Republican Debate Feed

[giant]

New distribution channel to get the talking points out to the mindless sheep:
The Bush campaign has set up a network of Web sites to carry instant analysis of tonight's debate.

The "Debate Feed" will provide the GOP spin in real time to as many as 5,000 conservative Web outlets, according to Wired News. "Our rapid response effort is based on the premise that no attack or no misstatement will go unchallenged," Michael Turk, director of the Internet campaign, told the Web site. A "war room" is outfitted with 15 computers and two TVs, monitored by two dozen staffers, ready to send out a Republican response or comment, Wired added.

The Kerry campaign is not so well organized. It has e-mailed supporters who work with local newspapers and media, telling them the Kerry campaign will provide a response after the debate, Wired reported.
http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=23326967&brk=1

[bunge]

The willingness of the conservative mind to 'follow the leader' is very scary indeed.

[Northgate]

Originally posted by bunge
The willingness of the conservative mind to 'follow the leader' is very scary indeed.

Unfortunately that tactic takes them all the way to victory. Universally staying on message is how they've learned to manipulate the media so well. Which is why you NEVER get any positive Kerry stories.

[giant]

Originally posted by Northgate
Unfortunately that tactic takes them all the way to victory. Universally staying on message is how they've learned to manipulate the media so well. Which is why you NEVER get any positive Kerry stories.
It is indeed an interesting tactic. It's jolting when you hear how surrogates will be in the middle of a relatively meaty discussion and pop in a "well, what you have to realize, so-and-so, is that Kerry shifts his position depending on how the wind blows." It will invariably be totally out of place in the conversation and sound totally contrived, but by injecting it in at periodic intervals it gets in people's heads.

The problem with dems is that they don't want to talk down to voters. They always go for the high-minded attacks. It seems like they don't even have anyone working on sound bytes.

[Northgate]

Originally posted by giant
It is indeed an interesting tactic. It's jolting when you hear how surrogates will be in the middle of a relatively meaty discussion and pop in a "well, what you have to realize, so-and-so, is that Kerry shifts his position depending on how the wind blows." It will invariably be totally out of place in the conversation and sound totally contrived, but by injecting it in at periodic intervals it gets in people's heads.

The problem with dems is that they don't want to talk down to voters. They always go for the high-minded attacks. It seems like they don't even have anyone working on sound bytes.

Precisely. Republicans are masterful at staying on message, erroneous or not, and hammer it over and over. FLIP FLOP! FLIP FLOP! KERRY'S ORANGE! FLIP FLOP! FLIP FLOP! KERRY DIDN'T BLEED FOR HIS MEDALS! Etc.

They have also successfully figured out how to yield a big stick called "liberal media" where they virtually have the press running scared of the label. After pounding the media with this stick for the last decade we now live in a world where the mainstream press is right of center. Add to that the "sensationalization" of the media (the Clinton scandal) where "gotcha" is the name of the game and you have the winning Republican strategy.

Do you really think Judy Woodruff and Wolf Blitzer are going to talk about substance? No. They want to talk about Kerry's tan! Republicans know this and they masterfully manipulate it to their favor.

Do you really think Scott, Trumpt and SDW want the president to run on his actual record? What they want is FLIP FLOP, FLIP FLOP! KERRY'S ORANGE!

Also, isn't it ironic that the Democrats have Hollywood in their back pocket yet cannot, for the life of them, maniuplate the press or the media in their favor. It's absolutely amazing to watch (depressing actually). Now that Hollywood is owned by big conglomerate corporations, I guess it's no wonder (Sumner Redstone).

[MarcUK]

What it does achieve is being able to counter any argument with spin before the audience has had a chance to make up their own mind.

Basically I see it as Kerry versus Bush plus a whole lot of his cronies in the background. If they've had to resort to this then it shows they're shit scared. But it is damn clever I admit.

[giant]

Not the debate feed, but an interesting example of repubs getting out the talking points:
BC'04 TALKING POINTS: Oops. Looks like an overeager Bush-Cheney campaign staffer sent the following out to the campaign's press list:

TO: BC'04 Surrogates
FROM: BC'04 Communication
RE: Talking Points

We will be sending more talking points later this evening, but the decisive line by Vice President Cheney during the debate was the following:

"So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti-war vote, and they voted against the troops. Now, if they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to standup to Al Qaeda?"

Supporting Materials:

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) Said Kerry's Decision To Vote Against The Iraq Supplemental Was An Attempt "To Prove To Dean's Guys" That He Was "Not A Warmonger." "But Biden's bill had no chance of passing in a Republican-dominated Senate, and Kerry's absurdly abbreviated account of the matter--'I did vote for the eighty-seven billion before I voted against it'--has left him open to relentless Republican ridicule. Biden himself ultimately voted for the money, and he confirmed that Kerry's decision not to was 'tactical,' an attempt 'to prove to Dean's guys I'm not a warmonger.'" (Philip Gourevitch, "Damage Control," The New Yorker, 7/26/04)

**Please forward to all surrogate lists

It will be fun to watch which Bush surrogates obey these orders and repeat this line and which don't.

UPDATE: Bill Kristol just told his Fox News audience that Cheney's line about Dean was the best line of the night. A minute later on the same program Rich Lowry said, "And Bill is absolutely right about that Howard Dean line, which I thought was devastating." Talk about message discipline.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=2155

I didn't realize surrogate was the Repub's own word for it.

[Neø]

Originally posted by bunge
The willingness of the conservative mind to 'follow the leader' is very scary indeed.

any good Christian follows the leader if the leader does what is thought by the follower to be the right thing to do...

[tonton]

Originally posted by Neø
any good Christian follows the leader if the leader does what is thought by the follower to be the right thing to do...

And it's even easier for the leader if the follower does no thinking at all.

[faust9]

Originally posted by tonton
And it's even easier for the leader if the follower does no thinking at all.

Jim Jones. Need I say more?

[Outsider]

Originally posted by Neø
any good Christian follows the leader if the leader does what is thought by the follower to be the right thing to do... Man, good thing you were too early for Hale Bop.

http://members.aol.com/stupidpyro28/theleaderbean.gif