STOP BEING SO GOOSEY
Ivins, Molly
Small Favors Molly Ivins Stop Being So Goosey Time to settle down and drive hard for the finish, progressives. Or as they say at Harvard, fight fiercely. We are into the phase of the campaign when...
...That's all you want to think about until it's over...
...Minute your candidate falls behind, the finger-pointing begins and the blame-game erupts...
...Recall that Rove always tries to buffalo the media into buying the "We've got this thing sewed up" line...
...As soon as Kerry fell • -i behind—by up to 13 points, according to some highly questionable polls—Democrats began turning on one another and bitching about what idiots the people running the campaign are and what a dog our candidate is...
...Quite a few of them are alarmed by Bush's fiscal irresponsibility and others by his Christian right emphasis...
...Poor bastards in the swing states, especially those who have voluntarily confessed to either party they are undecided, are suffering from campaign fatigue...
...Yes, we're entitled to bitch and moan about it...
...This election has been a stinker, a stew of irrelevancies, distortions, and lies...
...Ground war is what the pros call it, as opposed to the air war of television ads...
...Trouble is, this is a freak election on many levels...
...This is especially true for those inside the campaign, who tend to break these rules more than supporters on the outside...
...Most of us spend too much time talking to people who already agree with us...
...But it seems to me the unde-cideds are sufficiently worked over: The people who really decide elections in this country are those who don't vote...
...Second, Don't Bitch About Molly Ivins, co-author of "Bushwhacked," writes in this space every month...
...By the time it's over, they'll probably have post-traumatic stress disorder...
...Notice too how many first and second-generation Americans do not vote because they come from countries where it either didn't count or was actually dangerous...
...There are couple of rules about being behind: The first is, Work Harder...
...Keep your eye on the ball here: We need to beat George W. Bush...
...Karl Rove reportedly vowed after the 2000 election to improve the GOP's ground-war capabilities, not that he was ever dumb enough to ignore GOTV (get out the vote) in the first place...
...We are not entitled to win on the awfulness of Bush's record...
...For several election cycles now, there's been a spat between air-war proponents and ground-war enthusiasts, with the allegedly "old-fashioned" ground warriors gradually pulling back into the lead...
...Stop being so goosey...
...Makes no difference...
...the Candidate...
...That's where we need to look and work...
...We have to work to win...
...Call it the Episcopal vote...
...We are into the phase of the campaign when it's just straight-up, old-fashioned get out the vote...
...Yes, Jeremiah, it's all a mess and getting worse...
...For one thing, only fifteen states were ever in play, leaving those of us in the nonswinging thirty-five hearing little more than distant rumors of a campaign...
...The first thing we need to do is stay at Republican throats rather than one another's...
...Friendly progressives from neighboring states are descending on the beleaguered citizens of swing states like a horde of political Jehovah's Witnesses (no offense intended to the tireless purveyors of The Watchtower...
...Despair is the only sin...
...Yes, our political debate becomes ever sorrier...
...Many Mexican Americans not only went through the PRI, but also passed through South Texas, where for generations the patron system made your employment dependent on how you voted...
...Women are key in this election...
...Nevertheless, I'm an old ground-war advocate and believe nothing in politics works better than one person talking to another...
...Nasty TV ads, e-mail, campaign mail, phone banks out the wazoo...
...Meanwhile, the hapless citizens in the swingers are drowning in all this...
...They need those fears addressed directly before you can even talk about the issues...
...Always happens...
...Another potentially fertile field is Republicans for Kerry, mostly upper class R's...
Vol. 68 • November 2004 • No. 11
