Can we provide for ourselves? No we can’t. We need the government to give us healthcare, jobs, retirement and anything else we may need in our lives.

Can we be proud of our country? No we can’t. We need to apologize to the world for our country.

Can we move beyond racial tensions? No we can’t. Anyone who expresses disagreement with any policy is to be branded a racist.

Can we drill for oil? No we can’t. We will destroy the planet. We are incapable of finding ways to do it cleanly, so we must continue to import it from nations who don’t like us. (But don’t worry, since we have embraced their view of our nation as an evil place, they will start liking us now).

Can we expand nuclear power? No we can’t. Look how many people die every year from nuclear power plants problems. (Wait, no nuclear power plant failure outside of a single event in the USSR, has killed anyone???)

Can we care for our neighbor? Why should we? That is the government’s job. In fact we should tax the money that people use to care for their neighbors. After all, that is the government’s job, not the citizen’s.

Can we have reasonable limits on abortions—for example requiring doctors to care for children born alive after a botched abortion? No we can’t. Any limit no matter how small is too much.

Can we avoid raising taxes on the middle class? No we can’t.   The government needs their money to protect them from themselves. They won’t buy health insurance they can’t afford, so they need to be forced to buy the insurance. Some of them have really good health care plans, and that isn’t fair to people whose plans aren’t as good.

Can we let people pick what they want covered by insurance and what they don’t want covered. No we can’t. The government knows what the citizen needs better than the citizen.

Can we let people pick the insurer they want even if that insurer is out of state? No we can’t. That insurer might not offer coverage of something that the citizen doesn’t want or need coverage for.

Can we punish the rich who do wrong, while leaving those who don’t alone? No we can’t. ALL the rich, every last one of them, are greedy, evil, exploiters who need to be punished. They do not create jobs, give to charity or provide capital for growing business. They, each and every one of them, are a scourge on our society. If you work hard, make wise decisions and manage to become one of them, you will become evil as well.

Can we protect countries that like us and want our aid? No we can’t. It might make the countries that don’t like us not like us.

Can we stand in solidarity with people who are oppressed by their government and offer them our moral support if nothing else? No we can’t. We want their brutal leaders to like us.

Can we support a country which seeks to prevent the destruction of its constitution? No we can’t. Instead we must apply pressure on the government to reinstall a wannabe dictator who wishes to shred the constitution with an illegal and fraudulent election.

Can we support a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose country has been conquered and oppressed? No we can’t? We need to make that oppressive country like us, and not do anything that might make them uncomfortable.

Can we drive the car we want to? No we can’t? The government needs to tell us which cars to use. The best are the small ones that crumple up like tin cans if you hit a pothole too hard. Some of you may die, but that is a risk I’m willing to take.

Can we read and debate legislation that will cause massive deficits, or major overhauls to our economy and health care? No we can’t. We must trust that the powers that be know what they are doing even though they don’t even really know what is in the legislation.

Can we speak up when we feel that we are being deceived and lied to with almost every word? No we can’t. It would be uncivil to tell someone he is lying while he is telling you that you are lying.

Can we win in Iraq? No we can’t! Oh wait…

Can we win in Afghanistan? No we can’t. We need to pull out and let them handle their own affairs. I am sure that terrorists who are fighting us while we are there will stop fighting us once we leave. I mean, they weren’t fighting us before we showed up. Besides who cares about the people in that country who will be oppressed by the Taliban once we leave. Acid splashed in the face, beatings and public executions aren’t really that bad.

Can we stop Iran and North Korea from getting nuclear weapons and the systems to deliver them? No we can’t. Besides why should we? They are ruled by nice, kind-hearted governments who really care for their people and international harmony.

Can we let the private sector create jobs? No we can’t. After all that isn’t how we became the strongest military and economic force in the world. We got that way after 200+ years of intense government direction of all aspects of the economy.

Can we lower taxes to encourage economic growth? No we can’t. When has that ever worked?

Can we let banks make lending decisions based on the ability of the borrower to repay?  No we can’t. The banks might not make those risky loans. What harm could come from a large volume of loans that cannot be repaid?

Can we buy the TV that we want? Can we use the light bulbs we want? No we can’t. The world is melting.

President Obama loves to say that he is willing to listen to opposition ideas, but then follows such statements with some variation of the idea that he won’t listen to the ideas that created the mess in which we now find ourselves. If you want to help clean up the mess you made, grab a mop. Don’t tell me how to use it. I don’t want those who created the mess telling me how to clean it up. Opposing ideas are dismissed without even the most cursory glance at their merits.

I would like to know which policies exactly are to blame. Even if every single thing that was done by President Bush was wrong can we at least have a list of those policies so we can distinguish between them and opposition ideas which were never implemented. 

