Republicans attack strengths. That's why they're attacking Democratic women leaders, both

[suffragette]

longstanding and new.

They see the blue wave coming and the women who are ably surfing that break. And they are scared.

Something that stood out for me in coverage of my local primaries was at the end of an article about the blue wave results by a hometown columnist. After detailing strong WA state Democratic results in both state and national races, he noted how women were taking the lead in the majority of the races.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/gop-tsunami-sirens-should-be-sounding-as-the-blue-wave-arrives/

The other remarkable thing about the big blue wave? The leading Democratic vote-getter in every race I’ve mentioned above, including all four Republican-held congressional district races, is a woman.

If the 2016 election was the year the white man roared, then the sound of Election 2018 is shaping up to be more like a chorus of women.

Maybe a full-on opera before this is done.

Nationwide, the voices of Rashida Tlaib, Sharice Davids, Deb Haaland and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are rising up and being heard, joining with the last wave of winning legislators including strong women like Pramila Jayapal and Kamala Harris and adding to the longstanding strength of leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Patty Murray, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jan Schakowsky and on and on.

These results are what they fear. This is why they are attacking so feverishly now.

US mid-term elections: Women break records for nominations
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45109836?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story

More women candidates than ever will contest US governorships and House seats in November's mid-term elections.
After Tuesday's primaries across four states, there are now 11 female nominees for governor and at least 185 for the House of Representatives.
~~~
After polling closed in the four states holding primaries on Tuesday - Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington - it became clear women had broken records for gubernatorial and House nominations.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. And they SHOULD be scared.

This situation makes me think of this saying:

I AM WOMAN; HEAR ME ROAR.

[suffragette]

3. Yes, they should be scared and they are showing that fear by their rabid focus in their attacks.

Now you gave me an earbug for the day

We are, indeed, “in numbers too big to ignore!”

[Me.]

4. Loud & Proud!

[Metro135]

12. And their numbers are too big to ignore

[dalton99a]

2. Yep. It's Rule #1 in Karl Rove's playbook:

Define your opponent’s strength and attack it, while projecting your own weaknesses onto the opponent.

https://www.thenation.com/article/exactly-how-karl-rove-works/

Rove is a master at forcing his adversaries to address vicious personal rumors that were never true in the first place. I could go on and on, but a brief highlight reel:

- During the 2000 presidential contest, when Rove was working for Bush, the campaign “featured a widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered mentally unfit for office.”

- When Bush was running against Ann Richards for governor of Texas in 1994, a persistent rumor circulated that Richards was a lesbian, helped in no small part by a push poll asking voters if they would be “more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if [they] knew her staff is dominated by lesbians.” In fact, a regional Bush campaign chairman was quoted criticizing Richards for “appointing avowed homosexual activists” to state jobs.

- Sometimes Rove doesn’t even restrict this tactic to political campaigns—he uses it for himself. Josh Green in The Atlantic in 2004: “In 1986 [John] Weaver and Rove both worked on Bill Clements’s successful campaign for governor, after which Weaver was named executive director of the state Republican Party. Both were emerging as leading consultants, but Weaver’s star seemed to be rising faster. The details vary slightly according to which insider tells the story, but the main point is always the same: after Weaver went into business for himself and lured away one of Rove’s top employees, Rove spread a rumor that Weaver had made a pass at a young man at a state Republican function. Weaver won’t reply to the smear, but those close to him told me of their outrage at the nearly two-decades-old lie. Weaver was first made unwelcome in some Texas Republican circles, and eventually, following McCain’s 2000 campaign, he left the Republican Party altogether.”

Many of these techniques actually come from Lee Atwater, who tutored Rove. “A supposed slip of the tongue that in fact gets some truly nasty tidbit on the record—that tactic is straight from the Atwater manual,” The New York Times noted in 2008. And the strategy has been reworked and refined by Rove in the ensuing years. (Note the echoes between his ageist attack on McCain’s mental health, and Tuesday’s broadside on Clinton’s brain.)

