Spinning out of Control

The biggest hurdle in my opinion, that the Democrats face in the upcoming election, other than Democrats themselves, is Spin Doctors whom I have a healthy distrust for. I feel they spend too much time talking to and watching Chris Mathews and Tucker Carlson and other such types, and probably not enough of Keith Olberman, rather than listening to the real pulse of Main Street. The political pundits get it wrong time and again, as they did in their assessment of the MSNBC primary debates, whereby they touted Hillary as the winner, while the most favorable ratings in fact went to Obama.
I think that the Spin Doctors were in overdrive again, earlier this spring when Obama was rebuked by the White House and the Right in general for issuing a statement saying that “Soldiers Lives were being wasted in Iraq”. I believe they were responsible for making Obama revoke and apologize for the statement, which I felt marked Obama’s first cardinal sin of this campaign. In fact, high level Republicans, including , I believe Chuck Hagel went on to reiterate exactly what Obama had said soon after.
Obama, your instincts are and were correct on this occasion. There was never a need to lend credence to the Right’s views and opinions, and thus giving them free publicity by rescinding your commenets. In fact the real news was the apology rather than the comments or what the right wing media were saying. The real gaffe in my opinion, is the revoking and rescinding of comments, not the actual statement. I'm forced to hark back time and again to one particularly unlikely source, President Bush, whose administration has successfully deflected the now famous millions of gaffes issued by the beloved clown president. I had not heard of the so-called gaffe until Obama made headlines by apologizing or re-clarifying what he had meant to say

I hate to be taken back to that most unpleasant phase for the DNC that was the last election, which was a painful, constant and enduring cringe evoking series of gaffe after gaffe on the part of the Kerry campaign, constantly revoking statements that needed no clarifying, nor revocation. The right is the opposition, may I remind you all dear spin-doctors and they will pick and tear apart every single word that a democrat utters. If left-wing spin doctors have not come to the realization that playing defense is not the way to score goals, then I am afraid to say that the GOP will continue to set the agenda and we will continue to debate on their platform, denying the country the opportunity to hear, and sift through and understand the DNC agenda. I guess I have to remind you yet again, that the GOP will always win on their home turf. Democrats cannot respond to every GOP attack, and in particular Obama should never lend any credence to any GOP attack by going on the defensive about everything they say. The apology makes headlines and takes away from the opportunity to disseminate our candidate’s own message. Obama has a message that resonates and people are responding. He needs no additives, and other than getting that message out, his is one that needs a minimum of spin. The whole pack of Dem candidates goes all out of their way for example to distance themselves form the label of liberal! If we are not liberals, then surely what are we? Just because the GOP labels liberal as a negative term, does not make it so, either in fact nor in the minds of the American public. However, denying one’s liberalism and distancing themselves from the word only makes the word seem suspect, and leaves the party looking weak and undecided. May I remind you the words of John F. Kennedy on this very subject.

“What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
I remember working on a similarly feverish campaign of one, Gov Howard Dean. To this day I am convinced that the Spin Doctors cost Dean the Dem primary and consequently the DNC the presidency. I knew Kerry could never cut it – he had never shown any real stand on any issue nor had his public speaking been particularly impressive. While Dean lacked the oratory skills of our candidate, however, I still think that his ideas and values - had democrats not lost faith - would have won him not only the primary, but they would have won over independents and even republicans as well and delivered the south and ousted the president and would have saved us another painful four years of this awful regime. Spin Doctors went into overdrive sending him on a frenzied PR crusade to salvage his image, an image that in my opinion needed no saving.