It may come as a surprise to the general population, but Republicans didn’t get to do everything they would have liked to during the Bush Presidency. Many of their policies were never tried. The Democrats had control of the House and Senate for two years, and shared control of the Senate for an additional year. Throughout the entire Bush Presidency, the Democrats in the Senate had enough members to mount filibusters to stop any legislation they wanted to stop.

So, before the President dismisses an idea as one that was tried and which failed, can we at least determine whether or not it was actually tried?

That is only the first step though. If the policy the president wishes to dismiss was tried, it does not follow that it was responsible the current mess. A great football team with a great game plan can still lose thanks to a couple of turnovers. Flawed execution of a great plan causes a loss. Should the plan be scrapped, or should the effort be to improve execution.

Even if a plan was actually followed, and it was executed to perfection, it still may not be the cause of a failure. Perhaps outside factors caused the problem. Let me return to football. If a team scores 50 points and loses, the problem probably isn’t the offense. Perhaps the defense needs a bit of work. An offense can score a touchdown on every possession and still lose, if the defense and special teams perform poorly enough.

What specific ideas are the proven failures? Was it tax cuts? I’ve never heard the president explain how tax cuts caused the recession. If he thinks they did cause the recession he should have raised taxes as one of his first priorities.   Instead, the significant tax increases seem to be on hold until the economy is on a better footing.

Was it deficit spending? The president surely can’t think that was the problem given the fact that he thinks that deficit spending is the cure.

Was it a flawed health care system? Other nations with the sort of healthcare he advances suffered from the world wide downturn as well. And how exactly are the housing bubble, and related securities problems connected to health care? I am still waiting for the in depth analysis that shows health care is a root cause of the economic troubles of the past year.

It would be nice if the President would present arguments against specific ideas and proposals. He should explain how “bad” ideas were actual causes of the problems. He should be sure that those ideas were actually implemented and implemented well. He should describe how those ideas truly caused the problem showing that they weren’t just great ideas surrounded by unrelated flawed policies that doomed them to failure. Even once he has established all of this, he should listen to the counterpoints made by the other side. Perhaps they have an explanation he has missed. He should, but he won’t. He isn’t interested in truth, or prudent, reasoned analysis. He is simply interested in pushing his own ideas, and ignoring others.

Joe Wilson was right. The president does lie. He has no intention of listening to what the opposition says. He wants them to agree without question. He has no interest in understanding and examining their ideas.

Why did the associations matter in 2008? Senator Obama was more or less a blank slate. His record offered little which could be scrutinized—little to indicate what rhetoric was true and what was feigned. Certainly there were the Illinois abortion votes, and the most liberal senator voting record, but the frequent “present” votes and avoidance of most controversy made the record incomplete to many observers. The lack of a strong pattern in his record made his rhetoric on the stump seem plausible to many. The record doesn’t reflect radical racial ideas, or radical Marxist ideas. His rhetoric did not reflect these ideas either. If one wants to believe that he does not hold these ideas, the rhetoric and record did not discourage doing so.

The problem is that a candidate has a motivation to say that which will get him elected rather than that which he truly believes, particularly if what he believes is not popular. Voters need to examine whether a candidate is attempting to pull the wool over their eyes rather than simply accepting the rhetoric as true. Where do you look if there is no record? Voluntary associations, advisors and mentors are the best place to look. People tend to associate with those whose ideas reflect their own. This may not always be true, but it is a good general rule.

Sometimes a person may have disparate group of friends, associates, mentors and the like who embrace a wide variety of disparate ideas. If someone has only four friends whose views on abortion range from desiring no restriction whatsoever on the practice to desiring an absolute bar on abortion regardless of circumstance, it will be difficult to assess that person’s belief on the issue. It is possible that he is pro-life, pro-choice or somewhere in between. If there is no record, then a gut feeling is about all one has to use when assessing whether he is telling the truth about his abortion beliefs.

If on the other hand the person’s only four friends are for abortion in every circumstance, and are even supportive of allowing survivors of failed abortions to die without aid, what is the most likely view of the person who has chosen these four friends? Should he really be believed if he says he is pro-life? Perhaps he is, but the evidence speaks otherwise.

Ayers, Wright and others mattered because they gave us a view into Obama’s true beliefs. He said that he sought out those with that sort of view while going to school. He then befriended and associated with them. There is a long pattern of seeking out and embracing this sort of view. Then in an unguarded moment on the campaign trail he uses very Marxist sounding language. All these pieces of evidence make a clear picture. He sought out Marxists in school, befriended them after school, and uses Marxist language today. It is reasonable to assume that he embraces some degree of Marxist thought, to think otherwise is to ignore all the evidence. The question is not so much whether this is what he believes, it is more a question of to what degree he embraces these ideas.

