February 01, 2007
DNC Launches '08 Research Effort
Coverage of the Democratic National Committee's Winter Meeting
Republican presidential candidates take note: if you didn’t think the Democratic National Committee was serious about scrutinizing your every utterance this early in the cycle, look at the resume of the man Howard Dean hired to be his new director of research.
Back in 2003, when Gehrke worked for John Kerry, Dean fell victim, often, to Michael Gehrke’s opposition research. “The chairman has a unique appreciation of tough he is and how critical he is to the effort,” says DNC communications director Karen Finney.
Gehrke will head an expanded DNC research department with the grand title of “Democratic Victory 2008.” Primarily, his team will dig deeply into the backgrounds of Republicans running for office. In this era of YouTube politics and oppo research blogs, you’ll see a lot more of their research be released on-the-record, and a lot earlier than usual. Victory 2008 will coordinate with other levers of the party. When the Democrats nominate their '08 presidential candidate, Gehrke and his team will have reams of research to hand over to the campaign.
Gehrke spent the ’06 cycle as the exec. dir of the Senate Majority Project, which was formed to target out of-cycle Senate Republicans. Remember the developing meme that John McCain was pandering to conservatives? A lot of the credit (or discredit, if you’re inclined) belongs to Gehrke’s brain, within which is imprinted a minute-by-minute chronology of everything the Arizona senator has ever said. It’s very easy for Gerhke to download his brain to an e-mail and then to zip it to reporters. The New Hampshire phone jamming scandal? Gehrke’s efforts raised its profile this year.
The DNC’s effort began with Devorah Adler, now the research director for Sen. Barack Obama. It will expand under Gehrke, who, working for John Kerry, knows a thing or two about defining presidential candidates early – or, in this case, having another presidential candidate define your candidate early.
The RNC has a similar, but less public plan. And two of the top GOP oppo researchers in the business -- Barbara Comstock and Matt Rhoades -- have taken positions with Ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney. [MARC AMBINDER]
Posted at 09:00 AM
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Obama took the phrase YES WE CAN from the ACCDF Patriotic Wristband Campaign
The ACCDF legal team will be contacting the Obama campaign for a friendly out of court
settlement.
Read On
YES WE CAN
Patriotism is a requisite for any nation’s development, defenses, preservation, pride and honor. Those of us living in western countries have noted with admiration how teaching love for country is the focus of education and citizens are taught to place love for country in the center of their being as the grow. There is no wonder this focus and structured practices continue to earn dividends for western countries.
It is unfortunate for us Cameroonians our leaders have been busy with greed and personal gratifications that love for country has always remained an illusion or taken backstage on every of our engagement and being. Our leaders have spent time messing us up, filling us with confusion and distractions, so they can keep our national wealth to themselves as they dubiously rival each other for power that they use to their personal ends. The report card is the image of our country, the shallow-mindedness of our mindset and defeatist/pessimistic approach to anything of nationhood. I think we can change that.
The Board of Trustee of the All Cameroonian Cultural Festival Foundation (ACCFF), Inc. requires every member of the Board to initiate and own a project that is directed towards the good and advancement of our people and community. As a member of this board, it has been my view that most of our national problems as a nation and a people emanates from our lack of authentic love for our country. From our birth, to our early years in schools (and even later), we not conditioned to love our country and this has been a significant problem for our national pride, honor and development. I believe we can change that. This why we are initiating and presenting to you THE PATRIOTIC WRISTBAND CAMPAIGN.
This is how it works: we are requesting that Cameroonians from all over the world (at home and in the Diaspora) wear THE PATRIOTIC WRISTBAND to show love for our country. THE PATRIOTIC WRISTBAND is designed with the Cameroonian colors: green, red, yellow and carries the inscription, CAMEROON: YES WE CAN. The Patriotic Wristband Project Campaign is a YES WE CAN. Yes we can together change the face of our nation; Yes we can together learn to put our nation’s interest before our personal interest; Yes we can love our country and work together to build it. Yes we can love our country to the extend of patriotically working for her pride, honor, defense, preservation and development. If we learn to love our country, we would stop seeing it as the “grass” and we the “goats” eating from where we are tied. It is no secret to any of us that this has been the poignant and pathetic philosophy of corruption in our country. Remember the phrase: la chevre broutes la ou elle est attaché. The Patriotic Wristband Campaign or the YES WE CAN campaign is intended to tickle us to place the love of our country before everything else. We are appealing and requesting Cameroonians from all over the world and of all works of life to wear the Patriotic Wristband. Let all the parliamentarians wear it; let all the leaders of the opposition wear the patriotic wristband; let all the Cameroonian children wear the patriotic wristband to school; let all the teachers wear them; let the business men wear them; let the doctors wear them; let the farmers wear them; let the taxi-drivers wear them; let the lawyers wear them to court; let Cameroonians of all professions, all persuasions wear them everyday. Let this campaign plant the seed of patriotism in us and build us to develop that which will make us work together to change the history and dynamics of our existence as a people and a nation. This a is a little something of great significance and the results (I promise) would be very satisfactory for us today and tomorrow
Honorable N. N. Mbile wrote the following:
Our children and their heirs,
Now own a fatherland,
In which to dwell in happiness,
And proudly call their own
To love and to adore
And if the call should ever come
For which to nobly die
(NN Mbile: Cameroon Political Story, Memories of An Authentic Eye Witness)
This is a call to all born and naturalized Cameroonians. We still claim all Cameroonians irrespective of the color of the passport they travel and irrespective of steps or actions taken for circumstantial dilemmas.
YES WE CAN
Wear your Patriotic Wristband on your wrist and let it energize your soul to the ultimate love for country.
Christmas Atem Ebini
Christmas Ebini | 01.09.08 11:46 PM
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