Go on, Dems, take a bite of that apple

Channeled by Publius, Karl Rove offers Democrats fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In short, the Democrats need to learn how to make more people HATE the GOP on a deep emotional level. One of my most effective strategies to achieve this goal is what I like to call “demonizing the margins.” The idea is to take the marginal elements of the other side’s coalition, demonize them, and then tie them around the neck of the more centrist candidate. Or better yet, pound them again and again with the demonized margins in distorted TV ads. Personally, I prefer to demonize gays, fringe leftists like Michael Moore, and caricatures from the 1960s and then link them to Democratic candidates. And I’ve done it with great success. You people should learn from me. You can’t beat me, so join me. Try the apple. Aren't you tired of losing on the high road?

Do you people not see that the GOP has some truly scary freakazoid winguts in its coalition? And unlike the extreme leftists who have absolutely zero political power in the Democratic Party, the wingnuts have a great deal of power within our party. So why not exploit them? Why not demonize them relentlessly and then link them to the national party? You’re getting everything wrong. You think you need to reach out and be nicer and make yourself more palatable. No – you need to do the opposite. You need to get meaner and stop reaching out. Your goal should be to make more people viscerally despise Republicans because they are the party of (1) scary theocrats and racists; and (2) “big corporations.”

Publius...er...Rove suggests forgetting about the reddest of the red states and instead go after making the blue states bluer still and uses CT's Chris Shays as an example. In fact, Shays just faced his toughest re-election battle in a dozen years and Diane Farrell did a pretty good job of reminding the blue county of Fairfield CT that Shays shares party affiliation with Tom DeLay and supported Bush in his war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich.

During the election, many -- myself included -- saw President Bush go negative early and often on Kerry and thought it a sign of desperation. On the contrary, it was Rove's playbook all along.

And since then, I've read post after anguished post bemoaning the Democratic Pary's failure to have a common message, as the Republicans do. Huh? What common theme do the Republicans share other than lower taxes along with smaller government helping individuals and larger government helping corporations. These are themes the average voter doesn't agree with.

Nope, Rove/Publius is right. It's not a common message that Republicans have tapped into, it's a common enemy.