Another factoid about Republican political strategy...

[kentuck]

As I stated on an earlier thread, Repubs are more inclined to do personal attacks on their opponents, rather than discuss issues. As I type this word, they are talking about Kerry as a "traitor" - he betrayed the other soldiers in Viet Nam. It was the new Swift Boat ad on MSNBC.

But another aspect of Republican strategy is that they plan it longer term than do Democrats. Democrats hear a falsehood from their opponent and they tend to jump on it prematurely and the story loses its punch before it is even discovered to exist. Republicans will put all this information together for a longterm attack and they usually start much more subtly than do Democrats. Democrats do not have the patience or see the necessity to plan longterm negative attacks. Just as the Swift Boat ads were planned in advance to hit Kerry in August.

[sui generis]

1. we're different kind of folks

At some point if we are exactly like them in our tactics we will lose our own base.

We are the kind of people who address issues instead of attacking the credibility of the speaker. Our strategies do need to be long term, but behaving like those childish republicans do on the offensive is not a hallmark of the democratic party.

[LuminousX]

2. Good point

Republicans are better at packaging their attacks. They line up authors and others who will not only be in the vanguard of the attack but the secondary wave and tertiary wave of the attack.

Democrats seem to think it is enough to make the attack and leave it. They don't make it easy for the media to put together the story. They don't have people ready to be interviewed. And they don't have the follow-up prepped either.