigns, but we do not have a national message. The DNC, DSCC, and the DCCC and all our candidates and incumbents around the country should be talking about one thing and one thing only, security.

We need Democrats on radio, on television, on the blogs, in print, in TV ads, in web ads, communicating the same message, Republicans are endangering our country and Democrats are the only party looking out for our security. Republicans misrepresent, weaken, diminish, and damage our security, our alliances, our image, our credibility, our laws, and our liberties. We should be attacking them every day, offering up not talking points and repetitious statements, but smart, focused language about the same topic. We don't have to say the same words, but we need to communicate the same ideas.

I don't understand why anyone listens to the consultants and political "experts" in the Democratic Party anymore, they just keep losing elections, and if the party doesn't get our act together this year either and offer a tough message attacking Republicans on national security day after day, we'll lose this election too. We don't have to copy Republican policies to win elections, but we do need to copy Republican energy and tenacity and consistency if we are going to take back our country.

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This country has turned against this war. Just look at the polls. Read the newspaper. Talk to people on the street. The deaths of 2700 American soldiers, sailors, coastguardsmen, marines, and airmen has sickened a frustrated American psyche. The lack of military progress in Iraq and the constant propaganda machine that runs out of the Bush administration has finally clicked with the American people.

In the latest Newsweek poll, 63% of the American people disapprove of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. CBS and The New York Times put the number at 65%.

The same poll showed that only 43% of the American people thought that we did the right thing by invading Iraq.

Only 5% think that the U.S.'s efforts in bringing stability to Iraq is going "very well." 62% of the American people think that it is going "somewhat or very badly."

51% of the American people see the War in Iraq as completely separate from the War on Terror. 46% of the American people think the U.S. has spent too much time on Iraq, and not enough on the war on terror; 42% think the division of energies has been proportionate.

In a CNN poll, 61% of the American people say they "oppose the War in Iraq." 55% say the war in Iraq has made the U.S. less safe from terrorists. 52% think the war in Iraq is a "distraction from the War on Terror.

In the ABC News/Washington Post poll, 38% of the American people said that a candidate who supports the Bush administration's policies in Iraq would make them "more likely to oppose" that candidate. Only 23% said it would make them "more likely to support" that candidate.

59% think the war was "not worth fighting." 85% think that Iraq is either embroiled in civil war or close to a civil war. 64% do not think the Bush administration has a clear plan for succeeding in Iraq.

But here's where it gets interesting. 52% think we should completely leave Iraq within the next year. 41% of the American people think a continued presence in Iraq will bring less stability to the Middle East versus 25% who think it will bring more stability. 69% of the U.S. thinks that the war in Iraq is making the U.S.'s diplomatic efforts in the region more difficult. 72% think the war in Iraq has made America's image in the world worse.

56% of the American people support a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq.

You'd think with these numbers that Democrats running for Congress would focus like a laser on the war and criticize their Republican opponents constantly about this failed policy and a stubborn refusal to change course. With 28% of the American putting Iraq at the top of their list of issues in this election, this war is the key to Democrats' chances of taking back the House.

So why then are Democrats so stubborn in calling for and supporting the Kerry-Feingold-Boxer-Murtha-Edwards plan for beginning a withdrawal of combat forces that will lead to the eventual elimination of all combat troops by summer 2007, while leaving troops for training, counterterrorism, logistics, and intelligence and helping Iraq rebuild and reconcile politically, diplomatically, and economically? The only answer I can surmise is that Democratic consultants, and I know the type all too well, think that the American people will view Democrats as weak on terror and defense and the military if they call for strategic redeployment. Well, say hello to the same people who lost elections in 2000, 2002, and 2004 because of their "advice." The reason people think Democrats are weak on defense is because Democrats don't stand up for anything, think smartly about strategic situations, and have a genuine interest in national security issues.

Not only is withdrawing from Iraq militarily the right thing to do, it is the politically smart thing to do. Demcorats should heed this advice and run with it. They should run ad after ad about it. And especially in liberal, Democratic areas like the Northeast where as many as 20 of the closest congressional races this year are located, Democrats should run strongly against the President and against the war. Just look at this ad from Democrat Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, who is running against wingnut Rick Santorum and crushing him in the polls.

Nowhere in this ad does Casey even mention the war in Iraq and Casey does not run ads against Santorum on the war even though it is the top issue on voters' minds and they clearly oppose it. This is not the way to win elections.

Elections and campaigns are opportunities. Opportunities to define the debate, frame the issues, and persuade voters on key points between candidates that should fundamentally disagree on the majority of the issues. On the war, there is a fundamental difference between most Democrats and most Republicans and Democrats should highlight it.

Diane Farrell, who is running against Huge War Supporter and Flip-Flopper Chris Shays in CT in the NYC suburbs, is running a new, great ad on the war that will most certainly convince the 70% of the voters in her district who heavily oppose the war to vote for her against rubber stamp Shays. Watch the ad here.

In this ad, you see that a strong Democrat can win on this war by connecting all of the other issues of the day to it. She talks about the costs and explains that her opponent's philosophy is damaging the country. She points out that we need fresh blood to tackle this issue and it's effective. She doesn't propose the Strategic Redeployment plan, which I think is a winner politically, but it is the best ad on Iraq out there.

Democrats should replicate this strategy everywhere.

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The fall 2006 semester officially starts next week, and all of us here at Georgetown Dems HQ are getting ready for another busy election season. Before we move on, though, I'd be honored if you would join me for a walk down memory lane with my favorite political clips of summer 2006. Without further ado...


5) George Allen and the macaca. What, exactly, is a macaca? Well, depending on who you ask, it's either a macaque, a horrible racial slur, or a Spanglish abbreviation for "shithead." (By the way, you know a Senator is in trouble when his alibi is that he just meant to call the guy a shithead.) Either way, it's one of the worst Republican political gaffes of the summer-- and that makes for great entertainment.

4) Ted Stevens' A Series of Unfortunate Tubes. In all fairness, I don't see why it's such a big deal that Ted Stevens doesn't understand how the internets work. Republicans have never been on the cutting edge of hip, and back when Senator Stevens was our age (circa 1835), the only way to communicate probably was through a series of tubes (though dump trucks weren't introduced until the 20th century). Nevertheless, it's a pretty damn stupid statement, and the remix is one of this summer's classics. (The original is funny, too, if rambling old Republicans are your kind of thing.)

3) Arnold's Neighborhood. Yeah, it's a brazen attack video by a campaign we know and love, but it's just too funny not to include. And you won't be able to stop humming the tune for days. Laugh at Ken Von Lay at your own peril, though-- you just might end up going to hell.


2) Brad Miller's Fiesta. Think nobody can put immigration, gay marriage, flag burning, and unadulterated bigotry into a coherent 60 second spot? Think again. This is the funniest, most absurd radio ad of the summer, and one of the most ridiculous attack ads you'll ever see. You might have trouble believing it, but this ad is not a joke-- and neither is Vernon Robinson's newest offering. While the second ad is a little less funny, it makes a convincing case for why Republicans should never get into the recording industry.

1) The Lamont Bear Ad. Far and away, my favorite political clip of the summer. If you needed another reason for why Joe Lieberman crashed and burned in the primary, look no further than this truly awful ad. The good news: if Lieberman loses, his team has a bright future in Saturday morning television. GRRRR!

(Note: All Colbert Report and Daily Show clips are automatically disqualified, since there are just too many good ones for me to post here.)

What other clips did I miss? Let me know in the comments.

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