[suffragette]

5. Definitely a Rovian tactic being deployed. Ann Richards was great, her speeches still resonate.

We can’t let them get away with this divisive nonsense again.

[procon]

6. That's Rule #1 right out of the Karl Rove Book of Dirty Politics.

Attack the opponent’s strengths and then accuse him of your own weaknesses. That forces the opponent into a defensive crouch and he looks guilty either trying to defend himself, or by ignoring the attacks. Now the opposition has to divert time, effort and resources in defending their own major qualities that made them an attractive candidate.

Remember what Republicans did to John Kerry's war record? They tried to drag down Obama with a whisper campaign to cast doubts about his marriage, then it was on to question his academic record. They painted HRC as a weak and sickly old woman, and disparaged her intellect.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

[suffragette]

7. Exactly so. Great examples. In WA state, Patty Murray was attacked as just "a mom in tennis shoes"

when she started out. To her opponents’ surprise, she embraced the moniker and smacked them upside the head with it while campaigning and when she won. And has kept doing so as she has kept winning!

[cstanleytech]

8. Agreed. They clearly are afraid of any strong intelligent women that can think for themselves

because it could bring more women voters to show up and vote.

[suffragette]

10. Yes and encourage even more to become actively locally and then nationally.

[flying_wahini]

9. I have said for months that these smears have Karl Rove's dirty handprints all over them.

[suffragette]

15. Karl Rove, Roger Stone - dirty handprints is right!

[calimary]

11. Kkkarl Rove made that a must-do.

Don’t target their weaknesses. Target their strengths. (And presumably turn those strengths INTO weaknesses.)

Whatever. It works. We should do likewise!

[czarjak]

13. When their strength is bullshit?

[calimary]

16. OH DEFINITELY attack the bullshit.

And call it that - well, versions of that in the interest of being broadcast-friendly.

Either "B.S.", or "Bull-loney" or just plain "BULL" will work. "Bull-pucky" is another option.

I had a conversation with some Indivisible buddies today while working on our next Call to Action email for the group and friends of the group, and when I said we should start stating flat-out that the reason the GOP is doing nothing about safeguarding our election infrastructure from Russian intervention is that "THEY WANT THAT HELP AGAIN". And I got no arguments or rebuttals or admonishments that "oh, you can't say that..." or "that may be going a little too far..." or "that might be overdoing it..." or "maybe we shouldn't..." NONE. They seemed open to it.

I think it's high time we said what needs to be said. Out loud and in writing and in public. Maybe with a "prove me wrong!" added for good measure.

I'm with Michael Avenatti, who came up with another good one in the clip I saw this morning. He was giving some speech and said Democrats have to stop bringing nail clippers to gun fights. That's a new twist - and a GREAT one. I'd previously used "feather dusters" or "butter knives" rather than "nail clippers." But I love the idea! LOVE IT-LOVE IT-LOVE IT! I absolutely where-have-you-been-all-my-life LOVE it!!!

And he's DAMN RIGHT, DAMMIT!!!

[suffragette]

14. Senator Cantwell did that very effectively when McGavick challenged her. He touted his CEO

experience and she went right back at him about what that experience actually was and what it means. He painted himself as a successful CEO who turned around a big corporation by laying off people (downsizing) and would apply the same business ideas to political policies. She completely undercut him in ads and debates by making the point that you can’t solve govt issues by getting rid of citizens, then rewarding yourself for it. This worked and worked well.

From 2006:
https://www.theolympian.com/news/nation-world/article25225414.html

It was one of the best lines in this week's Senate debate.

"Do you want to send somebody to Washington who is willing to cut thousands of employees off his payroll and take a cash bonus as a reward for that?" Sen. Maria Cantwell asked, referring to Republican challenger Mike McGavick.

As chief executive of Safeco Corp., McGavick laid off 1,700 people as he worked to return the insurance company to profitability. He received a bonus of $28 million when he left Safeco earlier this year.

Now Cantwell, the Democratic incumbent seeking a second Senate term from Washington, is repeating the attack in a new TV ad. "What's good for Mike is bad for the people of Washington," the ad says.