NRSC Attack Fail

For as all-powerful as progressives paint Republican political attacks as being, what's been striking me for the last several years is how entirely inept they are at doing anything right.  Forget about convincing a majority of Americans to support them, they're not even very good at attacking liberals anymore.

So I happened to stumble upon the NRSC's website and saw their main story for the day Reid Unveils Tone-Deaf Campaign Slogan; GOP Unites Around Angle (Warning: Their site apparently has some bug that makes it automatically play the audio for an ABC video also displayed on the page; or at least it did for me repeatedly). 

And what, exactly, is this "tone deaf" slogan of Reid's?  "No one can do more."  And frankly, I fail to see what's so deaf about that.   While it doesn't strike me as being particularly persuasive, for it to be "tone deaf," it'd have to be something that will actually backfire on Reid, by highlighting some aspect of this that hurts Reid because he's so out of touch with how bad it sounds.  Kind of like Senator Boner's Boehner's insistence that taxpayers should help pay to clean up BP's mess.  I'm sure voters are going to love that.

As the NRSC sees it, this is "tone deaf" because they can use it to insult Reid, saying "no one has done more to grow the size of the federal government and increase the tax burden on Nevada families."  And this is a classic variation of the schoolyard taunt used when someone boasts that they're the best, and you reply "Yes, the best at being the worst." 
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Touché, Senate Republicans.  You really burned Reid with that one.

Quoting Themselves

And it was downhill from there.  Because after that, they were reduced to citing heavily edited quotes of news orgs attacking Reid.  Oh wait, did I say the news orgs attacked Reid?  Sorry, I meant that the NRSC used edited quotes of news orgs quoting Republicans attacking Reid, while making it at first appear as if the quotes were coming from the news orgs. 

In fact, the two Republicans that were quoted were NRSC Spokesman Brain Walsh and NRSC Chair John Cornyn.  Yes, the NRSC is now quoting news stories about the NRSC's own positions.  Doctor Biobrain, a prominent liberal blogger, was quoted as saying "Epic... fail."

Here's what I'm talking about:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports: "Senator Reid and his campaign have… made clear that the only way they can win is by…playing dirty…" NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said. "… we are committed to helping [Angle] win in November so that Nevadans finally have the fresh leadership they deserve."


ABC’s Rick Klein reports that Republicans are united around Sharron Angle: “Nevada voters are going to have a referendum on Harry Reid" said Cornyn, "…[w]e are solidly behind Sharron Angle and I'm confident that… she's actually leading Harry Reid… I think [Reid’s] in very deep trouble."

And mind you, those edits weren't from the news stories; all those "..." you see were done by the NRSC, editing their own statements; often in ways that changed nothing and made it more difficult to read.  It's as if they think their own spokemen are too long-winded to quote directly.  Or perhaps editing quotes has just become a habit for them.

The Ultimate Snow Job

They also cite a Hotline article which calls this "the ultimate referendum" and then adds that 25% of Nevada Dems voted for someone other than Reid; in a way that implies that Hotline was making that point, even though they didn't.  But of course, that's a stupid point, as Angle, the Republican nominee, failed to get 60% of Republican votes; and wasn't even supported by the NRSC until after she won.  Doh!

The entire effort wrecks of desperation and cluelessness.  It's like someone has the basic idea of how to write an attack post, but no clue as to how to fill in the details.  And remember, this was the lead story on their site, meant to attack their biggest foe.  And the best they can do is a schoolyard switcheroo of Reid's slogan, and two edited quotes from their own organization.  Pathetic.

As always, the question isn't why Republicans aren't doing better, but why any Democrat would ever fear these bozos.  They haven't mounted an effective campaign since 2004, and haven't been scary since 2002.  Yet all the same, I keep hearing about how awesome they are at "fooling the sheeple" and how we can never win until we start copying their aggressive tactics.  Why anyone would want to copy these lousy efforts is beyond me.