A voter in the 2008 election could not make an informed, intelligent choice without considering those whose company and ideas Obama sought out, but this will not be the case in 2012. If Obama does what he promised then we are given evidence that he is a man of his word and should have greater confidence that the 2012 election promises will likewise be kept. The record over the next four years will tell us how he is likely to govern the following four years. At the same time it will show that the dubious associations were not a true reflection of his true character and beliefs, or at the least that he is willing to curb idealism with pragmatism. Ayers and Wright will have no positive impact and quite likely a negative impact if things play out this way.

Most likely the promises of 2008 will have been discarded by 2012. This is the pattern that is all too familiar with politicians. His associations suggest he thinks and will act in a particular manner. If he does that which conservatives suspect, then the record of the next four years will be a far stronger line of attack than the associations that failed to sway opinions in 2008. In 2012 he can be hammered for what has done. In 2008 it was necessary to argue about what he likely would do. This isn’t a particularly strong attack and it failed. The associations were evidence of what he would likely do, but don’t have much relevance when exposing what he has done by 2012.

Not only has the limited effectiveness of the Ayers, Wright line of attack run its course, it is more and more likely to create a bigger and bigger backlash the longer it is pursued. This attack needs to be abandoned now. The election of 2008 is over. The focus needs to be 2010 and 2012. Ayers and Wright aren’t going to produce conservative wins in those years, but pursuit of this argument could help produce defeat. Conservatives need to avoid looking like loonies for clinging to conspiratorial, failed, attacks that have lost their relevance.

This changed one day when Sweet Sweets scientists discovered that a new Shady Sugars Inc product, Frosty Blasts, contained a dangerous ingredient. Anyone who drank soda and ate a Frosty Blast within an hour of each other would be killed as the two otherwise harmless products reacted and exploded violently. Sweet Sweets brought this information to the authorities who did nothing, so Sweet Sweets came up with a new advertising campaign.

This campaign was very controversial. Rather than following the long tradition of only praising the quality of its own product, Sweet Sweets began to explain the dangers associated with the competitor’s product. Shady Sugars Inc. responded to the new campaign by denying the danger and condemning the new negative tone of its competitor. The people disgusted with Sweet Sweets’ negative advertising campaign turned in droves to Shady Sugars Inc. to satisfy the cravings of their collective sweet tooth. 

Sweet Sweets lost many of its customers because of the negative campaign, but many of those customers lost their lives because they failed to heed the negative but true and relevant warnings.

Is negative political advertising undesirable, something that should be excised from the political process? The answer is that it depends on what is meant by negative advertising. Some negative advertising has nothing to do with any issue that is relevant to the selection of a candidate. “Psst, did you now Candidate Smith’s uncle beats baby seals.” The actions of an uncle who Candidate Smith has never met and does not know are completely irrelevant. This sort of negative advertising should be avoided and condemned.

Candidates have learned though to mix that which is irrelevant with that which is relevant. They give both the same label and neatly avoid true and relevant criticism, and in the process of doing so even manage to make the opponent look like he is the one in the wrong. Voters likewise either fool themselves or allow others to do so, by ignoring that which, while uncomfortable to confront, must be confronted.

When two competing candidates have two equally good platforms with no hidden dangers or shortcomings, then there should be no negative advertising. The inconsequential differences in personal taste that makes someone choose Coke over Pepsi can, with no ill result, lead the voters to select one candidate over the other. This will almost never be the case in any election.

The more likely, and virtually universal circumstance, is that both candidates will have their share of good ideas as well as bad. A candidate can’t be relied on to expose the flaws of his own plan and is far more likely to do everything possible to hide them. Such exposure needs to come from another source. Voters cannot make an informed, wise decision if the flaws are hidden from them. If only the positive is raised, the result is a popularity contest rather than a examination and adoption of the better policy and rejection of the inferior one.

There is “good negative” and “bad negative” campaigning. The “good negative” is absolutely necessary for a healthy debate. It needs to be embraced rather than eschewed. It also needs to be publicly defended and praised. The candidate who needs to expose the dangers and flaws of his opponent’s position, can’t let that opponent label and dismiss those efforts as negative advertising/campaigning. He should instead invite the “good negative” attacks from his opponent and explain why his own such attacks are necessary, good and beneficial.   The “good negative” should be contrasted with the “bad negative”, and the power of the negative label needs to be sapped.

Embracing and even encouraging incoming “good negative” attacks can be an offensive weapon. The candidate who invites criticism can contrast himself with the candidate who hides from the same. Why is he hiding from debate? Why does he cry foul when I expose his flaws, but has no problem attempting to expose my flaws? I invite open honest critique, is that not something desirable in a candidate? If his plans are truly desirable, they will withstand criticism. It is the house of straw rather than the house of brick which fears the structural integrity test offered by strong wind.

My next post will continue with this theme to some extent and will look at other negative advertising that is good. This post has focused on critique of a politician’s ideas; the next will discuss critique of his character. Critique of character is less obviously a form a “good negative” campaigning but nevertheless it is as necessary as critique of his policies.