Be Prepared for Republican Fear-Mongering

David Streeter — March 4, 2010 – 3:48 pm | Election 2008 | Republicans | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

Yesterday the Republican Party held a high-level meeting in Florida to discuss its fundraising strategy for the coming election. Presumably, the meeting’s details were meant to be kept secret. However, someone who attended forgot their copy of the official power point presentation that outlined the GOP’s fundraising strategy for 2010. (You can download it as a pdf here)

Among the slides of the presentation was one in particular that insisted that fear could be a motivating factor in garnering donations. (The slide preceded one that warned of socialism and another that dubbed President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) ”The Evil Empire”)

Based on the right-wing’s scare tactics during the 2008 election and last summer’s health care debate, this should come as no surprise. If anything, this confirms what many quietly speculated all along: that the GOP is trying to scare its way back into power by raising money to bombard voters with incorrect information.

All Americans should be outraged that the Republican Party thinks so little of their intelligence. It would be one thing if the GOP was raising money through the merits of its ideas. But their recent conduct demonstrates that they have very few, if any, marketable ideas to the American public which, sadly, leaves fear-mongering as their prime fundraising tool.

The Jewish community should pay particular attention to this because of the targeted fear-mongering campaign that was perpetrated in 2008 aimed at exploiting our community’s legitimate concerns.

It is not inconceivable that GOP activists will continue to baselessly paint President Barack Obama and Democrats as hostile towards Israel, attack our party as being soft on terrorism and Iran, and possibly even continue the whisper campaign that questions Obama’s religion. If lies about death panels, pulling the plug on bubbie and zadie, and the direct comparisons of Obama to various dictators get thrown in, then members of our community in swing states and key congressional districts will be swamped with misinformation.

We cannot let this happen. Jewish Democrats must make sure that our community has accurate information about what is really going on. Otherwise we will allow Republican candidates in Florida, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to profit from fear-mongering about our community’s concerns.

 

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