Let me run something by you all.
Karl Rove is out there saying in public last week to the Republican troops, and I more or less quote, that it's really smart to tap phone calls that Osama and his buddies make from their caves into the US because we don't have time to play by the rules of Hoyle if we are to catch terrorists.
Never mind that what they are doing is a gross violation of the Constitution, this is bait to make this election, like 2004, about who can make us SAFER.
So let's put aside our justifiable anger and outrage for a second and be coldly realistic:
Won't they win if the election is nationalized over whether or not we should bend the rules a bit like our favorite TV cop heros do to get the bad guys? Don't they do fear WAY WAY better than we do hope, err make that policy wonkery? Can't they wag the dog -- they are good at that -- with ten different tails, from Iran and Syria to Lord knows what?
Hence my strategic question: should we play the message game on this ground (9/11 again) or figure out how we can win back the Senate or the House another way because I don't just want blogging power -- I WANT GODDAMN SUBPOENA POWER.
I submit we lose if we don't channel our torrent of outrage effectively into smart little streams of cold-blooded, disciplined winning LOCAL politics.
You want Harry Reid and Carville and Begala bickering with Mary Matalin about which party is more corrupt on Meet The Press? You want Michael Moore and Code Pink calling for impeachment in 527 ads next summer? You want Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer on TV defending the Constitution in their familiar voices to the 30 million folks who like Kiefer Sutherland and "24"?
I know Karl Rove does.
I think we win if our candidates work off a local menu of smart, hopeful, can-do ideas that they sell in their own voice and then we hold SHOW TRIALS next year if we're lucky enough to get subpoena power in the next Congress.
More on the local menu theory from this earlier post.
Thanks.