The Republican Party doesn’t really believe Obama’s a socialist — but they think that you’re just dumb enough, and motivated by “visceral” and “reactionary” “fear,” that you might. The cynicism is staggering, but shouldn’t be the least bit shocking. This is what astroturf movements look like.
Advertisement
Well, at least they know who their base are. That’s great.
What’s much worse is that those are some of the ugliest slides I’ve ever seen! Walls of unreadable text? Confusing diagrams? And worst of all, red or hot pink text on light blue? My eyes! :-(
Posted by lanfranc | March 4, 2010, 1:47 pmTruly, the secondary story here is that Republicans suck at Powerpoint. I made better Powerpoints in junior high. In like 1993.
Posted by ACG | March 4, 2010, 2:25 pmThe Wa Po’s Jonathan Capehart makes this point in his post today about this presentation (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/03/no_joke.html?hpid=opinionsbox1):
And he’s right – the American people wants plans that will work to address our issues. Do-Nothingism based in Know-Nothingism is ultimately a loosing strategy. So to is Do-Littleism based in Excessivebipartisanshipisrequiredwhenwehave themajorityism (!).
Posted by Philip H | March 4, 2010, 4:30 pmTo be fair, we have to consider the context, and you wouldn’t really expect to find that sort of thing in a presentation to a Finance Committee.
Posted by lanfranc | March 4, 2010, 5:21 pmUm not so much – if the Finance Committee wants to raise big buck for the RNC, why not do it on an exciting vision of a new America, with bold policy initiatives that need support.
Oh wait, you’d have to have bold new policy initiatives that need support first. Nuts.
Posted by Philip H | March 5, 2010, 9:23 amYou’re still not considering the context of the source. This is not material meant for public distribution. It’s a set of slides connected to an internal presentation on fundraising strategy, which is a fairly practical matter. That’s not even an appropriate forum for a discussion of party policies, just like e.g. a budget presentation to a board of directors would not necessarily include a discussion on the company’s vision or values, so we shouldn’t expect to find it in the source, either.
Posted by lanfranc | March 5, 2010, 10:20 amFirst, in this day and age, if anyone still thinks that the internal documents of a major American Political Party will never see the light of day, they are deluding themselves. I half think that someone inside the party leaked this, to show off how easily they think they can defeat the President without a single real idea.
And second, if I was on that board of directors, I’d throw the bums out of the room if their financial roadmap didn’t have the company’s vision laid out at the beginning – how else can you make sure that the ideas you are being sold really meet the needs of the organization?
Posted by Philip H | March 8, 2010, 9:45 amAnd if it’s a Republican convention, you can count on those comics being by Frank Miller : )
Posted by Radioactive afikomen | March 5, 2010, 7:28 amBased on the headline, I thought this was going to be about Republican Roy Ashburn’s DUI arrest after leaving a gay nightclub.
Posted by Kris | March 5, 2010, 1:07 pmnow there’s an entire separate post on Republican moral hypocrisy . . . .
Posted by Philip H | March 8, 2010, 9:46 am